Registered Agent Service

A registered agent service acts as the official point of contact for businesses to receive legal and regulatory documents including lawsuits, subpoenas, tax notices, and compliance documents.

Every corporation and LLC must maintain a registered agent in each state where they're registered, creating consistent demand for this service.

Successful registered agent businesses operate in multiple states, providing coverage for companies with multi-state operations.

The business model charges annual fees per entity typically ranging from $100-300+ per state per year, with volume discounts for companies with many entities or states.

Revenue is recurring annually as long as entities remain active.

Additional services often include compliance calendaring, document forwarding and scanning, annual report filing, and mail handling.

The core value is reliability—ensuring legal documents are received, forwarded promptly, and businesses remain compliant with registered agent requirements.

Success requires establishing physical addresses in target states (not PO boxes), systems for reliably receiving and forwarding documents same-day, understanding compliance requirements across states, maintaining registered agent status and good standing, and excellent organizational systems tracking clients across multiple states.

The business benefits from high customer retention since changing registered agents requires filing with the state.

Technology enables efficiency through document scanning, email forwarding, online client portals, and compliance tracking systems.

Marketing targets formation services, attorneys forming entities for clients, businesses expanding to new states, and companies wanting to change from using personal addresses.

Partnerships with business formation services, attorneys, and accountants provide referral channels.

The business is highly scalable since serving additional clients requires minimal marginal cost once state infrastructure is established.

Challenges include maintaining physical locations in all served states, liability for missed documents, managing forwarding address changes, and competition from larger registered agent companies.

Many registered agent services expand to business formation, compliance filing, or mail forwarding services creating additional revenue streams.