How to Change Your Registered Agent Without Losing Good Standing

Changing a registered agent involves submitting a Statement of Change (or a similar document) to the Secretary of State where your LLC or corporation is located. This also requires paying a nominal fee and making sure the new agent is ready to accept the appointment. Within 1 to 10 business days, the applicable state may process your request and may even allow you to submit your request electronically. Miss a renewal or submit it incorrectly, and you risk a lapse in good standing, a missed service of process, or receiving it without any notice.

Most likely, you are trying to find steps to change your registered agent because of one of the following three reasons: your agent raised their fees, you received a compliance notice you did not expect, or you are switching to a more professional service from a friend or relative due to receiving a lawsuit notice, which is also a valid reason. Each reason is completely normal and generally resolves within a week in most states.

What Actually Happens When You Change a Registered Agent

In each state, an LLC or corporation must have at least one registered agent. This agent must have a physical address in the state. They will receive all correspondence from the court and the state during business hours. Changing agents will not require you to modify your Articles of Organization or Incorporation. Instead, all states will require you to file a more focused form, which many state laws will refer to as a Statement of Change of Registered Agent. Other states may refer to it as a Change of Registered Agent/Office form or as an amendment.

This will matter to some founders, who may believe they need to resubmit all their incorporation documents. This is not the case. Registered agent changes will be filed separately. In most states, the change will be one of the fastest and least expensive filings to submit.

Filing the Change

Your new agent must have agreed to serve as your registered agent. The consent statement is part of the filing in most states. If the new agent is a registered agent service, they will provide access to a form to be served on the state.

Visit the Secretary of State’s website and locate the form. In Delaware, this is a Certificate of Change of Registered Agent. In Texas, the form is 401. In California, a Statement of Information (Form LLC-12 or SI-550) must be completed to provide agent information, rather than a registered agent change form. In Florida, agent changes are made through the Sunbiz portal without a separate form in most cases.

To incorporate your Wyoming LLC into an out-of-state business, you must pay a filing fee that varies by state, then submit your filing and wait for confirmation. File online for the quickest confirmations, which can take up to three days in Delaware, Nevada, and Wyoming. Paper filings can take weeks, especially during the annual report season from January to March.

When your filing is confirmed, update your records and addresses with the IRS and your bank. If your old registered agent’s address was your correspondence address, it’s especially important to change that. This is often skipped and is the most common cause of later headaches.

Filing Fees by State (As of July 2026)

Filing fees and processing times change, so we recommend checking with the state’s business filing division to confirm current fees and information, especially if you’re filing under time constraints due to a lawsuit. We’ve added links to the state filing divisions where we could in this post.

Common Mistakes Founders Make When Switching Agents

You can’t just file to change the registered agent and expect the old agent to know they’re no longer your agent. Mail forwarding won’t stay permanent. Some agents will stop forwarding after the change; others will just send it all back. You can’t expect them to just keep sending your mail.

The address for your agent doesn’t change with the IRS just because you updated it. There’s no update for them once you change agents. If your agent’s address was also your business address on file with the IRS, you will also need to file Form 8822-B on your own. Non-resident founders are usually stuck on this since their registered agent is their only U.S. address for their EIN.

You shouldn’t wait until your agent receives the lawsuit to know that you’re being sued. In some states, the process of default judgment can begin when the court attempts to serve the registered agent.

You need to check if you changed agents on a day when a state also requires you to file an annual report. Some states, like California, consider changes to the registered agent as changes to the Statement of Information.

You also can’t just register a P.O. Box. Registered agents need a physical address that is staffed at all times during business hours.

Do You Need to Change Your Registered Agent If You Move States?

Definitely not. This is a common question we receive. If you move the principal address of your LLC to a new state, the requirement for your registered agent in your state of formation does not change. For example, if you were formed in Delaware and moved your operations to Texas, you would still need a Delaware-registered agent. You would also need to register in Texas as a foreign LLC and obtain a Texas registered agent. This would result in two separate processes, two separate registered agents, and two separate fees.

When Should You Use a Professional Registered Agent Service Instead of Yourself or a Friend?

This would need to be a paid service, not your personal address, if you are a non-resident founder without a U.S. address. For founders in the United States who want to be their own agent, the most common reason to go this route is privacy. This would prevent your personal address from being listed as the registered agent. For commercial agents, the cost typically runs between $100 and $300 for the year.

Would you like to make the switch and avoid the fine print? EasyFiling can customize a registered agent of your choosing for all 50 states. This includes the paid service, all state fees, and a supplemental service that most founders overlook: the IRS address update.