12 Best Kentucky Registered Agent Services (2024 Review)

Choosing the right registered agent service for your Kentucky limited liability company (LLC) is a crucial decision that can determine your business success. 

The right Kentucky registered agent will help your Kentucky business to meet its legal obligations and make sure your personal assets and information are kept safe and off the public record. 

The wrong Kentucky registered agent will cause you a lot of problems and cost you more than their services are worth. The wrong registered agent service will be careless with your personal and financial information, which could result in it falling into the hands of hackers and scammers, putting your entire business in jeopardy. 

I investigated over 60 different Kentucky registered agent services, then rated the top 12 and wrote detailed reviews of the top three. Here are the top three choices for the best registered agent in Kentucky. 

1. Northwest Registered Agent — 9.13/10 (My Top Pick)

My choice for the best registered agent in Kentucky is Northwest Registered Agent. They provide all the services you need from a registered agent, they ensure your business in Kentucky will meet its legal requirements, and they provide the best customer service in the industry. 

Pros

You’ll find plenty of reasons to favor Northwest Registered Agent. 

They provide all the services your business in Kentucky could possibly need, and a few that you didn’t even know you needed. They’ll provide your company with a physical street address in Kentucky and keep your personal information safe and off the public record. As the designated point of contact for your business, they are available during regular business hours to accept mail and legal documents (like service of process from a process server) on behalf of your business, and then they forward the mail to you. 

They scan ALL your mail (not just the legal documents) and upload them to an online portal for you to access with an online account. They also issue compliance alerts to let you know when you need to file any important form or documents for your limited liability company (like annual report filing deadlines) to make sure your company remains in good standing with the Kentucky Secretary of State. 

It’s easy to get set up with their system, and it’s easy to use and navigate once you’re in it. From the same online system you can add registered agent services for multiple states because Northwest Registered Agent has an office in every state. 

The main reason they earned the #1 position on my list is their outstanding customer service. 

Many companies choose to outsource their customer service or hire people who have no experience in the field they’re providing customer service for. But Northwest Registered Agent’s customer service team is US-based, and it’s made up of former lawyers, accountants, entrepreneurs, and business owners who have enough experience to answer nearly any question you come to them with. They really take the time to understand your question and provide you with useful solutions, as well, rather than reading a scripted answer. 

Not only do they provide customer service support for their registered agent services, but they also provide business support, which means they’ll answer any business-related question you ask them. 

They charge a very reasonable fee of $125 per state per year, so they’re only $26 more than the lowest price on my list. 

Cons

There’s really only one con to Northwest Registered Agent’s services. 

There’s really no way to get a quick answer or solution from their customer service team. They very patiently listen to your problem and make sure they understand it by asking a ton of questions before they offer suggestions or solutions. In many instances, when you’re in a hurry and can’t spend time on the phone with their customer service team, it’s quicker to simply Google your question. 

This problem doesn’t arise often so it’s really only a small complaint against Northwest Registered Agent’s excellent services. 

Overall

Northwest Registered Agent provides all the services that a Kentucky registered agent must in order to keep your limited liability company in good standing with the Kentucky Secretary of State and make sure it meets its legal compliance obligations and annual report filing deadlines. 

Their stellar customer service makes them the clear choice for the best Kentucky registered agent service. 

If you want a Kentucky registered agent that will provide your LLC with next-level service, then sign up with Northwest Registered Agent.

2. Harbor Compliance — 7.92/10 (Best Budget Registered Agent)

Harbor Compliance is a good option if you’re looking for a budget option. If you’re willing to trade Northwest’s comprehensive customer service in order to save a mere $26 per year, Harbor Compliance gets the job done. 

Pros

Harbor Compliance provides your business with all the basic services that a Kentucky registered agent must in order to keep your limited liability company compliant and in good standing with the Kentucky Secretary of State. 

They provide your LLC with a street address in Kentucky and are available during normal business hours to receive service of process and mail and documents on behalf of your LLC, and they scan and file the documents onto an online portal for you to access with an online account. They also issue compliance alert notifications and annual report reminders to let you know when you need to file a form or document for your LLC. 

You’ll find that it’s easy to sign into their online system and easy to navigate as well. 

Cons

All their services are adequate, but none of them are extraordinary in any way. 

They provide all the services that a Kentucky registered agent must, but they don’t provide any “extras” to speak of. Their customer service is adequate, answering your questions and offering solutions, but they’re not on the same level as Northwest Registered Agent. 

So while their services are good, they’re not great. 

Overall

Harbor Compliance charges the lowest fee on my list for their registered agent service, and they provide your LLC with the services it needs in order to meet its legal compliance obligations for that price. 

