What Is a Registered Agent?
A registered agent is a person who receives important legal and tax documents on behalf of your company. Business owners use registered agents to ensure legal documents are received and handled appropriately. All businesses registered with a state must have a registered agent.
What does a registered agent do?
A registered agent is someone you designate to receive specific types of documents—typically legal, state, regulatory and tax-related—on your behalf. Your agent then shares those documents with you by scanning and uploading them to an online portal or forwarding them to your address. A registered agent may call you or send you a text message if they receive an urgent message, such as a court document or upcoming deadline notice.
Reasons To Use a Registered Agent
The most important reason to use a registered agent service is to ensure that time-sensitive legal and tax documents don’t get lost or mishandled. A registered agent will receive these documents for your company and alert you to anything that requires your immediate attention.
When you use a registered agent service, sensitive documents are ostensibly not seen by prying eyes within your organization, which could happen if you received legal mail via your public mailing address. Also, if you’re conducting business in multiple states, it’s helpful to have one registered agent who can consolidate all your legal mail from various states
How To Choose a Registered Agent?
The best way to choose a registered agent is to research which providers offer the exact services your business needs—such as a personalized online document management portal and approaching deadline notifications.
You may also want to consider other legal services that are offered by the provider, as many businesses prefer to consolidate their legal matters with one legal representative. This Forbes Advisor list of the best registered agent services is a terrific place to start your search for your registered agent.
