The Business Services Division of the Iowa Secretary of State, on the first floor of the Lucas Building at 321 East 12th Street in Des Moines, files and records the documents that create Iowa entities, their biennial reports and every change to them, and its business services page sends the public to a business search before anything else. The search lives inside Fast Track Filing, the online system that also takes most filings, and it is run by business name or by business number, with a warning that results are capped at one hundred and that a broad name should be narrowed.
The division is careful to describe itself as a filing repository rather than a judge of what is filed: it does not determine the authority of a filer to make a submission, and it tells filers to check the status of their own filings on the site. What the record holds is set by the Iowa Code chapter that governs each entity type, 490 for profit corporations, 489 for limited liability companies, 504 for nonprofits, 488 for limited partnerships and 486A for limited liability partnerships, and the division answers questions on 515-281-5204. For Iowa businesses by place, see the Iowa county pages.
- Five dollars: a Certificate of Existence, bought from the Print Certificate of Existence link on the entity summary and printed at once.
- Even years, odd years: profit corporations report in even years, LLCs, LLPs and nonprofits in odd years, between January 1 and April 1.
- Sixty dollars, or thirty: the profit corporation report, against thirty dollars online or forty five on paper for an LLC, and nothing for a nonprofit.
- Sixty days: how far past due a report or fee must be before the Secretary of State may begin administrative dissolution.
Written by SearchSystems.net from Iowa's own systems: the Iowa Secretary of State business services page, the Fast Track Filing system, the certificate of existence page, the business entity forms and fees page, the business questions page, the business reinstatement page, the preclearance and expedited services page, the protecting your business page, Iowa Code Section 490.1621 on the biennial report, Iowa Code Section 489.212 on the LLC biennial report, Iowa Code Section 490.1420 on the grounds for administrative dissolution, Iowa Code Section 490.1421 on the dissolution procedure, Iowa Code Section 490.1422 on reinstatement, Iowa Code Section 490.122 on filing and copying fees, each read on October 15, 2026 by the SearchSystems editorial team.
The five dollar certificate and how it is printed
The certificate page describes the whole transaction. A Certificate of Existence is issued for a domestic entity currently in good standing on the records of the Secretary of State. The buyer searches the database, opens the Business Entity Summary, either by clicking the business number in a name search or by searching the number directly, and finds a link above the business name reading Print Certificate of Existence. A payment screen follows, then a receipt page with the link to print, and the office warns not to close the page before printing.
The questions page gives the price, five dollars, and the same five dollars buys an original certificate issued in the office by letter with a return address. Two limits apply. A foreign entity registered in Iowa gets a Certificate of Authorization or Registration from this process, which states only that it may transact business in Iowa, and must go to its home state for a certificate of existence. And a certificate number can be checked against the office Certificate Validation Tool by anyone handed a copy.
The two year calendar, and the two dates on the site
Iowa files its reports every other year and splits the entity types across the calendar. Under Section 490.1621 a profit corporation delivers its first biennial report between January 1 and April 1 of the first even numbered year after the year it was incorporated or registered, and every even year after that, giving its name, registered office and agent, principal office and the names and business addresses of its president, secretary, treasurer and one director.
Under Section 489.212 a limited liability company files in odd numbered years, giving its name, registered agent, principal office and, for a foreign company, its home jurisdiction, and the Code says each report covers the two years before the year it is filed. The forms and fees page prices the profit corporation report at sixty dollars and the LLC, LLP and nonprofit report at thirty dollars online or forty five on paper, with nonprofits paying nothing, and says the report is due by April 1; the questions page says March 31.
Registered agents begin receiving notice to file in January of the filing year. A report is filed in Fast Track Filing, or printed from it and mailed.
Sixty days late, then dissolution, then two reports to come back
The grounds in Section 490.1420 are measured in sixty days: fees, taxes, interest or penalties unpaid sixty days after they are due, a biennial report not delivered sixty days after it is due, sixty days or more without a registered agent or office, or sixty days without telling the Secretary of State that the agent or office changed or the agent resigned, plus the expiry of a stated period of duration. Under Section 490.1421 the Secretary of State serves written notice, and after sixty more days without a cure signs a certificate of dissolution reciting the grounds; the corporation continues to exist only to wind up, and its registered agent keeps authority.
Under Section 490.1422 a dissolved corporation may apply to reinstate at any time, stating that the grounds did not exist or were eliminated, and an application more than five years after dissolution must supply a name that is still available; reinstatement relates back as if the dissolution never happened. The reinstatement page cuts the paperwork down: only the two most recent biennial reports are needed, so an LLC dissolved since 2011 and reinstating in 2024 files the 2021 and 2023 reports, the application itself costs five dollars, and since July 1, 2024 no employer identification number is collected.
A foreign entity cannot reinstate and must register afresh under a new business number, with the old record left viewable.
What the record does not say
The questions page answers the ownership question in one line: ownership and membership are maintained within the company own internal records, and the office does not file that information because the Code does not require it. A sole proprietorship is not on file at all; it registers a trade name with the County Recorder of the county where the owner plans to do business, on a form specific to that county, so a trading name search in Iowa starts at the recorder rather than the state.
The office will not say whether an LLC or a nonprofit corporation is the right form, will not advise on trademarks, and does not hold tax returns or, since 2024, employer identification numbers. A fictitious name filed by an entity under Chapters 488, 489, 490, 499, 501A or 504 costs five dollars at the state, a reservation of name ten dollars, and the fee section prices articles of incorporation at fifty dollars, a foreign registration statement at one hundred, articles of dissolution at five and a statement of change of registered agent at nothing.
The Iowa people search guide covers the state sources for the people a company record does not name.
Speed, bought per document
The expedited services page sets four surcharges on top of the filing fee, each charged per document rather than per submission and each nonrefundable even when the document is rejected or arrives after a cutoff: fifteen dollars for five business days, fifty for two, one hundred twenty five for the same business day and two hundred for one hour service. Expedited requests go in through Fast Track Filing or in person, and documents held for pickup are kept for twenty four hours after the scheduled time.
A separate preclearance service reviews a document before filing without giving it a filing date, at two hundred fifty dollars for the same day on a document received by ten in the morning, twice the filing fee for two days or the filing fee itself for three. Records and copy requests, trademark applications, apostilles and UCC filings cannot be expedited.
The postcard, and the affidavit of unauthorized use
Iowa has no published list of named solicitation schemes, but the protecting your business page describes the safeguard it does operate. Every time a document is filed with the office, through Fast Track Filing or on paper, the office sends an email or a physical postcard to the registered agent of the entity named. Anyone who receives such a postcard without having applied to file a business has been listed as registered agent on the record, and may file a notarized Affidavit of Unauthorized Use; if the office finds the information was used fraudulently it removes it from public view.
The page lists the usual signs of a fraudulent call, email or text, urgency, threats, a government agency or bank asking for money, a prize, contact details that do not match, and asks for reports of fraud to its own address so the office can track cases across the state. For the person level checks a business record never performs, the Iowa background check guide covers the Division of Criminal Investigation.
Questions about looking up a Iowa business
Related Iowa records
The other Iowa guides on this site are the Iowa public records law guide for Chapter 22, the Iowa court records guide for Iowa Courts Online, the Iowa property records guide for the county recorders and assessors, and the Iowa county pages for every county office.