NC registered agent
North Carolina registered agent service, $5 a year
North Carolina requires every corporation and LLC on its books to keep a registered agent at a real address in the state. Here is what North Carolina law says about who that agent has to be and where it has to be.
What North Carolina requires of a registered agent
The requirement
In the words of the North Carolina code:
must continuously maintain in this State: (1) A registered office that may be the same as any of its places of business...
Source: state statute, via incFACTS: N.C. Gen. Stat. § 55D-30(a)
How we comply
We don't.
What North Carolina does to your company when we don't
Here is what the state does to an entity that has no agent, or whose agent is us.
Administrative dissolution
The Secretary of State may commence a proceeding under G.S. 55-14-21 to dissolve administratively a corporation if: ...
Source: state statute, via incFACTS: N.C. Gen. Stat. § 55-14-20(3)-(4); § 55-14-21(b); § 57D-6-06(a)(3)-(4)
Revocation (foreign entities)
The Secretary of State may commence a proceeding under G.S. 55-15-31 to revoke the certificate of authority of a foreign corporation authorized to transact business in this State if: ...
Source: state statute, via incFACTS: N.C. Gen. Stat. § 55-15-30(a)(3)-(4); § 55-15-31(d); § 57D-7-30(a)(3)-(4)
And also
In the case of an administrative dissolution or revocation of ...
Source: state statute, via incFACTS: N.C. Gen. Stat. § 55D-21(d)(2)
The bill to come back
Reinstatement fee
A corporation administratively dissolved under G.S. 55-14-21 may apply to the Secretary of State for reinstatement...
Source: state statute, via incFACTS: N.C. Gen. Stat. § 55-14-22; § 55-1-22(a)(16)
What happens to the lawsuit you never saw
Substituted service
When an entity required to maintain a registered office and registered agent under G.S. ...
Source: state statute, via incFACTS: N.C. Gen. Stat. § 55D-33(b)
One more thing to skip: the North Carolina annual report
Our other ways to save money apply here too. North Carolina charges the following to keep your company on its books each year. Skipping it saves the whole amount, right up until it does not.
Annual report fee, LLC
$200 a year.
(28) Annual report $200.00
Source: state statute, via incFACTS: N.C. Gen. Stat. 57D-1-22(a)(28)
Statutory text as captured by incFACTS (retrieved 2026-08-01, verified word-for-word against the state code 2026-08-10). Laws change. The statute governs; this page does not.