Best Registered Agent by State › What an agent does

What a registered agent does, and what it doesn’t

A registered agent receives legal papers and official state mail for your company at an address in the state, during business hours, and gets them to you.

It does

• Accept service of process, such as a lawsuit summons, and forward it. Mainstay Filing scans and uploads it the same business day.
• Receive state notices, such as annual-report reminders.
• Keep your home address off the public record, when the agent’s address is used instead.

It doesn’t

• Act as a business mailing address. The registered agent address is not a business mailing address and cannot stand in for one, for example for bank verification.
• Forward general mail. The first three government mailings a year are scanned free; after that a per-piece fee applies.
• File your annual report, on an agent-only plan. A registered agent alone, for a company that is already formed, is $149 a year. That plan does not include the annual report.