If you’re more concerned with saving money than the quality of services you get for the price, you can read more about Harbor Compliance on their website. 

3. LegalZoom — 6.59/10 (Best Premium Service)

LegalZoom is third on my list and my top choice for the best premium registered agent in Kentucky. 

Pros

LegalZoom is a commercial Kentucky registered agent, and they’re a big name in the business world because they offer other services (like legal document templates). Their reputation for delivering exactly what they guarantee has made them a trusted company in the business world. 

They will provide your LLC with a Kentucky street address and accept mail, documents, and service of process from the Kentucky Secretary of State on behalf of your business entity during normal business hours, and issue compliance filing notifications to remind you when you need to file a form or send in documents (like your annual report) to keep your company in good standing with the Kentucky Secretary of State. 

The main benefit of LegalZoom’s Kentucky registered agent service is that one of their premium services is to provide up to $1 million in identity theft protection. The prevalence of hackers and scammers in the online world makes this particular perk quite useful. 

Cons

The fact that LegalZoom is a well-known commercial Kentucky registered agent is one that they exploit in order to charge more for their services than they’re actually worth. You’re essentially paying more for the prestige of using the registered agent’s name. 

They charge a whopping $299 per state, per year for their services, which aren’t as accommodating as Northwest's. Northwest Registered Agent’s fee is only $125, so the extra $176 that LegalZoom charges could be saved simply by choosing Northwest Registered Agent and purchasing cheaper identity theft protection from a third party instead. 

LegalZoom’s registered agent service is not what they specialize in, so there’s not as much care put into it as their legal document template services. Their online system isn’t very easy to use and their customer service team isn’t very knowledgeable about the registered agent services, and therefore isn’t able to answer questions about the registered agent service. 

Overall

LegalZoom is a big name in the business world that many business people know and trust and they also offer premium registered agent service. If you’re already doing business with LegalZoom and you really want the convenience of purchasing legal document templates, registered agent service, and identity theft protection from the same company, they’re a good choice. 

However, if you actually care about things like how much you’re paying for registered agent service, a customer service team that’s knowledgeable about their services and an easy-to-navigate online system, there are better choices out there for you. 

If you don’t mind paying more money for fewer services, you can learn about LegalZoom here.

Here are less-detailed reviews of the other nine Kentucky registered agent services:

4. ZenBusiness

ZenBusiness is a Kentucky registered agent service that provides all the basic services that a Kentucky registered agent must, like providing your LLC with a street address in Kentucky and accepting mail, documents, and service of process on behalf of your business, a compliance alert system, an online document storage dashboard, and mandatory annual report filing. But for some reason, they charge $199 for these basic services. 

They make LLC formation services the primary focus of their business, so they can also help your LLC draft and file its Articles of Organization. This is probably why their Kentucky registered agent service is so difficult to use and less than optimized. No matter what their reason for it is, they definitely charge a fee that’s higher than Northwest Registered Agent and their services aren’t as desirable. 

If you still want to read more about ZenBusiness’ registered agent service for some reason, you can read my full ZenBusiness review.

5. IncFile 

IncFile is a Kentucky registered agent that offers the bare minimum services that they must provide, like providing a street address in Kentucky for your business entity and accepting mail and service of process during business hours. But they don’t offer much more than that. 

Their fee for their Kentucky registered agent service is $119 per state, per year. Even though that’s a little less than Northwest Registered Agent’s fee, their services aren’t as good as Northwest’s, so I can’t recommend IncFile as highly. 

6. Rocket Lawyer 

Rocket Lawyer is essentially a cheap knockoff of the commercial Kentucky registered agent, LegalZoom. Unfortunately, with a fee of $149 per state per year, Rocket Lawyer isn’t much cheaper. 

They provide you and your business with the registered office and street address in the state of Kentucky that you need and they’re available during business hours to receive any mail or service of process that the Kentucky Secretary of State sends to your LLC, and they forward the mail to your business. But Northwest Registered Agent only charges $125 per state, per year and Rocket Lawyer doesn’t offer as many services as Northwest, so that’s why it’s a little further down my list.

If you'd like to learn more about Rocket Lawyer's online legal services, read my full Rocket Lawyer review.

7. SunDoc Filings 

SunDoc Filings is yet another Kentucky registered agent that charges $159 per state per year for their services, which could be considered generic at best. Of course, your business in Kentucky will receive an office address in the state of Kentucky to use, and they’re available during business hours to accept mail and service of process on your behalf.

But for that steep price, you won’t even get compliance filing alerts to let you know when you need to file a form or document for your LLC to stay in the Kentucky Secretary of State’s good graces. 

