Virginia Registered Agent
When you register a business in Virginia, state law requires you to have a registered agent to receive legal and state documents on your behalf. With Northwest, it’s easy. You’ll get a reliable local registered agent who takes care of your legal mail and keeps your business in good standing with the state.
Need more than just a registered agent? We offer everything a business needs, like a domain name, a website, annual compliance reporting, phone service, business email, and more. See why so many business owners in Virginia trust Northwest.
When You Want More
$125 a Year Every Year
Here’s what clients get with Northwest Registered Agent Service:
-
Use Our Address, Not Yours
-
Same-Day Digital Scans of Business Mail
-
One Year of Free Domain Registration
-
90 Day Trial of Website, Phone & Email Services
-
Ask Our On Call Business Experts Anything
-
Same Price Every Year, No Upsells
What Is a Virginia Registered Agent?
Virginia registered agents are 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.
Essentially, your registered agent’s address acts as the official place where any service of process and official mail for your Virginia LLC, Virginia corporation or Virginia nonprofit will be sent. 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.
What Are the Legal Requirements for Virginia Registered Agents?
Virginia’s registered agent requirements state that your registered agent must:
- Have physical addresses in the state (not a P.O. Box or virtual office).
- Be open during business hours (9 AM to 5 PM).
- Accept service of process on your behalf and get them to you right away.
The right registered agent service can also do much more. At Northwest, we go above and beyond the minimum to ensure top speed, security, privacy and support.
How Do I Change My Virginia Registered Agent?
There are two ways to change your registered agent in Virginia.
- Hire us and we’ll complete the change of agent form for you for free.
- Do it yourself and file a Statement of Change of Registered Office and/or Registered Agent form with the state. There is no fee to file, but you’ll need to request the form from Virginia’s State Corporation Commission.
Why Northwest Is the Best Registered Agent in Virginia
Our Virginia Registered Agent Service includes the tools you need to keep your business running without a hitch. When you hire Northwest as your registered agent in Virginia, 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.
- Mail forwarding: We accept and scan all your state and legal mail, and will scan up to five personal documents for free. For $20 a month, we offer unlimited Virginia mail forwarding.
- 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 local phone number for client communications.
- Web hosting: Our web hosting service includes SSL security at no additional cost.
How to Order Virginia 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 Virginia Registered Agent Service once your business registration filing with the state is complete.
About a year later, we’ll send you an invoice for another year of Virginia 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 Virginia Registered Agent Service or paying a bill but for keeping up with Virginia corporate compliance.
Get a Registered Agent Today!
Get Started
Virginia Registered Agent FAQs
- All businesses registered with the Virginia State Corporation Commission must appoint a registered agent.
- The Virginia Corporation Commission will reject your filing if you do not appoint a registered agent.
- The state government and general public must have a reliable way to contact your Virginia business with legal notices and other types of important mail.
Yes, you can be your own registered agent in Virginia. However, many business owners choose to hire a service instead. Why? Because being your own agent means your name and address become public, and you’ll need to be available during business hours, Monday through Friday, to receive legal documents. If you want to keep your personal information private, and don’t want to be tied down to regular business hours, hiring a registered agent service is the smart move.
We scan all documents locally from our office in Richmond, VA.
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 you 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 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 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 hire us first and then do your business registration filing with the Corporation Commission. The state won’t allow you to form an LLC or corporation without a Virginia registered agent. That way, you can take advantage of all the forms and instructions you need to complete your filing instantly after you sign up.
Serving a registered agent is legal proof that you were notified of an event. It doesn’t matter if the company sees the documents or even gets them from their registered agent. You were notified if your registered agent signs for the documents; this is a responsibility we take seriously.
- A sheriff, process server, or any third party will walk into our office and hand us legal papers (service of process).
- The process server then gives an affidavit to the court stating that they “served” us.
To find a company’s registered agent:
- Perform a Virginia business name search with Virginia’s Corporations Commission .
- Type in the name of the company whose registered agent you are trying to look up.
- Look for the Virginia registered agent name and registered office street address.
In Virginia, to resign as a registered agent, you need to submit a Statement of Resignation of Registered Agent online, by mail or in-person to the Virginia State Corporation Commission. For a more detailed walkthrough, you can refer to our guide on how to resign as a registered agent in Virginia.