Pennsylvania Registered Agent
When you choose Northwest as your Pennsylvania Registered Agent, you get instant service, Privacy by Default®, and a business address. And if you want more, you can get a domain name, website, email, and phone number for free.
Want to learn more about what a registered agent does in Pennsylvania? We'll explain the Pennsylvania Bureau of Corporations and Charitable Organizations’s requirements, what your registered agent should do for you, and how to change your registered agent in Pennsylvania.
When You Want More
$125 a Year Every Year
Northwest is the choice of professionals for registered agent service.
- Same-Day Scans, Instant Notifications
- Privacy by Default®
- Business Address
- Free Domain, Website, Email & Business Phone
What Is a Pennsylvania Registered Agent?
A Pennsylvania registered agent is a person or company that you designate to receive legal mail (like service of process) on behalf of your business. Registered agents exist to provide an official and reliable way to contact your business.
If your business is ever served with a lawsuit, the process server will deliver the paperwork directly to your registered agent. At that point, your business is legally considered “served.” The registered agent should then forward you your mail, quickly and securely.
Per, Pennsylvania’s state statutes (Title 15 §109), registered agents are legally required in Pennsylvania. At a minimum, your registered agent must list a physical address on the public record and be present at that address during business hours. But ideally, your registered agent should do more.
What Are the Legal Requirements for Pennsylvania Registered Agents?
According to Pennsylvania state law Title 15 §109, all business entities required to provide a registered office address and may enter into contract for the service of a Commercial Registered Office Provider (CROP). The Pennsylvania registered agent is required to:
- Be able to accept legal documents.
- Have a physical, registered office address located within the state of Pennsylvania. No P.O. Boxes.
- Must be a Pennsylvania resident or a business that provides registered agent services.
Note: If a company’s registered agent cannot be served after a reasonable attempt, the company’s secretary will be served at the company’s principal address. If your secretary cannot be reached, you’ll never know you were served. This could cause major problems for your business including the possibility of a judgment entered against you.
How Do I Change My Pennsylvania Registered Agent?
There are two ways to change your registered agent in Pennsylvania.
- Hire us and we’ll complete the change of agent form for you for free.
- Do it yourself and file a Change of Registered Office (Form DSCB: 15-1507/5507/8625/8825) with the Pennsylvania Department of State of Corporations and Charitable Organizations. There is a $5 fee to file this form.
Why Northwest Is the Best Registered Agent in Pennsylvania
Our Pennsylvania Registered Agent Service includes the tools you need to keep your business running without a hitch. When you hire Northwest as your registered agent, you get:
- Same-Day Scans: We scan your legal docs the same day we receive them and reach out if your essential mail goes unread.
- Privacy by Default®: We list our business address on public docs to keep your personal info safe. And unlike those other guys, we never sell your data.
- Corporate Guides®: Have questions? We have answers. Our guides are business experts whose sole job is to provide support for all your business questions.
And if you want more? Add free trials of any of these options at checkout:
- Domain Name: Choose a domain name from a list of popular extensions (like .com and .net).
- Website: We provide a pre-built business website, customizable using an open source platform.
- Business Email Address: Create up to 10 business email addresses of your choosing. They’ll end in your domain name for branding ease.
- Phone Number: Keep your personal line private by using a business phone number for client communications.
How to Order Pennsylvania Registered Agent Service
You sign up online, clicking on one of the buttons or links that says “HIRE US.”
We collect the first year’s fee for registered agent service up front.
For new businesses, once your business registration filing with the Pennsylvania Secretary of State is complete, we’ll become your Pennsylvania registered agent.
About a year later, we’ll send an invoice for another year of Pennsylvania registered agent service. If you want to keep using us, great; if you don’t, you can easily cancel.
It’s easy to add registered agent services in other states if your business expands. We have offices in every state. We don’t farm out work (or your info) to other companies—wherever you are, WE are your registered agent.
We make your account a real go-to resource for you, not just for Pennsylvania registered agent service or paying a bill but for keeping up with corporate paperwork formalities like the Pennsylvania annual report.
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Pennsylvania Registered Agent FAQs
- All businesses registered with the state must designate a registered office in their formation documents.
- The Pennsylvania Department of State will reject your filing if you do not appoint one.
- The state and the general public must have a reliable way to contact your Pennsylvania business with legal notices and other types of official mail.
Note: Pennsylvania’s statute requires businesses to designate a registered office instead of a registered agent, so you have to designate a place for service of process to be delivered and not a person or entity who will sign for it. To further confuse the point, PA registered agents are referred to as Commercial Registered Office Providers (CROPs). This requirement makes for odd wording, but is essentially the same as other states’ registered agent requirements. A commercial registered office provider in Pennsylvania is the same thing as a registered agent elsewhere. They’re just different terms.
Yes, you can be your own registered agent in Pennsylvania. However, after considering the registered agent requirements most business owners elect to hire a registered agent service instead. Why? Well although being your own registered agent will cost you $0, a Pennsylvania registered agent’s name and address becomes part of the public record. Additionally, the registered agent is required to be available to accept service of process during normal business hours 5 days a week.
We scan all documents locally from our office in downtown King of Prussia, PA.
Definitely! We’re the only national registered agent service that allows our clients to list our address for everything when you’re doing a filing to keep your private address off public records.
We don’t want ALL of your business mail. It’s not what we do. And it wouldn’t serve you well. You wouldn’t have unique address or suite number. Any mail we receive on your behalf would come to to Northwest Registered Agent, care of you.
But we understand that businesses and clients sometimes reach out to you through your registered agent. Through us. That’s why we give you 5 FREE scans of regular business mail a year. You can request any additional documents to be forwarded at a per document rate of $15.
Service on your registered agent is legal proof that you were notified. Regardless of whether you actually receive the documents your Pennsylvania registered agent office provider signs for, once they accept the documents, you’ve been notified. This is a serious responsibility that we do not take lightly. This is how it works:
- A process server, the county sheriff, or any third party will walk into our office and hand us the documents (service of process), which we sign for.
- The process server then gives an affidavit (a receipt of service) to the court as confirmation that they “served” us.
Note: If you’ve hired Northwest, you’ve received your documents long before the process server hands in their affidavit to the court—because we scanned them to your online account within minutes of having been served.
- Perform a Pennsylvania business name search.
- Use the name of the company you’re trying to look up.
- Look at the PA registered agent’s name and registered address.
- If you want to legally notify a business through their registered agent, simply send a letter as certified mail to the registered agent at their registered office address.
A Pennsylvania Commercial Registered Office (CROP) is a company that provides an official PA street address for your business to list on filings and DOS records. It is required by law to obtain a Pennsylvania CROP if your business does not have a physical location in the state, but it’s also a great way to keep your personal info OFF public records wherever your business is located.
*Northwest Registered Agent is officially recognized as a CROP provider by the PA Department of State.
In Pennsylvania, to resign as a registered agent, you need to submit a Statement of Change of Registered Office by Agent to the Pennsylvania Department of State. For a more detailed walkthrough, you can refer to our guide on how to resign as a registered agent in Pennsylvania.