Michigan Resident Agent: Requirements, Filings, and Fees

A Michigan resident agent is the person or business entity you designate to accept lawsuits, subpoenas, and official state mail on your company’s behalf at a physical Michigan street address. Every corporation, LLC, professional LLC, and limited partnership formed or registered in the state must have one, and the position must stay filled continuously for as long as the business exists. Let it go vacant and you risk missed lawsuits, loss of good standing, or automatic dissolution.

What the Agent Receives

The resident agent is your business’s official contact point for anything a court or state agency needs to deliver. That mostly means service of process — the summons and complaint that start a lawsuit against your company. Whoever holds the role receives those papers and gets them to the people inside the company who can respond before the deadline runs.

The agent also receives correspondence from the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (LARA), including the pre-printed annual statement and annual report forms, compliance notices, and other official mail.¹ If those documents sit unopened for a week, the business pays the price: default judgments, missed court deadlines, or lapsed filings.

Which Businesses Need One

The requirement runs across entity types, with separate statutes saying the same thing:

Every domestic corporation and every foreign corporation authorized to do business in Michigan must continuously maintain a resident agent and a registered office.²
Every domestic LLC and every foreign LLC authorized to transact business in the state must do the same.³
Professional LLCs carry the same agent requirement plus additional annual reporting on top of the standard LLC annual statement.⁴
Michigan limited partnerships must also designate a resident agent to receive documents, notices, and demands served on the partnership.¹

Businesses formed in another state face the same obligation as part of qualifying to operate in Michigan.²

Who Can Serve

For an LLC, the agent can be an individual Michigan resident whose business office or residence matches the registered office address, or a domestic or foreign corporation or LLC with a business office at that same address.³ For a corporation, the choices mirror that list: an individual Michigan resident, a domestic corporation or LLC, or a foreign corporation or LLC authorized to do business in the state.²

The address has to be a real one. The agent’s business office or residence must be identical to the registered office on file with LARA, and a P.O. Box qualifies as neither. The point is that someone has to be reachable at a street address during normal business hours so process servers and mail carriers can actually make deliveries.

Naming Your Agent and Changing Them Later

You name your initial resident agent when you file your formation documents — the articles of organization for an LLC or the articles of incorporation for a corporation. The agent’s name and registered office address go on the form, and the filing isn’t complete without them.

Changing the Agent or Address

To update either, you file a Certificate of Change of Registered Office and/or Resident Agent (Form CSCL/CD-520) with LARA.⁵ The form asks for the new agent’s name and address as you want them to appear on the public record.⁶ The filing fee is $5, whether the entity is a corporation, LLC, or nonprofit.⁷

When the Agent Resigns

An agent can quit. For corporations, the agent files a written resignation with the company’s president or vice president and with LARA’s administrator, and the appointment ends 30 days after the administrator receives the notice, or when a successor is appointed, whichever comes first.⁸ For LLCs, the process is nearly identical: written resignation to the administrator and to a member or manager, same 30-day clock.⁹ Thirty days moves fast. Miss it and you’re operating without an agent.

Annual Filings That Confirm Your Agent

Michigan ties the resident agent requirement to annual filings, so even if nothing has changed, you still confirm the agent every year.

LLCs

Every domestic and foreign LLC must file an annual statement with LARA no later than February 15, reporting the current resident agent’s name and the registered office address. LLCs formed after September 30 skip the February 15 that immediately follows their formation.³ LARA mails a pre-printed form to the registered office before the deadline unless the company has opted for electronic notice.¹

Professional LLCs

PLLCs file both the standard LLC annual statement and a separate annual report, also due February 15. A $50 penalty applies if the annual report or its fee isn’t submitted by that date.⁴

Corporations

Corporations file annual reports with LARA on pre-printed forms sent to the resident agent at the registered office.¹ For profit corporations, a $10 per month late penalty applies after the due date.¹⁰

What Happens if You Lose Your Agent

The consequences differ by entity type and none of them are minor.

Corporations: Automatic Dissolution

A Michigan corporation that fails to file annual reports for two years faces automatic dissolution. LARA’s administrator notifies the corporation at least 90 days before the two-year period expires.¹¹ Once dissolved, the corporation can’t enforce contracts, conduct business, or defend its name. Renewing requires filing all missed reports at $75 per year, plus a $25 filing fee for the current year report if received after May 15, and the $10 per month late penalty.¹⁰

LLCs: Loss of Good Standing

An LLC that fails to file annual statements for two consecutive years receives a notice from LARA. If it doesn’t file all missing statements and pay the fees within 60 days of that notice, the LLC loses good standing. LARA then won’t issue a certificate of good standing, the company’s name becomes available for other entities to claim, and LARA will refuse to accept new filings from the company.¹²

Restoring good standing means filing a Certificate of Restoration ($50), paying $25 for each missed annual statement, and filing the current year’s statement if the restoration is received on or after February 15. PLLCs pay $125 for each missed annual report and statement, plus the $50 restoration fee.¹³

You Still Get Sued

Losing your agent doesn’t make you harder to sue. If your LLC has no agent, or the agent can’t be found with reasonable effort, anyone suing you can serve process by delivering or mailing the summons and complaint by registered mail to LARA’s administrator, and it counts as valid service.³ If nobody at the company knows the papers arrived, a default judgment follows.

Fees at a Glance

Changing your resident agent (Form CSCL/CD-520): $5, regardless of entity type.⁷
LLC annual statement: $25 per year.¹³
PLLC annual report late penalty: $50 if not filed by February 15.⁴
Corporation annual report (missed year): $75 per year, plus $10 per month late penalty after May 15.¹⁰
LLC restoration of good standing: $50 filing fee plus $25 for each missed annual statement.¹³
Commercial registered agent services: typically $50 to $300 per year, depending on the provider and level of service.

Naming Yourself vs. Hiring a Service

You can name yourself, a co-owner, or an employee as your resident agent at no extra cost. The catch is availability. Someone has to be at the registered office during business hours to accept service, and if you’re a one-person LLC out meeting clients when a process server knocks, you’ve missed service of a lawsuit. The agent also has to be organized enough to forward everything promptly.

There’s a privacy issue too. The agent’s name and the registered office address are public record with LARA. Anyone can look them up, which means a home-based business owner who names themselves puts their home address on public filings. Using a commercial service lets you list the service’s address instead, keeping your home address off the record. That’s the single most common reason owners pay for a third-party agent.

Commercial services guarantee availability, handle forwarding professionally, and typically send compliance reminders when annual filings come due. The tradeoffs are the ongoing fee and the fact that you’ve added a middleman between your business and time-sensitive legal papers. A slow forwarder tightens your response window, so vetting the provider matters more than picking the cheapest one.

1
Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs. Entrepreneur’s Guide
2
Michigan Legislature. Michigan Compiled Laws 450.1241 – Registered Office and Resident Agent Required; Address
3
Michigan Legislature. Michigan Compiled Laws 450.4207 – Maintaining Registered Office and Resident Agent
4
Michigan Legislature. Michigan Compiled Laws 450.4909
5
Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs. Limited Liability Company Changes
6
State of Michigan. Certificate of Change of Registered Office and/or Change of Resident Agent
7
Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs. Filing Fees
8
Michigan Legislature. Michigan Compiled Laws 450.1243 – Resident Agent Resignation
9
Michigan Legislature. Michigan Compiled Laws 450.4208 – Resident Agent Resignation
10
State of Michigan. Renew my Corporation
11
Michigan Legislature. Michigan Compiled Laws 450.2922
12
Michigan Legislature. Michigan Compiled Laws 450.4207a
13
State of Michigan. Restore my LLC