Minnesota Business Entity Search: Secretary of State Business Filings

MN SOS Business Search: Switch the Filter to Find Inactive Companies

Search Business Filings starts on Active, so a terminated LLC or a dissolved corporation only appears once Filing Status is set to Inactive. Names can be searched with Begins With (the default) or Contains, and Include Prior Names also searches former names; a result stops at 500 records.

Step 1: Set Filing Status and Prior Names

To look up an LLC in Minnesota, check Filing Status first; the Secretary of State’s own renewal help points out the Inactive setting. With Include Prior Names on, Dayton Hudson Corporation turns up as a former name of Target Corporation, file number 11-AA. Assumed names and state trademarks come back in the same list, each with its Business Type. The Secretary of State, not a corporation commission, keeps Minnesota’s corporation records, so an MN corp search runs here too.

Step 2: Open Details and Read the Renewal Due Date

For every business registration on file, Business Record Details gives the status, the Business Type (for example Limited Liability Company (Domestic)), the MN Statute chapter (322C for an LLC, 302A for a corporation, 333 for assumed names and marks), the Renewal Due Date, the registered office and agent, and the CEO or manager. Filing History lists the company’s corporate filings, from the original filing to amendments, mergers, agent changes and terminations, and Renewal History each renewal.

Viewing is free and anonymous; copies and certificates, ordered through Business Filings Online, mean creating an online account. Bank and insurance corporations are detailed by the Minnesota Department of Commerce instead.

Minnesota Annual Renewal: Free for LLCs, Due December 31

Minnesota has no annual report. LLCs and Minnesota corporations file a free annual renewal by December 31 each year, starting the year after they were formed; without it, the Secretary of State administratively terminates the LLC or dissolves the corporation.

The renewal isn’t free for everyone: a foreign corporation pays $115 by mail or $135 online, and an LLP $135 or $155. It confirms the registered office and the name and address of the CEO or manager (Minn. Stat. §5.34). A record whose Renewal Due Date reads 12/31/2027 has already renewed for 2026. Filing it online is covered in renewing a Minnesota LLC each year.

Reinstatement Is Retroactive, for $25 or $45

An administratively terminated LLC comes back by filing one annual renewal and paying $25 by mail or $45 online, and returns to active status as of the termination date (Minn. Stat. §322C.0706); the Secretary of State adds that the name must still be available. The Filing History of Minnesota Vikings Football Club, L.L.C. (9099-LLC) shows the cycle: administrative termination in January 2023, reinstatement that October, then again in January and February 2025. A foreign corporation pays $500 by mail or $520 online to reinstate.

Minnesota File Numbers: From 11‑AA to 13 Digits, Dash Included

A Minnesota file number can be short and lettered, as in 11-AA for Target Corporation, or run to 13 digits for recent filings, and the dash is part of it: 1K1056 finds nothing, while 1K-1056 opens Best Buy Co., Inc.

The long code in a record’s web address is an internal ID, not the file number. One name can hold several numbers: Target Corporation is active as 11-AA and inactive as 10W-216.

Minnesota LLC Lookup: One Manager Name, No Member List

An MN LLC lookup shows the LLC’s manager and a corporation’s chief executive officer, with a business address, because the annual renewal asks for that one name. Members, shareholders and other officers aren’t listed.

“Information provided when filing a business entity is public data and may be viewable online. This includes but is not limited to all individual names and addresses,” the filing portal warns. Every entity keeps a registered office in Minnesota, an actual office rather than just a P.O. box, but a Minnesota company may choose not to name a registered agent; a company from another state must name one (Minn. Stat. §5.36).

Edwards LLC Next to Edwards Inc.: Minnesota’s One-Letter Name Rule

For a Minnesota business name search, the rule is short: “To be accepted for filing, Business Names must be different by at least one letter or numeral from other names already on file.” Minnesota reads & as AND and removes everything but letters and digits, so capitals, punctuation and spaces don’t count, while a plural, a Roman numeral or the entity ending does: Edwards LLC and Edwards Inc. can both exist.

Checking availability means creating an online account on the portal. A name already on file can still be used through an abandoned-name affidavit ($35 by mail or $55 online) when its holder has been on file for three years, has filed nothing in that time, can’t be reached by certified mail or by phone, and isn’t known to be in business; otherwise written consent or a court decree is needed. A name reservation lasts one year for $35 by mail or $55 online. Federal marks at the USPTO aren’t part of that check, and state marks can’t be checked online, so a separate trademark check on a Minnesota name should come before setting up a Minnesota LLC.

Minnesota Assumed Names (DBA): Published in a Newspaper, Not Exclusive

A Minnesota assumed name (DBA) is filed with the Secretary of State for $30 by mail or $50 online, then published in two successive issues of a qualified legal newspaper in the county of the principal place of business; its annual renewal is free.

The office doesn’t check assumed names against each other, so Search Business Filings returns 29 active “Cub Foods” records filed by several applicants, among them Cub Stores Holdings, LLC and Forest Lake 2000 LLC. Assumed names are only found there, under Business Type “Assumed Name”; the box on this page doesn’t return them. A sole proprietor using a name other than their full first and last name files one too.

A Minnesota Mark Runs Ten Years, With a Reminder

A Minnesota trademark costs $50 by mail or $70 online, must already be in use, and lasts ten years, with a reminder from the Secretary of State about six months before it expires. Expired marks, such as ROBIN HOOD (2095), filed by General Mills, Inc., appear once the filter is set to Inactive.

Minnesota EIN Lookup, Tax ID and Business License Lookup

Business Record Details has no EIN field: the FEIN comes from the IRS, the 7-digit Minnesota Tax ID is issued by the Department of Revenue, and the file number is neither. Minnesota has no general state business license either; a license is checked through the look-up links of the License Minnesota portal, which covers over 920 state licenses, permits and registrations.

“All kinds of businesses operate in Minnesota with no special permission or constraints,” the Department of Employment and Economic Development notes, and cities such as Minneapolis and St. Paul license some businesses locally. A business making taxable sales registers for a Minnesota Tax ID and a sales tax account first. Another company’s EIN has to come from outside the state registry; see the records that can reveal an EIN.

Proof of Good Standing, Emailed Within 15 Minutes

Ordered online, a Certificate of Good Standing costs $15 and is emailed within 10 to 15 minutes of payment; by mail or in person it costs $5. It isn’t offered for an inactive record.

Business Identity Recovery, New on January 1, 2026

Since January 1, 2026, a person whose name or address was used on a business filing without permission can file a free Declaration of Wrongful Filing; if no one answers the notice within 21 days, a fake entity is removed and an altered record is redacted and flagged. To watch a record, the Secretary of State points owners to the Renewal History tab, which shows when the business was last renewed.