Last updated September 30, 2020
New York LLC Registered Agent
Quick Start Guide
This Quick Start Guide is a brief overview of how to form an LLC in New York.
Detailed Lessons:
6. Publication Part 2
7. Cert. of Publication
8. Biennial Statements
9. Taxes
10. Cert. of Change
New York LLC Costs:
New York LLC filing fee: $200
Newspaper fees: varies by county (see Lesson 2)
Certificate of Publication: $50
Biennial Statement: $9 (every two years)
Need to save time?
Hire a professional to form your LLC in New York:
Northwest ($39 + state fee) or LegalZoom ($149 + state fee)
★ Check out Northwest vs LegalZoom
What is a New York Registered Agent (and why is it so confusing)?
When it comes to forming an LLC, New York is a state with a lot of quirks (things that are outside of the norm).
The biggest quirk is the newspaper publication requirement, which is a major expense for most people if they don’t follow a publication strategy. The state requires that all LLCs in New York publish 2 ads in the newspaper within 120 days of formation.
And the 2nd biggest quirk is about Registered Agents, or more particularly, the delivery of service of process.
In most states, a Registered Agent is required to form an LLC. A Registered Agent is a person or company who agrees to accept legal mail (known as “service of process”) on behalf of your LLC in case your business gets sued. A Registered Agent can be a person, like the owner of the LLC, or a professional Registered Agent company, also called a Commercial Registered Agent.
However, Section 301 of the New York LLC Statute states (among other things):
The Secretary of State shall be the agent for every LLC upon which process may be served. No LLC may be formed in New York unless its Articles of Organization designates the Secretary of State as the agent for service of process.
Said another way, the Secretary of State acts as the agent for all LLCs in the state.
To further complicate things, the state will allow an LLC to also have a Registered Agent listed.
So if the state acts as the agent for all LLCs (and requires it), what would be the point of hiring a Registered Agent for your New York LLC?
How it works:
The answer is the newspaper publication requirement.
Since the county location of the LLC’s office dictates where the newspaper ads must be published, hiring a Registered Agent (one located in an affordable county, like Albany) who will let you use their address can save you a lot of money.
For people in the 5 boroughs, this can save you $1,000 or more on newspaper fees.
In order to publish your ads in an Albany county, we recommend hiring Northwest Registered Agent ($125 per year).
This will allow you to use their Albany address and publish your newspaper ads in that county. A few months later (once all the publication requirements are met), you can change your address if needed.
Also, Northwest Registered Agent will let you use their address throughout your Articles of Organization (county location/office address, address for forwarding of service of process, organizer’s address, and filer’s address) in order to keep yours off public record.
This privacy feature is offered at no additional cost. We find this particularly helpful, since so much junk mail gets sent to the address you list in the Articles of Organization.
Special discounted pricing for LLC University® readers
Northwest usually charges $100 + state fees to form an LLC. However, we’ve negotiated a discounted rate (60% off) for LLC University® readers.
They won’t publish your ads for you (we’ll show you how to do that here), however, they’ll help save you money on your newspaper fees and they’ll keep your address off of public records.
(to learn more about Northwest, check out our Northwest Registered Agent review)
References
https://www.dos.ny.gov/corps/servinstr.html
https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/LLC/A3
https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/LLC/301-A
https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/LLC/302
https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/LLC/303
https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/LLC/304
https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/LLC/305
https://www.dos.ny.gov/corps/faq_service_of_process.page.asp
Hi Matt,
We got a quite helpful comment from you when we were forming LLC last year.
We hope you can advise us again..
We used one of the New York registered agents for the newspaper publication requirement. Once it was done, we changed the address to ours. Do you think we should still keep the registered agent service for another year? We got a renewal notice, but cannot decide if we should keep it or cancel.
We really appreciate this valuable site and your kind comments. Thank you!!
Hey Nao! Thank you for the kind words! Glad to have you back ;) If the only purpose was for publication, there isn’t much of a reason to keep a Commercial Registered Agent in New York. The reason is, is that by default, the New York Secretary of State acts as the Registered Agent for all LLCs and then forwards any Service of Process to your address. The one benefit of keeping a Commercial Registered Agent in place was if you didn’t want to have your address listed on your LLC’s filing (for privacy reasons). Hope that helps :)
Thanks for your reply, Matt!
That’s exactly what we wanted to know.
We truly appreciate your help!!!
You’re very welcome Nao!! :)