Missouri Registered Agent
Missouri requires any corporation or LLC doing business in the state to have a registered agent for compliance purposes. Hiring a professional Registered Agent Service like Northwest means having someone to take care of all that extra red tape for your Missouri business, so you can spend your time on things that really matter.
When you hire Northwest, you get a real Missouri address for your company’s legal mail—which we can forward to wherever you need it to go. Want more? Northwest is the only registered agent that can provide your business services from domains to DBAs easily, and all in-house.
When You Want More
- $125 a Year
- Business Address & Mail Scanning
- Instant Domain, Website, Email & Phone Line
- Brand Protection
- Privacy By Default®
What Is a Registered Agent in Missouri?
A Missouri registered agent is a person or company that you choose to receive legal mail (like service of process) on behalf of your business. Registered agents in Missouri provide the public with an official and reliable way to contact your business.
If your business gets served with a lawsuit, a process server will deliver the paperwork directly to your registered agent. At that point, your business is legally considered served. The registered agent should then forward you your mail, quickly and securely.
Per registered agent requirements (Missouri Law 351.370), whether your business is a limited liability company (LLC), C-corp, or S-corp, the state of Missouri requires the same things:
- Must be a state resident or a company that provides registered agent services
- Must maintain a registered office (a physical address in Missouri)
- Must be available to accept legal documents (service of process) during normal business hours
Note: In order to accept the appointment of service, a registered agent in Missouri must either sign the appointing document or submit a written statement to the Secretary of State acknowledging the appointment.
At a minimum, your registered agent must list a physical address on the public record and be present at that address during business hours. But ideally, your registered agent should do more.
Yes, you can be your own registered agent in Missouri. However, the requirements mean most business owners prefer to hire a registered agent service instead.
Why? Being the registered agent for your own Missouri company might be free, but a registered agent’s name and address becomes part of the public record. Plus, a registered agent is required to be available to accept service of process during normal business hours five days a week.
You should select or hire a registered agent first and then form your LLC or corporation, because the Missouri Secretary of State will reject your business registration filing if you don’t.
When you hire Northwest as your registered agent for a Missouri corporation or LLC, you’ll find all the forms and instructions you need to complete your filing instantly after you place an order.
You can find a company’s registered agent through the Missouri Secretary of State.
- Run a Missouri business name search.
- Type in the name of the company you’re searching for.
- In the results, you’ll find the registered agent’s name and registered office street address.
If you want to legally notify a Missouri business through their registered agent, just send a certified letter directly to the registered agent at their registered office address.
Service on your registered agent is legal proof that you were notified. Regardless of whether you actually receive the documents your Missouri registered agent signs for, once they accept the documents, you’ve been notified. This is a serious responsibility that shouldn’t be taken lightly. This is how it works:
- A process server, the county sheriff, or any third party will walk into the registered office and hand the agent the documents (service of process), which the agent signs for.
- The process server then gives an affidavit (a receipt of service) to the court as confirmation that they served the business.
Note: If you’ve hired Northwest, you’ve received your documents long before the process server hands in their affidavit to the court—because we scanned them to your online account within minutes of having been served.
How Do I Change My Registered Agent in Missouri?
Changing your registered agent is a straightforward process:
- You’ll file a Change of Agent form with the Missouri Secretary of State.
- If you place an order with us, the form will be available instantly. We’ll even pay and file the change of agent filing for you.
It’s a simple change, but for more info, see our guide on how to change your registered agent in Missouri.
For starters, Missouri requires all registered businesses to appoint an agent. Second, your business filings will be rejected by the Missouri Secretary of State if you don’t have a registered agent. And finally, your registered agent is a reliable point of contact for government and the general public when they need to get in touch with your business.
In Missouri, to resign as a registered agent, you need to submit two copies of the Statement of Resignation of Registered Agent form to the Missouri Secretary of State’s Corporations Division. For a more detailed walk through, you can refer to our guide on how to resign as a registered agent in Missouri.
Why Northwest Is the Best Registered Agent in Missouri
Our Missouri Registered Agent Service includes the tools you need to keep your business running without a hitch. When you hire Northwest as your registered agent for a Missouri LLC or corporation, you get:
- Same-Day scans: We scan your legal docs the same day we receive them and reach out if your essential mail goes unread.
- Privacy by Default®: We list our business address on public docs to keep your personal info safe. And unlike those other guys, we never sell your data.
- Corporate Guides®: Have questions? We have answers. Our guides are business experts whose sole job is to provide support for all your business questions.
- Business Identity: Northwest is a Business Identity provider. Get a domain name that matches your business name. Tack on website hosting, we’ll get you an expert-built website, hosted and secured by us. Want to start talking to suppliers, advertisers, customers, and more? Set up business email addresses and a separate business phone number so you can protect your data and keep your communication professional.
- Brand Protection: Keep an eye on your business name, domains, and trademarks, with Brand Protection. We’ll alert you to potential conflicts early, and give you simple tools to build and manage your brand all in one place.
Definitely! We’re the only national registered agent service that allows our clients to list our address for everything when you’re doing a filing to keep your private address off public records.
We accept and scan all of our Missouri clients’ documents on-site at our registered office in Harrisonville, MO.
We don’t want ALL of your business mail. It’s not what we do. And it wouldn’t serve you well. You wouldn’t have a unique address or suite number. Any mail we receive on your behalf would come to Northwest Registered Agent, care of you.
But we understand that businesses and clients sometimes reach out to you through your registered agent. Through us. That’s why we give you five FREE scans of regular business mail a year. You can request any additional documents to be forwarded at a per document rate of $15.
Definitely! If you own a corporation (including a nonprofit) in Missouri, you’ll need to file your Missouri Annual Report each year. As part of our Registered Agent Service, we’ll not only send you a reminder, but we’ll give you the form you need to file and instructions on how to file it.
The cost of a registered agent in Missouri depends on who you use and the amount of service the agent provides. At Northwest, we charge $125 with no hidden fees. And that’s the forever price, meaning we won’t charge you more next year just for the heck of it.
How to Order Missouri Registered Agent Service
You sign up online, clicking on one of the buttons or links that says HIRE US.
We collect the first year’s fee for Registered Agent Service up front.
For new businesses, once your business registration filing with the Missouri Secretary of State is complete, we’ll become your registered agent in Missouri.
About a year later, we’ll send an invoice for another year of Registered Agent Service. If you want to keep using us, great; if you don’t, you can easily cancel.
It’s easy to add registered agent services in other states if your business expands. We have offices in every state. We don’t farm out work (or your info) to other companies—wherever you are, WE are your registered agent.
We make your account a real go-to resource for you, not just for Registered Agent Service for your Missouri business or paying a bill, but for keeping up with corporate paperwork formalities like the Missouri Annual Report corporations must file.
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