8. InCorp 

InCorp presents an interesting conundrum that makes it difficult to review and makes it hard for the average person to determine if it’s a good deal. 

Not only are they a Kentucky registered agent, they also offer LLC formation services for a one-time fee that are helpful when starting a business because they help draft and file your Articles of Organization. They also provide you with the agent’s name and address in Kentucky. They'll also remind you when you need to file a form or send in your annual report to keep your company in good standing with the Kentucky Secretary of State. 

They offer mostly the same sort of services that Harbor Compliance does, and at the same price for their services: $99 per state, per year. However, the reason they’re so far down the list is that their online system is a nightmare to navigate. It’s so hard to use and deal with that they fell pretty far down the list. 

If you want to pay the same price that Harbor Compliance charges just to deal with a clunky and difficult system, you can learn about InCorp here: 

9. Swyft Filings 

Swyft Filings, like many other agent services on this less detailed section, charges far too much for the few services they offer. Their fee is $149 per state per year and for that price you’ll be provided with little more than an address in Kentucky. 

Read my full Swyft Filings review and learn more about their services.

10. CSC Global 

I’m going to call CSC Global a “premium” Kentucky agent, which I’ll explain in a minute. They charge $299 per state, per year for their services, which isn’t an unusual price for a premium agent. Of course, for that price you get the coveted address in Kentucky that your business entity needs, as well as all the basic services you’d expect from a full-service agent, such as accepting service of process on your behalf. They also send you notifications to remind you when you need to file a form or send in documents (like your annual report) to keep your company in good standing with the Kentucky Secretary of State. 

However, the only “premium” service that they offer is they pay any state filing fee you might be charged when you change your previous Kentucky registered agent service to them. That sounds good until you realize that the filing fee doesn’t justify their price. The difference between CSC Global’s price and Northwest’s is $176 and for that price you could sign up for Northwest’s excellent services, pay the state filing fee when you change registered agent services for your business entity and still have money left over. 

11. Registered Agents Inc. 

Registered Agents Inc. is the only agent service on this list that focuses solely on their registered agent services, which is exciting. The reason that they’re so far down the list is that they charge $200 per state, per year for services that amount to giving your business entity an address in the state of Kentucky and accepting mail on its behalf. 

12. Jumpstart Filings 

Jumpstart Filings is another Kentucky registered agent that offers too little and charges too much. For $129 per state, per year, you’ll get the bare minimum services your business entity needs, like an office address in the state of Kentucky. For that price you’re better off going with Northwest Registered Agent. 

Registered Agent Review Summary

Out of all the registered agents in Kentucky that I investigated (over 60) and then reviewed (12), Northwest Registered Agent was by far the best option. 

For $125 per state, per year, they provide your business with all the services you need, plus some extras (they scan ALL your mail and documents and put them all online, not just the documents), and provide you with outstanding customer service and business support. 

You’ll find that they don’t offer any premium services, but their system is so easy to get set up with and use, and the fact that their customer service team is the best in the industry more than makes up for the lack of premium services.

If you’re a new business that has yet to appoint a registered agent in Kentucky, or you need to change your registered agent and want the very best agent for your business, then sign up with Northwest Registered Agent.

Best Registered Agent Review Methodology 

This is the method I used to determine the best registered agent for your LLC:

Why You Should Trust Me

You should trust me because I have more experience and knowledge about Kentucky registered agent services than most other people, including people who actually work for Kentucky registered agent companies. 

It all started when I decided I wanted the best Kentucky registered agent service for my two businesses. 

I knew I didn’t want to deal with the legal troubles that could come from missing a service of process or a piece of official mail from the Kentucky Secretary of State. So I spent long hours reading through a ton of promotional material in order to determine what was just hype and what was actually true. 

I spent more hours than I could really afford reading online reviews and I ran up high phone bills calling 12 different customer service lines and waiting on hold with several of them. 

I’ve also helped thousands of people online (just like you!) find their ideal Kentucky registered agent services. 

Helping many close business friends find the best Kentucky registered agent for their businesses led me to the conclusion that I was definitely the right person to help other people find the registered agent service to suit their business needs based on my experience and knowledge. 

Since I started this business, I’ve helped thousands of people by doing the research so they didn’t have to, and I can help you too. 

How I Selected the Best Registered Agent

This is the four-stage investigative process that I used to eliminate several of the Kentucky registered agent services on the original list of over 60 Kentucky registered agents for your Kentucky LLC:

Stage 1: Reviews

The first stage involved checking out online reviews about each agent. I read reviews on sites like TrustPilot, Google Business, Facebook, and the Better Business Bureau, as well as other online review sites. 

