Best Registered Agent Services in Georgia

Your agent's full name and street address sit in the Corporations Division business search. Anyone can look. Act as your own agent and your home address is public.

The annual registration window runs from January 1 to April 1. Miss it and the state adds $25. The real clock starts there. Under Georgia Code 14-11-603 the Secretary of State can move to dissolve your LLC once the filing is 60 days late. A notice follows, and it gives you 60 more days. Good agents remind you months before the window opens.

That same law names two grounds that belong to your agent, not your calendar. Go 60 days with no agent and the LLC can be dissolved. Wait more than 60 days to tell the state your agent resigned or changed, same result. A quiet resignation is a real risk, and Georgia charges an agent nothing to file one online.

Georgia does not offer anonymous LLCs, but its filings ask for little. Georgia Code 14-11-203(a)(1) puts the name and address of each organizer on the Articles of Organization, and subsection (b) says the organizer does not have to be a member. Every annual registration then carries the mailing address of your principal place of business, under 14-11-1103(a)(3). The statute lists no member names for either filing. Pick an organizer and a mailing address you are happy to see published, and the agent line is the one place left where your home address could appear.

Forming a brand new Georgia LLC? A bundle is worth a look. Bizee hands you a free first year with a formation package. ZenBusiness does not, its opening $99 is half price and renews at $199. Watch the renewal. Bizee goes to $149 and ZenBusiness to $199.

Switching an LLC you already own is a different job. A standalone agent is cleaner, and Northwest holds at $125 while Harbor Compliance opens at $99. Timing sets what the switch costs. Name the new agent on the registration you file between January 1 and April 1 and the state charges nothing. Do it any other month and you file an amended annual registration at $30. That form only works once this year's registration is in.

Registering an LLC you formed in another state is the expensive door. A certificate of authority to transact business in Georgia costs $235, where articles of organization for a new Georgia LLC cost $110. After that the state stops telling them apart. Georgia Code 14-11-1103 puts a foreign LLC on the same annual registration as a domestic one, the same $60 between January 1 and April 1, and asks both for the street address and county of the registered office and the name of the agent there. The free switch above works the same way for you.

Still picking a formation service? Our guide to the best LLC formation services in Georgia shows how agent pricing folds into the total.

• Free year bait. Bizee gives year one away only with a formation package, and ZenBusiness only halves it, to $99 on the same condition. Buy the agent on its own and you pay $149 or $199 from day one.
• The registration itself. It is $60 a year, a $50 fee plus a $10 service charge. That is separate from your agent.
• Changing agents off cycle. Georgia wants $30 for the amended annual registration. That is the form you use outside the January to April window. File online if you can. The Corporations Division says online filings generally take 7 to 10 business days and paper filings 15, and it names late September among its busiest weeks.
• Registering late is the costly one. An out-of-state LLC that has been doing business in Georgia without a certificate of authority faces a $500 penalty plus every fee it would have paid had it registered on time. Getting in on time costs $235.
• Renewal jumps. Four of our eight cost more in year two than in year one, once you count the formation bundles. ZenBusiness goes from $99 to $199 and Harbor Compliance from $99 to $159. Bizee and Inc Authority move from a free bundled year to $149 and $249. Swyft Filings and Rocket Lawyer do not step up. They cost $596 and $374 a year from the start.

1. Check the record. Look your LLC up in the Georgia Corporations Division business search. Confirm the agent name and address are the ones you expect.
2. Get your EIN. File IRS Form SS-4 online. It is free, and it opens the door to a bank account.
3. Open a business bank account. Georgia banks ask for the Articles of Organization, the EIN letter and your operating agreement. Do it before you take a payment.
4. Diary the first annual registration. It falls between January 1 and April 1 of the year after you form. It costs $60. This is also the filing where changing your agent is free.
5. Register for state taxes. Selling taxable goods or services means a sales tax permit. The state rate is 4 percent and every county adds to it. Combined rates run from 6 percent in Cobb and Gwinnett to 9 percent in 31 counties, with 8 percent the most common and Atlanta at 8.9.