The Business Services Division of the Kansas Secretary of State, in the Docking State Office Building at 915 SW Harrison Street in Topeka, files and keeps the records of corporations, limited liability companies, limited partnerships and limited liability partnerships, their mergers, dissolutions, cancellations, withdrawals and information reports, and grants authority to businesses formed elsewhere. Its businesses page calls the office a filing agency that gives no legal guidance, and its copies and certifications page explains that any document a business has filed is available to view and print online without cost, each file stamped with the date it reached the office.
The search itself is reached from the Business Search icon on those pages and runs by business name or by the ID number the office assigns, which the information report instructions say is not a tax number and can be found through the search. K.S.A. 17-7506 makes the core of the record free by law: the name of a corporation, the postal address of its registered office and the name of its resident agent, its authorized capital stock, its state of incorporation, the dates of its articles, foreign application or information report, and its expiration date may not carry a fee. For Kansas businesses by place, see the Kansas county pages.
- Free to view and print: every file stamped document a business has filed, with tax documents the one thing the database never holds.
- April 15, every second year: the information report of a for profit entity, in even or odd years by the year of formation, with June 15 for nonprofits.
- Ninety dollars, or one hundred ten: the report filed online or on paper, and no certificate of good standing until it is filed.
- Five percent members: listed with their postal addresses on every Kansas LLC information report under K.S.A. 17-76,139.
Written by SearchSystems.net from Kansas's own systems: the Kansas Secretary of State businesses page, the information reports page, the copies and certifications page, the register a business page, the reinstate a business page, the close a business page, the change or amend a business page, the for profit corporation information report form IFP, revised July 22, 2026, the limited liability company information report form ILC, the certificate of revival form RR for corporations and business trusts, the certificate of reinstatement form RL for LLCs, LLPs and LPs, K.S.A. 17-7503 on the for profit corporation information report, K.S.A. 17-7504 on the nonprofit corporation information report, K.S.A. 17-7506 on fees and free information, K.S.A. 17-7509 on the penalty for a late report, K.S.A. 17-7510 on forfeiture, K.S.A. 17-76,139 on the limited liability company information report, each read on October 15, 2026 by the SearchSystems editorial team.
Copies for nothing, certification for a fee
The copies page draws the line precisely. File stamped copies of anything a business has filed are free, found by searching for the business and opening its documents, and the only material the office says is not in its database is tax documents, which are never filed with it. A certified copy of any file stamped document is sold exclusively online: the office certifies it on the day of purchase as a true and correct copy, and the certification appears on the right side of each page with the office seal and the date.
A Certificate of Good Standing is sold the same way to any business in good standing and shows the name as it appears on the record, the statement that the business is in good standing, the date the formation document was filed and a certification dated the day of issue. Both are bought by logging into a user account, choosing Purchase Certified Copy or Certificate of Good Standing, searching by name or ID number and selecting the business, and both stay in the account under Completed Filings for a year.
Each carries a verification code that the office Certificate Verification tool checks. Under K.S.A. 17-7506 the fee for a certified copy, photocopy or certificate of good standing is set by regulation and may not exceed fifty dollars.
The biennial information report and the April 15 date
Kansas calls its periodic filing an information report and files it every two years. The information reports page sets the rhythm: a business formed in an even year reports in each later even year and one formed in an odd year in odd years, for profit businesses by April 15 and nonprofits by June 15. K.S.A. 17-7503 lists what a for profit corporation must state: its name, its principal office, the names and postal addresses of its president, secretary, treasurer and directors, the nature and kind of its business, the name and ID number of any Kansas registered business in which it holds more than half the equity, and, if it holds agricultural land, the acreage by section, range, township and county, the use and lessee of the land, and the value of its agricultural and nonagricultural assets.
The report is signed under penalty of perjury, and the statute sets the fee at eighty dollars plus an amount fixed by regulation; the form IFP, revised July 22, 2026, gives the resulting price as ninety dollars online or one hundred ten on paper, and notes that everything filed is a public record viewable online. The LLC statute asks less and more: only the company name and principal office, but also a list of the members owning at least five percent of its capital with the postal address of each, which puts Kansas among the few states whose public record names an LLC owner. A foreign LLC reports only its name.
Three months delinquent, then forfeited
The information reports page describes a three month delinquency period after the due date during which the report may still be filed, with the business limited in what else it can file meanwhile, and after which the business forfeits. K.S.A. 17-7510 is the source: failure to file the report or pay the fee within ninety days of the due date works the forfeiture of a domestic corporation articles, or of a foreign corporation authority to do business, and the Secretary of State must mail a warning within sixty days of the due date.
The same section bars the office from issuing a certificate of good standing to any corporation that has not filed and paid. K.S.A. 17-7509 adds a seventy five dollar penalty for a late report, recoverable by an action in the name of the state. A forfeited business cannot file anything else until it reinstates, and the close a business page says a business in delinquent status must file its report before it can dissolve or withdraw, and a forfeited one must reinstate before closing, although a company may simply let itself forfeit instead of filing closing papers. The date of forfeiture shows on the business search record.
Reinstatement, report by report
The reinstatement page explains that a certificate of reinstatement turns a forfeited status back to active and in good standing, and that forfeiture comes from a missed report or from failing to keep a Kansas resident agent and registered office. Every missed report must come with it, up to five reporting years or ten years for most businesses and one report for a nonprofit corporation. The certificate of revival form for corporations and the certificate of reinstatement form for LLCs, LLPs and LPs print the arithmetic: a thirty five dollar filing fee, an eighty five dollar penalty fee and one hundred ten dollars for each report, so one missed report costs two hundred thirty dollars and the five report maximum six hundred seventy; a nonprofit pays twenty dollars plus an eighty dollar report with no penalty.
Because the reports carry the officers, directors or five percent members as of each missed year, a reinstated company record fills in the years it was dark.
What is not on the Kansas file
General partnerships are not required to register, although they may file a statement of partnership authority, and sole proprietors do not register with the Secretary of State at all. Kansas has no state register of assumed, fictitious or trade names: the register a business page notes beside its name reservation form that reserving a name does not register an assumed, fictitious, trade or DBA name, so a Kansas trading name is not something the search can find.
The office holds no tax documents, gives no legal guidance, and explains on its change a business page that a certificate of correction retroactively replaces information in an earlier filing and becomes part of the formation document, which matters when two versions of the same fact appear in a file. The page also carries a notice from the Attorney General that, since July 1, 2025, entities and individuals of six named countries that own real property within one hundred miles of a military installation must register with that office, a filing kept by the Attorney General rather than the Secretary of State. For the people behind a company, the Kansas people search guide lists the state sources.
Formation fees, and the limits the statute sets
Kansas sets ceilings in statute and fills in the amounts by regulation. K.S.A. 17-7506 caps the fee for filing articles of incorporation of a for profit corporation or a foreign application at two hundred fifty dollars, nonprofit articles at fifty, and the ordinary corporate documents, amendments, dissolutions, mergers, changes of registered office and agent and the like, at one hundred fifty. Foreign entities register by submitting a paper application; domestic LLCs, corporations and limited partnerships can file online.
The office requires only two things of every registered entity after that: keep the resident agent and registered office current and file the information report when it falls due. Office hours are eight to five, and the division answers on 785-296-4564. The Kansas court records guide covers the district court records where a forfeited company would be sued.
Questions about looking up a Kansas business
Related Kansas records
The other Kansas guides on this site are the Kansas public records law guide for the Kansas Open Records Act, the Kansas court records guide for the district court portal, the Kansas property records guide for the county registers of deeds and appraisers, and the Kansas county pages for every county office.