This stage saved me some time because it weeded out nearly 50 agents who were obviously scams, and those who used deceptive pricing practices. (More on that later.) 

Stage 2: Website Analysis

After I’d completed the first stage of my investigation, I was left with 12 different Kentucky registered agent services. I deep-dived into each of the remaining agents’ websites to see what sort of services they offered. 

I read up on their service offerings, their customer service contact options (email, phone, chat), their “About” page, their location, and even contacted customer support if I had questions. 

When I was done with this stage, I was left with a spreadsheet containing 13 rows and 24 columns detailing each agent’s services. 

Stage 3: Speaking with Real Customers

Reading a company’s website will tell you what services they offer, but talking to actual customers will tell you about their customer experience with a particular company. This stage told me whether the agent was efficient, effective, and polite.

Online reviews don’t paint the whole picture because most people only leave an online review if they’ve had either an overwhelmingly good or an overwhelmingly bad experience with a company. Reaching out and talking to customers fills in more of the blanks. 

So I reached out to people whom I had helped find the ideal Kentucky registered agent for their business, along with new visitors to the site, and I asked them about their experiences with their registered agent service. 

This is an effective way to hear about the customer experience concerning these services from the customers themselves.

Stage 4: Speaking with Their Sales Teams

The last stage of my investigation had me calling and talking to each agent’s sales team. 

Of course, you should expect the sales team to give you a biased account. But it’s interesting to see how they deal with feedback and criticism, and it’s even more telling to find out how the company as a whole uses the feedback. 

I gathered all the negative comments, feedback, and issues with service I found throughout the course of my investigation and I asked the sales team very direct questions about them. It was interesting to find out whether they said things like the company had already seen that feedback and used it to fix the problem so that it was no longer an issue, or if the company couldn’t own up to their failings and chose to blame the customer instead. 

This stage allowed me to determine the sort of culture each company has, and whether they value feedback and growth. 

Rating Factors

We rated the remaining 12 Kentucky registered agent services for your Kentucky LLC using the following five factors. 

Factor 1: Offerings

Kentucky registered agents offer a wide range of services.

Some agents simply provide a physical address in Kentucky, offer to keep your information safe and off the public record, and forward your mail. Some offer cheap registered agent services, and still others offer the best quality service. 

There are some agents that provide compliance filing notifications, and they’ll scan your important documents (such as service of process) and put them on an online portal. Others offer cheap LLC services or even the best LLC services. There are few restrictions regarding who can be listed as a Registered Agent, the most important being that the registered agent must be located and available at a physical street address within the state of Kentucky during normal business hours.

There are even some agents who offer identity theft protection as part of their services. 

So the first factor I used to rate each agent was their service offerings. It’s arguably the most important factor because if an agent doesn’t provide the services you need, none of the other factors really matter. 

Factor 2: Value

Not only are the service offerings important, but the value of the offerings for the price is something that should be seriously considered, as well. 

Unfortunately, the price of registered agent in Kentucky vary so widely that it’s hard for the average person to determine what is a good value. Some agents claim to charge $39 per state per year for their services, while others charge more like $299 per state per year. 

So the next factor I used to rate each agent was their value—price weighed against the services they offered. Which agent offers the most bang for your buck?

During the course of my investigation I found that many agents in Kentucky use deceptive pricing practices. They claim to only charge $39–$59 per state, per year for their services. But when you look more closely into the services you get for that price, they’re less than the minimum you need. 

To get the services you need your Kentucky registered agent to provide, you have to pay fees that can cost an additional $120 per year. 

I’m not a fan of these deceptive pricing practices because I feel that they’re unethical. For this reason, the agents who used these tactics were excluded from my list. 

Factor 3: Ease of Sign-up

It’s infuriating to find a company that offers the services you want at a good price, only to find that they have a complicated process to get set up in their system that takes weeks. 

That’s why the ease of sign-up was the third factor I used to rate each agent. 

Was their sign-up process simple and automated with merely a few fields to fill in? Or, in addition, did they require a mountain of paperwork to be filled out and faxed to a suspicious and inconvenient PO Box in some faraway land along with the blood of your firstborn child and copies of your dental records? 

To save you this time and aggravation, I signed up for each of the 12 agents’ services to see how easy their sign-up process is, and I used this as the third rating factor. 

Factor 4: Ease of Use

Just because an agent has an easy sign-up process doesn’t mean that their online system is easy to use. It can be a real turnoff to find an agent that has everything you want only to find out that their system is so antiquated and difficult to use that it annoys the whole office. So, this was the fourth rating factor. 

