LARA Corporations Division, Lansing
Michigan Business Entity Search on the LARA Registry
A Michigan business entity search goes through the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (LARA), not the Secretary of State: its Corporations Division runs the free Business Search in the MiBusiness Registry Portal. Each result shows two separate things: whether the company exists (Status) and whether its yearly filings are up to date (AR Standing).
Search Michigan businesses
Michigan onlyOne distinctive word finds more than the full legal name.
Try:
Where to look
LARA Business Entity Search: Michigan’s Register Isn’t at the Secretary of State
The Michigan Secretary of State (SOS) doesn’t keep business records. The LARA Corporations Division files the documents that form and maintain Michigan corporations, LLCs and partnerships, and “makes this information available to the public”. Since June 23, 2025, that record is searched in the MiBusiness Registry Portal, which replaced the older COFS system; logins from the old system did not carry over.
Step 1: Enter a Name or File Number, Then Pick Starts With or Contains
The box takes a name or a file number, with at least two characters. Advanced switches the search to an individual’s name, a resident agent’s name or the Corporation Card File, changes the match from Starts With (the default) to Contains or Name Availability, and filters by entity type, status and registration date. The page can briefly show a “Verifying you are a human” check before the form loads.
Step 2: Read AR Standing Next to Status
Results list the Name, Filing Date, Status, AR Standing, Entity Type, Entity ID#, Agent and AR Due Date, the next deadline for the yearly filing. A Matched Names line under a result shows the name that matched, which can be an earlier name: a search for Ford Motor Company also returns Ford Philanthropy, once named Ford Motor Company Fund. The Entity ID# seen in results has nine digits, such as 800995297.
Step 3: Open the Slide-Out Drawer
Clicking the entity name (or the arrow on its row) opens the drawer, with Request Certificate and Request Access, the step a company takes before filing through its own record. LARA’s renewal pages say images of all filed documents can be viewed through Business Entity Search. The header above the search box gives the date through which filings have been processed.
Active but “Not Good”: How Michigan Handles Late Annual Filings
A late Michigan LLC is not dissolved. After two years of missed annual statements and a 60-day notice, it becomes not in good standing: it still exists and may keep doing business, but it can’t get a certificate of good standing and its name becomes available to others (MCL 450.4207a).
| Entity | Due each year | Fee | If it stays unfiled |
|---|---|---|---|
| LLC | February 15 | $25 | Not in good standing after 2 years |
| Professional LLC | February 15 | $75, $50 more if late | Not in good standing after 2 years |
| Profit corporation | May 15 | $25, plus $10 a month late (up to $50) | Automatically dissolved 60 days after 2 years |
| Foreign corporation | May 15 | $25, plus late penalty | Authority subject to revocation after 1 year |
| Nonprofit corporation | October 1 | $20 | Dissolved after 2 years |
All annual reports and statements are filed online now; LARA stopped accepting paper ones with the new portal. An LLC formed after September 30 skips the next February 15. Reminders go by email 90 days before the due date to the address on the record. Notices come from LARA’s Corporations, Securities, and Commercial Licensing Bureau and go to the resident agent; on June 24, 2025, LARA warned about look-alike annual statement mailings from a private company named New Business Filing LLC.
Restoring an LLC, Renewing a Corporation
The Certificate of Restoration of Good Standing costs $50, plus $25 for each missed annual statement; a restoration received on or after February 15 also carries the current year’s $25 statement. An LLC that missed two statements and restores in March pays $125. If its name was taken in the meantime, it picks a new one. A dissolved profit corporation renews by filing each missed report, $75 a year, oldest first. Filing steps are covered in Michigan’s LLC annual statement.
Officers Are Filed Every Year in Michigan, LLC Members Are Not
A Michigan corporation’s annual report names its president, secretary, treasurer and directors with their addresses, so the officers of a corporation are on the public record. An LLC’s annual statement only gives its resident agent and registered office, so its members and managers don’t appear.
Michigan says resident agent, not registered agent, and every result shows the agent’s name in the Agent column. The agent is a Michigan resident or a company authorized in Michigan, never the business itself. Changing the agent or the registered office costs $5 (form CSCL/CD-520). A name entered in the Person tab brings up every company where it appears as officer, director or resident agent.
A $10 Certificate of Good Standing, Checked With Its Verification Number
A certificate of good standing costs $10 ($12.50 expedited) and is ordered online with a MiLogin for Business account: Request Certificate in the record’s drawer, then Certificate of Good Standing Request; it arrives by email. Phone orders ended with the new portal.
Anyone handed a certificate can check it in the portal’s Certificate Verification search, by its Certificate Verification No. A corporation stays entitled to one until it is dissolved; an LLC loses it as soon as it is no longer in good standing.
Michigan Name Availability: a Filter Inside the Same Search
LARA refuses a name that can’t be told apart from another corporation’s, limited partnership’s or LLC’s. The Business Search checks it with the Name Availability filter under Advanced, and LARA advises waiting until the articles are filed before ordering signs or stationery.
An LLC name needs Limited Liability Company, L.L.C., LLC, L.C. or LC, and can’t use corporation, incorporated, corp. or inc. An Application for Reservation of Name holds it until the end of the sixth full calendar month after the filing month: $25 for an LLC, $10 for a corporation or limited partnership. The name search doesn’t check trademarks; a trademark screen for a new LLC name covers them.
A Company Files Its DBA With LARA, a Sole Proprietor With the County
A corporation, LLC or limited partnership files a Certificate of Assumed Name with LARA ($25 for an LLC, $10 for a corporation), valid until December 31 of the fifth full calendar year after filing. A sole proprietor or general partnership registers instead with the clerk of every Michigan county where it operates (MCL 445.1), so those DBAs aren’t in the LARA search.
Michigan Treasury Uses the EIN as Its Account Number, Kept Private
No public Michigan EIN lookup shows a company’s number, and LARA’s register doesn’t carry it. The Department of Treasury uses the federal EIN itself as a business’s tax account number; the older ME numbers were discontinued at the end of 2014.
Treasury registration and Michigan Treasury Online run on that federal tax ID (FEIN), which stays confidential. Retrieving a company’s EIN from the IRS covers a lost number. For a tax-exempt nonprofit, the IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search finds it by name.
Before Calling LARA’s Corporations Division
Where is a Michigan business license looked up?
Not in LARA’s Business Search: the Corporations Division files formation documents, and licenses come from other agencies, listed in the state’s State License Search.
How long does LARA take to review a filing?
Up to 10 business days without expedited service, with the current processed-through date shown on the search page. Expedited review ranges from $50 for a formation document within 24 hours to $1,000 for one hour, on top of the filing fee.
Where do annual statement questions go?
To annualreport@michigan.gov, which also handles restorations; other questions go to CorpsMail@michigan.gov or 517-241-6470.