Georgia Annual Registration on eCorp: Deadlines, Fees, and Filing

Georgia’s annual registration is filed online through the Secretary of State’s eCorp portal at ecorp.sos.ga.gov, with a filing window that runs from January 1 to April 1 every year. The standard cost is $60 for most entities and $40 for nonprofits.¹ Miss the April 1 deadline and a $25 late penalty attaches; leave it unfiled long enough and the Secretary of State can administratively dissolve your business.²

Who Has to File

Every entity on record with the Georgia Secretary of State owes an annual registration. That includes profit corporations, nonprofit corporations, LLCs, limited partnerships, limited liability limited partnerships, professional corporations, benefit corporations, and foreign entities authorized to do business in the state.¹ If the state issued you a Control Number when you formed, you file.

The window is the same for everyone: January 1 through April 1. New domestic corporations whose articles of incorporation were delivered after October 1 get a pass on their formation year and don’t file until the following year’s window.³ Other newly formed entities file in the first January-to-April window after they’re on record.⁴

What to Have Ready Before You Open the Portal

Pull your Control Number first. It’s the unique identifier the Secretary of State assigned at formation, and every filing path needs it. If you can’t find it, search your entity by name at ecorp.sos.ga.gov/businesssearch and the record will show the number along with your current status and filing history.⁵

Corporations, both profit and nonprofit, need the entity name and state of incorporation, the registered office street address and county, the registered agent’s name, the principal office mailing address, and names and addresses for the CEO, CFO, and secretary (or the people filling those roles).⁶

LLCs have it easier. The portal asks for the LLC’s name, registered office and agent, and principal office address. Georgia does not require LLCs to list their managers or members on the annual registration.⁴

Everything you enter must be current as of the day you file, not as of January 1. If your principal office moved in February and you file in March, the March address is what goes on the form.

Registered Agent Rules

Every corporation and LLC has to maintain a registered agent in Georgia continuously. The agent must be either a Georgia resident whose business office sits at the registered office address, or a business entity authorized to operate in Georgia with its office at that same address.⁷ A P.O. box doesn’t count. If your agent has changed since last year, you’ll update the information during this year’s filing.

What It Costs

Georgia charges a base registration fee plus a $10 processing surcharge:⁸

Profit corporations, LLCs, LPs, LLLPs, professional corporations, benefit corporations, and trust estates: $60 total
Nonprofit corporations: $40 total

Foreign entities pay the same as their domestic equivalent. A foreign LLC pays $60, like any Georgia LLC. Filing after April 1 adds a $25 late penalty.¹ The penalty is flat, so there’s nothing to be gained by stalling once you’ve already missed the window.

Filing on eCorp

The portal gives you two routes: a quick path for entities with nothing to update, and a standard path for everyone else.⁹

One-Click Registration With No Changes

If every detail from last year still holds, pick “One Click Annual Registration With No Changes” on the eCorp landing page. No login is required. Enter your Control Number or entity name, confirm the information on file, pay the fee, and you’re finished in a few minutes. Most routine filings go through this path.

Registration With Changes

Updating your principal office, registered agent, or officer information requires the “Annual Registration with Changes” option, which does need an eCorp account login.⁹ From your entity’s profile, edit the fields that have changed. Corporations must list at least one officer. Spell everything carefully; the portal will enforce required fields but won’t flag a transposed street number or a misspelled name.

Review and Payment

A review screen appears before anything becomes part of the public record. Read it closely. When you confirm, the portal routes you to secure payment. Accepted cards are Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and Discover.⁹ The system issues a transaction ID once payment clears.

After You File

Online filings process immediately.¹⁰ An automated email arrives with a digital receipt and a PDF of the filed registration. Save it. The public Business Search typically refreshes within minutes, and your entity’s “Registration Paid Through” date will advance to the current year.

Need a certificate of existence (also called a certificate of good standing) for a bank, a landlord, or an out-of-state transaction? That’s a separate request through eCorp, available once your registration is current.

