Ohio Registered Agent
When you choose Northwest as your Ohio Statutory Agent (also known as a 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 statutory agent does in Ohio? We'll explain the Ohio Secretary of State’s requirements, what your agent should do for you, and how to change your statutory agent in Ohio.
When You Want More
$125 a Year Every Year
Northwest is the choice of professionals for registered agent service.
- Same-Day Scans, Instant Notifications
- Privacy by Default®
- Business Address
- Instant Domain, Website, Email & Business Phone
What Is an Ohio Registered Agent?
An Ohio 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 Ohio’s state statutes, registered agents are legally required in Ohio. 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.
What Are the Legal Requirements for Ohio Statutory Agents?
According to Ohio state law, a statutory agent (also known as a registered agent) must:
- Be able to accept legal documents.
- Have a physical, registered office address located within the state of Ohio. No P.O. Boxes.
- Be a resident or a company that provides registered agent services.
How Do I Change My Ohio Registered Agent?
There are two ways to change your registered agent in Ohio.
- Hire us and we’ll complete the change of agent form for you for free.
- Do it yourself and file a Statutory Agent Update form with the Ohio Secretary of State. There is a $25 fee to file this form.
Why Northwest Is the Best Registered Agent in Ohio
Our registered agent service in Ohio 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.
How to Order Ohio 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 Ohio Secretary of State is complete, we’ll become your registered agent in Ohio.
About a year later, we’ll send an invoice for another year of registered agent service in Ohio. 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 Ohio Registered Agent Service or paying a bill but for keeping up with corporate paperwork formalities like the Ohio Annual Report.
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Ohio Registered Agent FAQs
- 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.
Yes, you can be your own registered agent in Ohio. 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, an Ohio 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.
We accept and scan all of our Ohio clients’ documents on-site at our registered office in North Canton, OH.
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 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, aka 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 Ohio LLC or corporation because the Ohio Secretary of State will reject your business registration filing if you don’t list your OH registered agent. You’ll find all the forms and instructions you need to complete your filing instantly after you place an order.
Service on your registered agent is legal proof that you were notified. Regardless of whether you actually receive the documents your Ohio registered agent signs for, once they accept the documents, you’re considered 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, which we sign for. This delivery is known as service of process.
- 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 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.
- You can do an Ohio business name search on the state’s website
- Type in the company name you are trying to look up.
- Look at the OH registered agent name and registered office street address.
NOTE: If you want to legally notify someone through their Ohio registered agent service, just send a certified letter directly to the registered agent name and registered office address.
In Ohio, to resign as a registered agent, you need to submit a Statutory Agent Update Form to the Ohio 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 Ohio.