The Business Services Division of the Connecticut Secretary of the State moved its registry to the business.ct.gov portal, and its business services page sends every search, filing and copy order there. The business records search takes a business name, the ALEI business identifier or a filing number, with an exact name option, and covers every domestic and foreign entity on record. An advanced search runs by business name, city, principal and agent, with filtering and an export limited to one thousand rows.
The Business Inquiry screen that opens on a result shows when the last annual report was filed and when the next is due, which is the first check on whether a company is current. Below it sits a filing history in which every record filed electronically can be opened as a PDF or HTML page for nothing, though the office warns that records older than fifteen years may not be available that way. For Connecticut businesses by place, see the Connecticut county pages.
- Free PDFs: every electronically filed business and lien record opens from the filing history at no charge.
- Five data sets: the business master, agents, principals, filings and name history, free on data.ct.gov and updated nightly.
- Fifty dollars: an express certificate of existence for a corporation or LLC, with the long form at one hundred twenty or one hundred.
- Ninety days: the time a Notice of Intent to Dissolve or Revoke gives a business to file what it owes.
Written by SearchSystems.net from Connecticut's own systems: the Connecticut Secretary of the State business services page, the business records search, the copies of your records article, the plain and certified copies article, the certificate of legal existence forms and fees, the bulk data and images page, the domestic annual report forms and fees, the foreign annual report forms and fees, the overdue annual report article, the administrative dissolution notices page, the notice of intent to dissolve or revoke page, the certificate of dissolution or revocation page, the division fee schedule, the expedited services article, the March 28, 2023 press release on the annual filing scam, each read on October 15, 2026 by the SearchSystems editorial team.
The registry as open data
Since December 2022 the division has stopped charging for its database extract. Its bulk data page explains that the complete Connecticut Business Registry is posted on data.ct.gov as five linked data sets: the Business Master with the primary record of every entity, then Agent Details, Business Principal Details listing the officers, directors, members and partners each business has reported, Business Filing Details with every filing on record, and Business Name Change History.
Each is refreshed nightly and stamped with its extract time, and the page gives worked filters, such as every business registered in a month or every active business in Stamford. A dashboard on the same portal charts formations by month, active businesses by type and NAICS code and a map of business addresses. The only paid product left is a subscription to UCC lien images at one thousand dollars a year.
Certificates of existence in three lengths
Connecticut calls its good standing document a Certificate of Legal Existence and sells it in several forms on the certificate page. For a corporation the express certificate costs fifty dollars, the short form, which reflects all name changes, eighty, and the long form, for domestic entities only and never expedited, one hundred twenty. A limited liability company pays fifty for express or short form and one hundred for the long form; a limited liability partnership forty, eighty and one hundred twenty; a limited partnership fifty; a statutory trust forty or eighty.
A certificate evidencing a specified fact costs fifty dollars, and a certificate of no record fifty with no form and no expediting. Anyone logged in can verify a certificate or view certificates ordered before at no charge. An overdue annual report blocks the certificate entirely, which is the practical meaning of bad standing in this state.
Copies, forty and fifty five
The fees for copies are set by law at forty dollars for a plain copy and fifty five for a certified copy, per document, on the copies page, and both are ordered from a business.ct.gov account. The office is candid that a certified copy is never required by the Secretary and is usually wanted by a bank or at a closing. The route around the forty dollar charge is the filing history: search the business, open it, choose View Filing History and pick VIEW PDF beside the filing, which the records article says is free for everything filed electronically.
Copies come in black and white only. Expedited service, available online only and never for long form certificates or certificates of no record, costs fifty dollars per transaction.
The annual report fees and dates
Every stock and nonstock corporation, limited liability company, limited liability partnership and limited partnership files an annual report online, with no financial content, giving business and owner addresses, the agent name with an email and mobile number, each principal with title and addresses, and a NAICS code. The domestic fees are one hundred fifty dollars for a corporation, fifty for a nonstock corporation and eighty for an LLC, LLP or LP; a foreign corporation pays four hundred thirty five.
The 2020 fee schedule fixes the LLC filing window at January 1 to March 31 each year. About a month before the date the office emails the address on file, or posts a card to the business address when it has no email. The schedule also holds the formation fees: one hundred twenty dollars for a certificate of organization, two hundred fifty for a certificate of incorporation including the minimum franchise tax on up to twenty thousand shares, and sixty for a name reservation.
From a notice to forfeiture, and back
A business more than one year in default of its annual report may be administratively dissolved, under Section 33-890 for stock corporations, 33-1181 for nonstock, 34-267g for LLCs, 34-422 for LLPs and 34-32b for LPs, and the notices page lists each month of dissolutions for at least sixty days as statutory notice, with a copy mailed to the principal office. The first letter is a Notice of Intent to Dissolve or Revoke, which means the business is still active but owes a report or a corporation first report, and gives ninety days from its date to get the missing filing accepted.
The second is a Certificate of Dissolution or Revocation: a domestic business is then forfeited, may only wind up, and its name is free for anyone else to take, while a foreign business is revoked from transacting here and must re-register, giving the certificate date as the date it began business or risk a penalty letter. Reinstatement runs online through Manage your business, is reviewed by staff within one business day if expedited or three to five otherwise, and on the fee schedule costs three hundred dollars for a stock corporation and one hundred sixty for a nonstock, both including the required report, or one hundred twenty for an LLC. A record is clean when its status reads active and the next report date is in the future.
Trade names belong to the towns
The fee schedule states in its first lines that trade names are not registered with the Secretary of the State; Section 35-1 of the General Statutes requires a fictitious trade name to be registered with the town clerk of the town where the business is conducted, so a Connecticut trading name has to be looked for in one hundred sixty nine town halls, not in the state registry. Licenses and permits sit on the separate eLicense system, where a notary roster can also be generated. Bylaws and ownership are not state records.
The Registrar Agency of Corporations and other mailings
On March 28, 2023 the Secretary of the State and the Attorney General issued a joint release after businesses reported an email from the Registrar Agency of Corporations, which is no part of the state, urging them to renew an annual registration through a third party site by card. The test the office gives is simple: its letters carry the office seal, its emails come from a ct.gov address, and it never asks for payment by post or on another site, because every filing payment goes through business.ct.gov.
A knowledge base article on annual report fraudsters adds that dishonest companies offer to file the report for a fee when filing it is easy, and that logging into the portal shows the real due date and any fraud alert. For a wider check on a counterparty, the Connecticut court records guide covers the judicial branch case lookups.
Questions about looking up a Connecticut business
Related Connecticut records
Connecticut's other records guides on this site are the Connecticut public records law guide for the Freedom of Information Act, the Connecticut court records guide for the judicial branch lookups, the Connecticut background check guide for the state police record check, and the Connecticut county pages for every county office.