North Dakota Registered Agent
When You Want More
A North Dakota registered agent service accepts service of process and other legal notifications on behalf of North Dakota businesses. As your North Dakota registered agent, we accept legal documents or official business mail on your behalf, contact you immediately and upload these documents to your secure online account for you to view.
With our registered agent service, get Privacy by Default®, business address, free mail forwarding, free Phone Service for 60 days, and local Corporate Guides®—only at Northwest.
Everything You Need To Know About North Dakota Registered Agents:
- Get North Dakota Registered Agent Service
- What Do North Dakota Registered Agents Do?
- Legal Requirements for North Dakota Registered Agents
- How Do I Change My North Dakota Registered Agent?
- What Makes Northwest Different From Other Services?
- North Dakota Registered Agent FAQs
- How To Order Registered Agent Service

What Do North Dakota Registered Agents Do?
At minimum, your North Dakota registered agent should receive legal documents (service of process) and official mail on behalf of your business at a physical address in the state. This location is called a registered office.
In other words, your registered agent’s address acts as the official place where any service of process and official mail for your North Dakota LLC, North Dakota corporation or North Dakota nonprofit will be sent.
However, the right registered agent service can do much more. At Northwest, we go above and beyond the minimum to ensure top speed, security, privacy and support.
What Are the Legal Requirements for North Dakota Registered Agents?
The North Dakota Model Registered Agents Act (N.D.C.C., Chapter 10-01.1) requires a registered agent to:
- Be a North Dakota resident or a company that provides registered agent services.
- Maintain a registered office (a physical address in North Dakota).
- Accept legal documents (service of process) during normal business hours.
How Do I Change My North Dakota Registered Agent?
There are two ways to change your registered agent in North Dakota.
- Hire us and we’ll complete the change of agent form for you for free.
- Do it yourself and file a Change of Agent form with the North Dakota Secretary of State.
What Makes Northwest Different From Other Services?
At Northwest, we do business the right way. We’re dedicated to getting you your docs fast, protecting your privacy and offering you support. Here’s how:
- Same-Day Scans, Instant Notifications: We accept and scan your docs at our local office the same day. We notify you instantly and reach out to you if your essential mail goes unread.
- Privacy by Default®: We automatically minimize the exposure of and access to your personal data. If we can put our address on a public doc instead of yours, we do. If we don’t have to list your personal info, we don’t. We have tough privacy policies to keep your data safe and private. And we never sell your data.
- Free Limited Mail Forwarding: Of course we’ll get you your state and legal mail. That’s our job. But what if we get some of your regular business mail? It happens a lot—clients and businesses trying to connect with you via your registered agent. We scan 5 documents per year for FREE. We can also scan additional mail at a per document rate of $15.
- Corporate Guides®: Have questions? We have answers. Our guides are business experts whose sole job is to provide phone and email support for all your toughest business questions.
North Dakota Registered Agent FAQs
Why Do I Need A North Dakota Registered Agent?
- State law requires all legitimate, registered businesses to appoint one.
- The secretary of state will reject your business filing if you don’t appoint a registered agent.
- A registered agent requirement gives the public and the state a reliable way to contact your business.
Can I Be My Own Registered Agent In North Dakota?
Yes, you can be your own registered agent in North Dakota. 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 North Dakota 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 5 days a week.
Where Is Northwest’s Registered Office In North Dakota?
We accept and scan all of our North Dakota clients’ documents from our office here in Fargo, ND.
Will You Let Me Know When My North Dakota Annual Report Is Due?
Absolutely! As part of our registered agent service, we’ll not only send you a reminder, but we’ll give you the form and instructions you need to file it.
Can I Use Your North Dakota Registered Office Address For Everything On My Business Filing?
Yes! 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 private and off public record.
Can I Have My Business’s Mail Delivered To Your North Dakota Office?
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 unique address or suite number. Any mail we receive on your behalf would come to 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 5 FREE scans of regular business mail a year. You can request any additional documents to be forwarded at a per document rate of $15.
Should I Hire A Registered Agent Before Or After I Start My Business In North Dakota?
Hire us first. North Dakota will reject your business registration filing if you don’t have a registered agent. You can find all the forms and instructions you need to complete your filing instantly after you hire us.
How Do North Dakota Registered Agents Get Served?
This is how it works:
- A process server, county sheriff, or third party will walk into our office and hand us the documents (service of process), then we sign for them.
- The process server then gives an affidavit (a receipt of service) to the court as confirmation that they “served” us.
Note: Regardless of whether you receive the documents your North Dakota registered agent signs for on your business’ behalf, once they accept the documents, you’ve been legally notified. This is a serious responsibility that we do not take lightly. Serving a registered agent is legal proof that you were notified. If you hire Northwest, long before the server submits their affidavit to the court, you will have received your documents because we scan them to your account within minute of signing for the documents.
How Do I Search For A North Dakota Registered Agent?
You can do a North Dakota 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 business through their North Dakota registered agent service, just send a certified letter directly to the registered agent name and registered office address.
How Do I Resign From Being A Registered Agent In North Dakota?
In North Dakota, to resign as a registered agent, you need to submit a Statement of Resignation of Registered Agent to the North Dakota Secretary of State’s Business Services Division. For a more detailed walkthrough, you can refer to our guide on how to resign as a registered agent in North Dakota.
How To Order North Dakota Registered Agent Service:
You sign up online, clicking on one of the buttons or links that says “HIRE US.”
We collect the first year of the registered agent service fee up front.
For new businesses, we’ll become your North Dakota registered agent service once your business registration filing with the North Dakota Secretary of State is complete.
About a year later, we’ll send you an invoice for another year of North Dakota registered agent service. If you want to keep using us, great; if you don’t, you can easily cancel.
With offices in every state, we make it easy to add registered agent services anywhere in the country. 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 North Dakota registered agent service or paying a bill but for keeping up with state corporate compliance.
Information Your ND Registered Agent Should Help You Understand:
The North Dakota Secretary of State is the agency that you appoint us as your North Dakota registered agent with. Filings with the ND SOS take about 20 days for the state to process them. You can fax file anything, but it doesn’t speed up the process outside of the ease of not having to mail it. If you mail your filing in, it does not require original inked signatures. All entities registered with the Secretary of State are required to keep a ND registered agent at all times.
North Dakota annual reports forms are delivered to your registered agent. They can also be downloaded online. We scan these reports into your online account locally and immediately.
At Northwest, we can also form your LLC or form your corporation in North Dakota for $100 plus state fees. As part of our commitment to Privacy by Default®, we put our business address on your filings to better protect your privacy. And you always have the support of our Corporate Guides®.