Docket 02 · Registered agent
An agent of record you can name.
An agent of record you can name — because “some partner of ours” is not an answer. Every US entity must keep a registered agent: a person or company with a physical address in the state, present during business hours, whose legal job is to receive service of process and official state mail so the state and the courts can always reach your company. It is the least glamorous line in your filing and the one whose failure hurts most.
Included in Hosted, $79/mo, for your formation state — take the intake quiz or go to checkout.
Who holds the role for Sethhost clients
CorpNet, Incorporated is the registered agent of record for Sethhost entities, named in your service agreement. Our operator, PA Registered Office Services, LLC, is itself a licensed Pennsylvania commercial registered office provider (PA DOS file #0015295203); the wholesale partnership is what lets one desk serve all fifty states without pretending to have offices it does not have. You will never discover your agent’s identity by reading a state website — you read it here, before checkout.
What the agent actually does
- Receives service of process — lawsuits and legal notices — at the registered office, so a deadline never starts running in a room you have never been in.
- Receives official state mail — annual report notices, tax correspondence, and state demands — and uploads it to its portal, where our desk retrieves it each business day under the mail protocol.
- Keeps the public record true. The agent on the state’s record is the agent who actually serves. When it changes, the change is filed — see change of agent.
State quirks that matter
New York is the national outlier: its Department of State is itself every entity’s statutory agent for service of process, and a private agent is an optional extra for forwarding and privacy. Ohio and Arizona call the role the statutory agent; Kansas, Maryland, Michigan, and Rhode Island say resident agent; California says agent for service of process. Pennsylvania speaks of a registered office and licenses commercial providers under its CROP system. Each state page uses that state’s own term.
More than one state
Operating in a second state usually means qualifying there — and keeping an agent there. An additional-state registered agent through Sethhost is $179 per year, and a foreign qualification with agent is $449. Both sit inside the same portal and the same calendar as your home state.
Filing processing fee: 3% of the total order amount, charged by our fulfillment provider, CorpNet, where it applies to your order, including on pass-through charges within the order. It is shown as its own itemized line at checkout and is not Sethhost revenue.
Questions on this filing
Can I be my own registered agent?
In most states, yes, if you have a physical address there and are present during business hours — which founders abroad, by definition, are not. A missed lawsuit does not wait for your flight home.
Is the agent’s address my business address?
No. The registered office is for service of process and official mail; it is not a business mailing address, and general business mail is not covered. The distinction is explained on the official mail page.
What happens if my agent resigns?
The state record shows a company with no agent, and in many states the clock starts toward administrative dissolution. Continuity is the whole point of this docket: renewals are inside Hosted, and changes are filed, never improvised.