Whenever a corporation or limited liability company is formed in any state, one of the requirements is to designate a registered  agent. Most people have no idea what a registered agent is. Simply put, a registered agent is a person designated to officially receive and send legal papers on behalf of a business entity, a limited liability company or a corporation. The registered agent is registered with the state in which the business entity was formed. The registered agent can be an individual or there are services which provide registered agent services.

While a business entity can use a post office box, a registered agent must have an actual physical address. The registered agent is specified in the articles of organization of an LLC or in the articles of incorporation for a corporation. Since the purpose of the registered agent is to receive official notifications, including notice of lawsuits and state taxes due, the requirement of a physical address is quite obvious. A lot of business entities use post office boxes which would make it rather difficult when serving legal documents.

One thing you might have noticed during your entity formation process, is that there are a lot of companies out there which offer registered agent services, including ours. Does your business require a registered agent service? In most cases you can designate yourself or another individual as registered agent as long as they have a physical address in the state of formation.

Costs of registered agent services can vary from as little as $ 49.00 per year to as much as $ 299.00 per year. There are some entities which need a registered agent service such as entities which are formed in a state other then the state they do business in. The many reasons for such won’t be discussed here.

If you’ve formed your limited liability company or corporation in the state your doing business in, save yourself some money and make yourself the registered agent. Quite frankly, all a registered agent service is going to do is forward anything they get for your entity in the mail, to you. Do your research and if need be, seek the help of a qualified professional.