The Business and Commercial Services Division of the Arkansas Secretary of State, known on its own pages as BCS, keeps the records of almost 200,000 active business entities organized or authorized in the state, open under the Freedom of Information Act except for some franchise tax information. Its search of incorporations, cooperatives, banks and insurance companies takes a name or a fictitious name, a filing number, or a registered agent with the agent city and state, and can be narrowed to one of about forty entity types from a benefit corporation to a protected series or a video service provider.
What makes the Arkansas record different is the tax behind it. Under the Arkansas Corporate Franchise Tax Act of 1979, Section 26-54-101 of the Arkansas Code, every corporation, limited liability company, bank and insurer registered in the state pays an annual franchise tax to the Secretary of State, and a company that falls behind loses its standing, then its authority. The search result is where the status shows, and the certificate of good standing is bought from the same screen. For Arkansas businesses by place, see the Arkansas county pages.
- May 1, no extensions: the franchise tax report is due by that date every year, and Acts 1046 and 1140 of 1991 removed the right to ask for more time.
- Fifteen dollars: a certificate of existence, against twenty five dollars for every other certificate and three dollars to print a good standing certificate online.
- Fifty cents a page: copies of any filed document, with five dollars more for certification and a minimum charge of two dollars fifty.
- Revoked and still accruing: franchise taxes keep building on a revoked company until it is dissolved, withdrawn or merged, and no other filing is accepted meanwhile.
Written by SearchSystems.net from Arkansas's own systems: the Arkansas Secretary of State business search, the Business and Commercial Services page, the division page for current businesses, the forms, fees and records requests page, the records request form and its instructions, the corporation filing fee schedule, the limited liability company filing fee schedule, the franchise tax and annual report forms page, the 2026 corporation franchise tax report, the business services questions page, the Doing Business in Arkansas guide, each read on October 15, 2026 by the SearchSystems editorial team.
Three certificates with three meanings
The division issues three different proof documents and defines each on its questions page and in its Doing Business in Arkansas guide. A certificate of good standing states that an entity has complied with all requirements regulated by the division and has the authority to transact business in the state. A certificate of existence states that an entity was incorporated or admitted to do business, whether it was in existence on a particular date, basic corporate information and its current tax status.
A certificate of no record certifies that all available records of the office have been searched and that a particular entity does not appear in them. A certified copy is a true and perfect copy verified by the Secretary of State, and the guide adds that certified copies of entity records may be introduced into evidence in every court in the state as prima facie proof of what they say.
Buying the certificate from the search result
The records request instructions give the quickest route: search the entity name, then click Purchase Certificate of Good Standing, and the certificate prints immediately for a three dollar processing fee. Everything else goes on the records request form, by post to 500 Woodlane Avenue, Suite 256 in Little Rock, in person at the Victory Building at 1401 West Capitol Avenue, or by email to the division request address. Copies cost fifty cents a page, certification five dollars more, and certificates twenty five dollars each except the certificate of existence at fifteen.
A request paid by card or sent by post has a minimum charge of two dollars fifty, cards carry a four percent fee with a one dollar floor, plain copies can come back by email, and certified copies and certificates come back only by post or collection. The form lets a requester tick the articles, the articles plus every name change amendment, the complete corporate file, redacted franchise tax records or a certificate of good standing, and the guide says certification orders are usually processed within twenty four to forty eight hours after payment.
What the tax report puts on the record
Because the franchise tax is collected by the business register rather than the revenue department, the yearly report feeds the public file. The 2026 corporation report, for the year ending December 31, 2025, records the business name and address, a tax contact, the registered agent, the principal office in Arkansas, the current president, vice president, secretary, treasurer and controller, the nature of the business, and the authorized and issued capital stock.
The tax is three tenths of one percent of the Arkansas share of the issued stock, with no par shares valued at twenty five dollars each, and never less than one hundred fifty dollars; a corporation without authorized stock pays three hundred dollars, a limited liability company one hundred fifty, and the online filing adds a five dollar processing fee. The division will not open a file at all without at least one officer named, because it needs someone responsible for the tax, and officer changes can be made on the report itself.
May 1, the penalty and the revocation
Reports and taxes are due on or before May 1, timely only if received by close of business that day or postmarked by the United States Postal Service by then, and the 1991 acts removed any extension. A late report owes a twenty five dollar penalty under Sections 26-54-107 and 26-54-114, and interest at .000274 of the tax and penalty for each day deficient, which is ten percent a year. Nonpayment is the most common reason an Arkansas company shows as revoked, a status in which it endangers its corporate protections and is barred from many corporate activities, and a corporation may also be administratively dissolved under Section 4-27-1420.
The franchise tax page states the consequence that matters to anyone reading a revoked record: taxes continue to accrue, even for revoked businesses, until the business is dissolved, withdrawn or merged, and under Section 26-54-114 the division refuses every other filing from an entity that has not paid. Reinstatement after administrative dissolution costs fifty dollars on the corporation schedule.
Filing fees and turnaround
The corporation schedule under Act 958 of 1987 prices articles of incorporation at fifty dollars, a reserved name at twenty five, an amendment at fifty, a restatement with amendment or a merger at one hundred, dissolution at fifty, correction at thirty, a fictitious name at twenty five and an application for a certificate of existence at fifteen, while a foreign corporation pays three hundred dollars for a certificate of authority, an amended certificate or a withdrawal.
The limited liability company schedule under Act 1041 of 2021 runs lower: fifty dollars for a certificate of organization, twenty five for an amendment, fifty for a merger or dissolution, and three hundred for a foreign statement of authority. Service of process on the Secretary of State costs twenty five dollars, recoverable as costs by the winning party. The division posts that mailed, dropped off and online filings all take three to five business days, while its questions page says most filings are completed within two business days and annual reports in one to two weeks; the effective date is the date of receipt either way. Offices in Little Rock and Fayetteville open from eight until four, Central time.
What is filed elsewhere or not at all
A corporation, domestic or foreign, may not trade under a fictitious name until it files with the Secretary of State, and a domestic one must also file with the county clerk of the county holding its registered office, unless that county is Pulaski. A business that is not required to file with the state may file with the circuit clerk of its county, and the division cannot search the names of unincorporated businesses at all. Bylaws, shareholders and owners are kept by the company, not the state.
The division holds addresses but no telephone numbers for companies, officers or agents, and does not know whether a corporation is taxed as an S or a C corporation. Employer identification numbers come from the Internal Revenue Service and sales tax numbers from the Department of Finance and Administration. A foreign corporation that transacts business without a certificate of authority cannot sue in Arkansas courts and faces a civil penalty of between one hundred and five thousand dollars, a point worth checking in the Arkansas court records guide when an out of state company is in litigation here.
Questions about looking up a Arkansas business
Related Arkansas records
Arkansas's other records guides on this site are the Arkansas public records law guide for the Freedom of Information Act, the Arkansas court records guide for the circuit clerks and CourtConnect, the Arkansas background check guide for the state police record check, and the Arkansas county pages for every county office.