MS Secretary of State Business Search: Filings and Name Checks

The Mississippi Secretary of State’s business search is a free online tool at sos.ms.gov that lets you look up any corporation, LLC, nonprofit, limited partnership, or registered foreign entity in the state. You don’t need an account. Type in a business name, a Business ID, or the name of an officer or registered agent, and the results show the entity’s status, formation date, entity type, registered agent, and complete filing history.¹

How to Run the Search

The search tool sits inside the Business Services portal on the Secretary of State’s website. Logging in is only required for filing documents or ordering certified copies; searching itself is open to anyone.²

You have three ways in:

Search by business name. A full legal name pulls the exact record; a partial name returns a broader list, which helps when you’re not sure of the precise registration. The state indexes entities by their exact legal name, so a trade name or DBA may not match unless it was separately registered as a fictitious name.
Search by Business ID. Every registered entity has a unique ID assigned by the Secretary of State. If you have it, this is the fastest route to the record. The same ID is used later for amendments, reinstatements, and other filings.²
Search by officer or registered agent name. Useful when you know a person tied to the company but not the company’s legal name.

You can also filter by status — active, inactive, or dissolved — to narrow a long results list. Fictitious names (DBAs) registered with the state for a $25 filing fee show up in the same database and are searchable alongside formal entity names.³

What the Results Tell You

Click into a result and you land on a summary page. The field most people want first is the current status. “Good Standing” means the entity has filed its annual reports and paid its fees. “Inactive” or “Dissolved” means it hasn’t, or that it has been shut down. That single line is often enough to decide whether to keep dealing with a company.

The rest of the summary page shows:

The legal name and entity type — corporation, LLC, nonprofit, or limited partnership.
The formation date, meaning when the entity was originally filed with the state.
The state of formation. Domestic means Mississippi; foreign means the entity was formed elsewhere and later registered here for authority to operate.
The registered agent’s name and physical street address. This is the person or company authorized to accept legal papers for the business, and it is the address you use if you need to serve a lawsuit or send formal notice. Mississippi law requires every entity to keep a registered agent with a physical in-state address.

For most practical uses — vetting a vendor, confirming a company is real, finding where to send legal papers — the status line and the registered agent block are what you’re looking for.

Getting Copies of Filings

Each entity’s record includes a document history section listing every filing the Secretary of State has on record. That covers the founding document (Articles of Incorporation for a corporation, Certificate of Formation for an LLC), plus amendments, mergers, name changes, and officer updates over the entity’s lifetime. You can view and download these as PDFs for free.

When you need an official version bearing the state seal — for a court filing, a bank, or a transaction in another state — you can order it through the same portal. The Secretary of State issues Certificates of Good Standing (also called Certificates of Existence), Certificates of Fact, and certified copies of specific filings.⁴ Ordering requires logging in and paying. Most certificates are available immediately once payment clears.

Checking Whether a Business Name Is Available

The same search tool works as a name availability check. Before you file to form a new entity, run the intended name through the database. Mississippi requires every business name to be distinguishable from names already on file, and the Secretary of State will reject a formation filing if the name conflicts.

If the name is free but you’re not ready to file, you can reserve it. For LLCs the reservation lasts 180 days and can be renewed once by filing a renewal application within the 30 days before it expires.⁵ The reservation fee is $25 across entity types.³

One boundary worth knowing: registering a fictitious business name (a DBA) is voluntary in Mississippi and separate from forming a legal entity. Filing a DBA does not create a corporation or LLC; it only puts the trade name on the public database.

What a Dissolved Status Means

If a search returns a business marked “Dissolved,” that may be an administrative dissolution rather than a voluntary shutdown. The Secretary of State can administratively dissolve a corporation or LLC that misses annual reports, fails to keep a registered agent, or leaves other compliance problems unfixed. The office sends written notice by email or first-class mail to the registered agent, and the business has 60 days to correct the issue.⁶⁷

Miss the window and the Secretary of State signs a certificate of dissolution. The entity still exists on paper but can only wind down: liquidating assets, notifying creditors, closing out affairs. It cannot file or maintain a lawsuit in any Mississippi court until it is reinstated.⁶ Existing contracts, liens, and security interests stay valid, and the business can still defend itself in court. The block is on bringing new litigation, which catches many owners by surprise.

Status changes appear in the search almost immediately, so a dissolved entity is visible to anyone checking — including lenders, counterparties, and potential customers.

Reinstating a Dissolved Business

An administratively dissolved business can be reinstated through the same online portal.² The order of operations matters.

All corporations and certain LLCs must first get a tax clearance letter from the Mississippi Department of Revenue confirming no outstanding state tax obligations. You request it through the Department of Revenue’s website using your taxpayer information, and the letter is delivered by email. Save it, because you’ll upload it with the reinstatement application.

Then log in to the Secretary of State’s Business Services portal, choose the reinstatement option, and enter the Business ID. The system walks through the required fields and flags errors before submission. The reinstatement fee is $50 for domestic corporations and domestic LLCs, and $100 for foreign LLCs.³ You also have to file any overdue annual reports and pay those fees before the reinstatement goes through. Once it does, the status in the public search flips back to good standing.

1
Mississippi Secretary of State. Business Services & External Affairs
2
Mississippi Secretary of State. Business FAQs
3
Mississippi Secretary of State. Business Documents Filing Fees
4
Mississippi Secretary of State. Order Documents
5
Justia Law. Mississippi Code Title 79, Chapter 29, Section 79-29-111 – Reservation of Name
6
Justia Law. Mississippi Code Title 79, Chapter 4, Section 79-4-14.21 – Procedure for and Effect of Administrative Dissolution
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Justia Law. Mississippi Code Title 79, Chapter 29, Section 79-29-823 – Procedure for Administrative Dissolution