Mississippi LLC and Business Entity Search on corp.sos.ms.gov

Four Tabs on corp.sos.ms.gov for a Mississippi Business Entity Search

The Mississippi Secretary of State Business Search at corp.sos.ms.gov charges no fee and has no sign-in. It has four tabs: Business Name, Business ID, Officer Name and Registered Agent. The Officer Name tab searches the names listed under a record’s Officers & Directors, where an LLC’s members appear.

To look up an LLC in Mississippi:

1. Open Business Search and keep the Business Name tab, or switch to Business ID, Officer Name or Registered Agent.
2. Pick a mode: Starting With (the default), All Words, Any Words, Sounds Like or Exact Match.
3. Type one distinctive word and read the Status column; merged and renamed entries stay in the list, since there is no filter for active companies.
4. Click Details, then View Filed Documents and View Image for the PDFs.

Above the form, the state warns: “Our office has received reports of both fraudulent business filings and lawsuits being filed against incorrect business entities.” A search for “viking range” returns three entries, and only one of them, Viking Range, LLC (1018063), is in Good Standing.

Inside a Mississippi Record: Members, Agent, Fictitious Names

Details opens the record: Business Type, Business ID, Status, Effective Date, State of Incorporation, Principal Office Address, the registered agent with its Mississippi address, and an Officers & Directors list with the name, title and address of officers, members or managers.

Above Business Information, the record’s Name History gives a Name Type for each entry: Viking Range, LLC shows its Legal name and two Fictitious Names, LYNX GRILLS and Fountain Building Condominiums. The results list calls the same company a Foreign Limited Liability Company (LLC), while the record says Limited Liability Company with DE as its state. “Opt-in or Opt-out of Email updates” subscribes an address to notices of new filings on that company.

Every Filed Document Opens Free as a PDF

View Filed Documents, at the top of a record, opens the company’s filing history. Each filing has its Type, its Filed Date and a View Image button that brings up the PDF with no login or payment, whether it is the formation papers, an annual report, a fictitious name registration, a merger or a registered agent address change. The state’s FAQ adds that “Your company’s FEIN and telephone number will be redacted from forms appearing on the Secretary of State’s website.”

A Certificate of Good Standing (or of Existence), a Certificate of Fact and certified copies are ordered online, and “Certificates and copies of most business filings will be available immediately upon payment.” The published fee schedule doesn’t list a certificate fee. Each certificate carries a Certificate Number, which the state’s Verify Certificate page confirms.

The Business ID Has Six or Seven Digits and No Leading Zero

The Business Reports help file says “all businesses operating in Mississippi have a unique six or seven digit business ID number.” The number has no letters, and a leading zero breaks the search: on the state’s search, 1018063 finds Viking Range, LLC and 01018063 finds nothing; the search on this page drops a leading zero before it looks.

The number doesn’t show the entity type; the Type column does. On this page, Good Standing appears as Good, and an entry the state lists as Name Change appears as Undefined. A Mississippi entity’s Business ID is what the state asks for to file an annual report, an amendment or a reinstatement. It is not an EIN, and no Mississippi search returns one (see looking up a company’s EIN).

Intent To Dissolve Comes Before Dissolution

Mississippi’s list of statuses has a step before Administratively Dissolved: Intent To Dissolve, followed by the reason in letters. The state’s data spells the codes out: AR for the annual report, RA for the registered agent, and T or Tax for a tax problem, alone or combined.

The other statuses are Good Standing, Active, InActive, Dissolved, Administratively Dissolved, Cancelled, Withdrawn By Merger, Revoked, Merged and Expired. The Secretary of State’s annual report page doesn’t say how long a company stays in Intent To Dissolve before it is dissolved.

Free for Mississippi LLCs, $250 for Foreign Ones: the Annual Report

Corporations and LLCs can file their annual report from January 1, and it is due by April 15, online only. For a Mississippi LLC it costs nothing (“domestic LLC owners can file annual reports on the Secretary of State’s website at NO COST”); a foreign LLC pays $250 and a Mississippi corporation $25. A 2024 law added a nonprofit annual report, due May 15.

The report opens with the Business ID and comes “pre-populated with the information already in the system.” “Failure to file the Annual Report may result in the administrative dissolution of the organization.” To reinstate an administratively dissolved Mississippi company, all corporations and certain LLCs first get a tax clearance letter from the Mississippi Department of Revenue; reinstatement costs $50 for a Mississippi LLC and $100 for a foreign one. Each screen of the filing is covered in the Mississippi annual report guide.

Third-party mailers urging annual report filings have prompted state warnings in 2024 and 2025. According to the Secretary of State, such letters can “[c]ontain your business entity’s actual business ID number and date of formation,” copied from the public record.

DBAs and Name Availability: What a Mississippi Business Name Search Shows

Mississippi offers no name availability search tool of its own: the same Business Search shows whether a name is taken, and Sounds Like or Exact Match surfaces close variants before a filing. A fictitious business name (a DBA) is a $25 Secretary of State filing, attached to the company’s own record, so searching “lynx grills” here returns Viking Range, LLC.

Reserving an LLC name costs $25. Forming an LLC in Mississippi takes a $50 Certificate of Formation (see how to start a Mississippi LLC). A C corporation starts with $50 Articles of Incorporation and then files a $25 annual report each year; the C corporation part is an IRS tax classification, not a separate state filing. For trademarks and domains too, run a wider LLC name check.

Commercial or Noncommercial Registered Agent

Since the Registered Agents Act took effect on January 1, 2013, Mississippi has had two kinds of agent. A commercial registered agent is on a public list and accepts any company that names it unless it files a Statement of Non-acceptance within 14 days. “Noncommercial registered agents will not be listed on the Secretary of State’s website,” and a company needs their permission before naming them.

Any individual, corporation or LLC with a physical address in Mississippi can be a noncommercial agent. On a record, the agent’s name is a link that reruns the search on the Registered Agent tab. The state’s Recently Named Commercial Agents page lists, day by day, the companies that named a commercial agent in the past 14 days, with their Business ID.

When a Company Is Filed in Your Name

Since July 1, 2026, the Mississippi Business Filing Fraud Prevention Act (HB 1532) lets a person file a notarized Declaration of Wrongful Business Filing. The filer has 30 calendar days to respond after the state’s notice; without an answer, the filing is “deemed fraudulent” and treated “as if the filing never existed.”

An entity registered with a Mississippi resident’s name, address or identity without consent “is deemed dissolved,” its record is marked as unauthorized or fraudulent, and the names and addresses used without authorization are redacted. Filing documents on a company without authority is a misdemeanor enforced by the Attorney General, whose Consumer Protection Hotline is 1-800-281-4418. Every filing also triggers an email to the addresses tied to the company.

Business Reports: the Registry as an Excel File

Mississippi Business Reports runs “a customized search of the Mississippi Secretary of State’s corporations database” for free, filtering “all current registered businesses in Mississippi” by status, entity type, domestic or foreign, city, county, ZIP code, formation date, NAICS code and Other Names (DBAs), then exports up to 300,000 rows to Excel. Larger exports go through Business Services at 601-359-1633.

Companies list up to three NAICS codes when they file; the state’s help file filters on 53 (real estate) in Jackson as its example.