Again, I saved you some time and probably a headache or two because I tested each agent’s system to determine how easy it was to navigate. 

I logged into the systems and played around in them to determine how easy they were to use, and then tried to perform some simple tasks in them, taking note of where I got stuck (if I did).

Factor 5: Customer Service

No matter how well a system is designed you will eventually encounter a problem or glitch in it, so customer service is crucial in these instances. 

An agent with excellent customer service can resolve your problems and help you get on with your day. An agent with particularly bad customer service, well . . . if you’ve ever tried to call the DMV then you know what I’m getting at. 

I called each agent’s customer service to ask simple questions and took notes about how long it took them to respond, how efficiently they answered my questions, how polite and helpful they were and how many people I had to speak to in order to get my solution. 

The Best Kentucky Registered Agent Results Summary

I started with a list of over 60 Kentucky registered agents and whittled the list down to 12, then rated and reviewed the best 12. Here are the top three registered agent services in Kentucky. 

Best Overall Registered Agent — Northwest Registered Agent (9.13/10)

Northwest Registered Agent is my top choice because they offer all the services your company needs for only $125 per year, and they provide the best customer service in the industry. 

They provide your business with an address in Kentucky, receive mail and service of process on behalf of your LLC, protect your information by keeping it off the public record, and help your company meet its legal requirements. 

They provide not only the services you need but the ones you want as well. They scan ALL your mail and documents the day they’re received and upload them to an online portal (not just the documents), send you compliance filing notifications so that your business remains in good standing with the Kentucky Secretary of State, and offer discounted prices on registered agent services in multiple states for multiple years. 

Their customer service is by far their best feature. 

They have a US-based customer service team that’s made up of former lawyers, accountants, business owners and entrepreneurs that have enough business experience to answer the most common questions, as well as some unusual ones. They have the knowledge to answer any business question you come to them with and they do their best to guide your business on the right track. 

There are over 3,000 positive Northwest Registered Agent reviews online, so it’s pretty obvious that my experience wasn’t unique. 

If you’ve been considering making a change to your Kentucky registered agent service, or you simply want the best registered agent in Kentucky, sign up for Northwest Registered Agent’s excellent service today.

Best Budget Registered Agent — Harbor Compliance (7.92/10)

Harbor Compliance is a good choice if you’re happy to trade away Northwest Registered Agent’s quality services and outstanding customer service in order to save a measly $26 per year. 

They provide all the services your business needs, just like Northwest Registered Agent, such as providing an address in Kentucky, scanning your mail and forwarding it. But unlike Northwest Registered Agent’s services, you won’t get all the services you want. 

You’ll be able to navigate around their system pretty easily and their customer service team is able to guide you through most issues even if they aren’t as comprehensive as Northwest Registered Agent’s team.

And even though it's one of the cheapest services, there are hundreds of positive Harbor Compliance reviews online to prove what I'm saying here.

If you’re more worried about saving a few bucks than having quality services, you can read more about Harbor Compliance on their website. 

Best Premium Registered Agent — Legal Zoom (6.59/10)

If you’re looking for a premium Kentucky registered agent, as opposed to a full-service registered agent, LegalZoom is a good choice. 

They provide all the typical full-service agent options (except for compliance alerts), along with one pretty attractive feature that Northwest doesn’t have—identity theft protection. As a premium agent, they provide up to $1 million in identity theft insurance. 

They charge a lot more for this feature than it’s worth. They charge $176 more than Northwest Registered Agent and for that price you could easily pay for Northwest’s excellent services and purchase identity theft protection from a third party for less. 

If you feel the need to pay an unreasonable fee to get registered agent services and identity theft protection from the same company, you can read about LegalZoom here: LegalZoom.

In Conclusion

A Kentucky registered agent is required by law for every formal business in the state of Kentucky. You can ensure that your personal details are kept off the public record and that your legal obligations are met by appointing the best Kentucky registered agent for your business. 

I investigated over 60 different Kentucky registered agent services, whittled the list down to 12, which I then rated, and then wrote in-depth reviews of the top three. 

This investigative process and rating system led me to conclude that Northwest Registered Agent is the best registered agent in Kentucky. 

They provide all the services your business needs and all the extra services that you want. They provide you with an address in Kentucky, they scan ALL your mail and documents and put them on an online portal, and they forward your mail. They also offer LLC formation services, accept service of process, and issue compliance alerts. You'll appreciate their easy-to-use system and US-based customer service team that’s experienced enough to help you with almost any issue or question. 

On top of all that, they provide all these services for only $125 per state, per year. 

If you’re in need of an excellent Kentucky registered agent service, head on over to check out Northwest Registered Agent.