If You Miss April 1

The $25 late penalty attaches as soon as the deadline passes.¹ You can still file, you’ll just pay $85 instead of $60 (or $65 instead of $40 for a nonprofit), and the entity stays in good standing once the filing processes.

Sixty days past the due date, the Secretary of State can start administrative dissolution. The authority sits in O.C.G.A. § 14-2-1420 for corporations and § 14-11-603 for LLCs.¹¹¹² The office first mails written notice to your last known principal office or registered agent. You then have another 60 days to fix the problem. If you still haven’t filed, the Secretary of State signs a certificate of dissolution and the entity is officially dissolved.

Dissolution has real consequences. For LLCs, the statute limits the dissolved entity to winding up and liquidating its affairs.¹² Continuing to operate puts personal liability back on the table, since the limited liability shield depends on good standing. Banks check entity status and may freeze accounts or refuse new ones. Your entity name is reserved for your use only during the five-year reinstatement window; after that, someone else can claim it.¹³

Reinstating a Dissolved Corporation

Georgia lets administratively dissolved corporations apply for reinstatement within five years of the dissolution date.¹³ The application states the corporation’s name and dissolution date, confirms the grounds for dissolution have been eliminated, carries the signature of the registered agent or an officer, director, or shareholder from the most recent annual registration, includes a statement that all taxes have been paid, and comes with the reinstatement fee set by O.C.G.A. § 14-2-122.

Tax clearance is the step that most often slows reinstatement down. Outstanding obligations with the Georgia Department of Revenue have to be resolved first. If the entity has been dissolved for multiple years, you’ll also owe the annual registration fees and penalties for each missed year.

A granted reinstatement relates back to the dissolution date, legally treating the gap as if it never happened.¹³ Past the five-year window, reinstatement is no longer available through the Secretary of State and your only option is forming a new entity. LLC reinstatement sits under O.C.G.A. § 14-11-603 and related sections, with slightly different timing and requirements.

Mistakes That Cause Problems

Forgetting is the big one. The January-to-April window overlaps with tax season, and the registration gets buried. A January calendar reminder solves it; file as soon as the window opens.

Entering the entity name differently from how it appears in the Secretary of State’s records causes mismatches. An extra comma, a missing “LLC” suffix, an abbreviated word, any of these can block the system from pulling up your entity. Verify your exact legal name through the Business Search before you start.⁵

A lapsed registered agent is a separate ground for administrative dissolution, independent of the annual filing. If your agent resigns or leaves Georgia, you have 60 days to appoint a replacement before dissolution proceedings can start.¹¹ The annual registration is a good checkpoint for confirming agent information, but don’t wait for filing season if you already know something changed.

A bounced payment is treated as no filing at all. If the payment is dishonored and you don’t resolve it within 60 days of notice, dissolution proceedings can begin.¹¹ Credit card payments on eCorp process immediately and sidestep the risk.

1
Georgia Secretary of State. How to File Annual Registration
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Georgia Secretary of State. Georgia Administrative Code Subject 590-7-4 Corporations – Annual Registration
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Justia. Georgia Code 14-3-1622 – Annual Registration of Corporation
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Justia. Georgia Code 14-11-1103 – Annual Registration
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Georgia Secretary of State. Business Search
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Justia. Georgia Code 14-2-1622 – Annual Registration for Secretary of State
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Justia. Georgia Code 14-2-501 – Registered Office and Registered Agent
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Georgia Secretary of State. Corporations Division Filing Fees
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Georgia Secretary of State. Georgia Corporations Division
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Georgia Secretary of State. Filing Fees and Expedited Processing of Document Filings
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Justia. Georgia Code 14-2-1420 – Grounds for Administrative Dissolution
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Justia. Georgia Code 14-11-603 – Judicial and Administrative Dissolution
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Justia. Georgia Code 14-2-1422 – Reinstatement Following Administrative Dissolution