Massachusetts Registered Agent
When you choose Northwest as your registered agent, you get instant service, Privacy by Default®, and a business address. Want more? Northwest is the only registered agent that can provide your business services from domains to DBAs easily, and all in-house.
Want to learn more about what a registered agent does in Massachusetts? We'll explain the Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth’s requirements, what your registered agent should do for you, and how to change your registered agent in Massachusetts.
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Our registered agent service gives you access to:
- EIN Registration
- Annual Report Help
- 1 Year Free Domain Use
- 90 Day Free Website Hosting
- 90 Day Free Business Email Account
- 90 Day Free Business Phone Number
What Is a MA Registered Agent?
A registered agent is a person or company that you designate to receive legal mail (like service of process) on behalf of your business. Registered agents exist to provide an official and reliable way to contact your business.
If your business is ever served with a lawsuit, the 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 Massachusetts Law (Title XXII, Chapter 156D Section 5.01), whether your business is a limited liability company (LLC) or corporation, the state of Massachusetts requires the same from a registered agent:
- Must be a state resident or a company that provides registered agent services
- Must have a physical address (no P.O. Boxes) in the state of Massachusetts where they can accept legal documents (service of process) and official mail. This location is called a registered office.
- Must be able to accept legal documents (service of process) during normal business hours
Note: Some Massachusetts documents and codes refer to registered agents as resident agents—they fulfill the same duties and the names are interchangeable.
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.
How Do I Change My Registered Agent?
Changing your registered agent is a straightforward process:
- You’ll file a Statement of Change of Registered Agent/Registered Office form with the Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth (SOC).
- 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 Massachusetts.
Why Northwest Is the Best Registered Agent in Massachusetts
Our Massachusetts Registered Agent Service includes the tools you need to keep your business running without a hitch. When you hire Northwest as your registered agent, 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.
As the nation’s top choice for starting businesses easily and affordably, we also offer in-house services to build your business’s online identity:
- Domain name: Pick a domain name for your business with your choice of extension (like .com and .net).
- Website: We provide a pre-built business website for you to customize using an open source platform, so it’s yours to own whether hosted by us or anyone you choose.
- Business email address: Create up to 10 business email addresses. For branding ease, they’ll all end in your chosen domain name.
- Phone number: Keep your personal line private by establishing a business phone number for client communications.
- Web hosting: Our web hosting service includes SSL security at no additional cost.
And with all these services and benefits we offer you, the best one is no hidden fees. That means our registered agent service is $125 and stays $125.
How to Order Northwest MA 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 Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth is complete, we’ll become your registered agent.
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 or paying a bill but for keeping up with corporate paperwork formalities like the Massachusetts Annual Report.
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Massachusetts Registered Agent FAQs
Yes, you can be your own registered agent in Massachusetts. However, after considering the registered agent requirements most business owners elect to hire a registered agent service instead. Why? Well although being your own registered agent will cost you $0, a registered agent’s name and address becomes part of the public record. Additionally, the registered agent is required to be available to accept service of process during normal business hours five days a week.
Here are five benefits of using a registered agent service:
- If your business is web-based or doesn’t have a physical presence within Massachusetts, the business still needs a registered agent located inside state lines.
- Some Massachusetts business owners hire registered agent services because their business doesn’t keep regular business hours in which service of process or official mail can be delivered.
- Many business owners don’t want their home or business address listed on public record as a point of contact, so they hire a registered agent.
- Listing an employee or family member as your registered agent could be a huge mistake, as that may be the last person you want knowing the intimate details of lawsuits your business might become entangled in. Worse, just having a process server hand them a document is proof that you got it, regardless of whether they actually get it to you in a timely manner. You could miss a court deadline before realizing it.
- If you don’t want the added responsibility of tracking mail and notices from the Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth (SOC), you can hire a registered agent to track the important paperwork for you. Having an online account to help maintain your business is often worth the nominal registered agent fee.
Hiring a registered agent provides you the luxury of not having to do it all.
First, if you never get sued, congratulations! But don’t think of fees paid for a registered agent service as wasted money. Your Massachusetts registered agent should also keep you updated on any business reports owed to the state. And if you hire Northwest Registered Agent, we’ll provide you with any form you could file in Massachusetts, along with helpful tips for filing forms and paying the state with no markup, as well as amazing customer service. If you end up with multiple states with us, you’ll be able to easily see your annual report dates in every state in your account.
Northwest Registered Agent doesn’t charge more for high volume clients. If you know you’re going to get served hundreds of times a year, we should create a custom price for you that makes sense to both parties. Our typical clients get fewer than 15 lawsuits a year and never pay additional fees.
We accept and scan all of our Massachusetts clients’s documents on-site at our registered office in Pittsfield, MA in Berkshire County.
Please do! 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 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.
You should hire us first and then form your LLC or corporation because the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s Corporations Division will reject your business registration filing if you don’t. You’ll find all the forms and instructions you need to complete your filing instantly after you place an order.
Serving a registered agent is legal proof that you were notified. Regardless of whether you receive the documents your Massachusetts registered agent signs for on your business’s behalf, once they accept the documents, you’ve been notified. This is a serious responsibility that we do not take lightly. This is how it works:
- A process server, the county sheriff, or any third party will walk into our office and hand us the documents (service of process), which we sign for.
- The process server then gives an affidavit (a receipt of service) to the court as confirmation that they served us.
Note: If you’ve hired us, long before the server hands in their affidavit to the court, you’ve received your documents because we scanned them to your online account within minutes of having been served.
To find a business’s registered agent in Massachusetts:
- Perform a Massachusetts business name search.
- Type in the name of the company you’re searching for.
- Find the registered agent’s name and registered office street address in the search results.
If you want to legally notify a business through their Massachusetts registered agent service, just send a letter through certified mail directly to the registered agent at their registered office address.
In Massachusetts, to resign as a registered agent, you need to submit a Statement of Resignation of Resident Agent (LLCs) or a Statement of Resignation of Registered Agent (corporations) to the Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth, Corporations Division. For a more detailed walkthrough, you can refer to our guide on how to resign as a registered agent in Massachusetts.