The Louisiana business filings search offers three routes in: an entity name, a charter number, trade registration number or name reservation number, or the first and last name of an officer or agent. That third option matters because of what Louisiana collects. The ordering page lists what can be printed from the database: the entity name and status, its date of incorporation, organization or registration, the registered office address, the registered agent name and address, and the names and addresses of the current officers, directors, members and managers.
So in Louisiana a person can often be traced to the companies they run by searching their own name, something impossible in states where filings stop at the registered agent. The search hints suggest the full first and last name, or a last name and at least a first initial, to keep the results manageable. For Louisiana businesses by place, see the Louisiana parish pages.
- October 1, 2026: new Commercial Division fees under Act 921, including a thirty five dollar annual report.
- Officers on the record: current officers, directors, members and managers are named with their addresses in the database.
- DBAs at the parish: doing business as names are filed with the parish clerk of court, not the Secretary of State.
- Twenty five dollar lists: custom searches cover the first forty records, then a cent a record.
Written by SearchSystems.net from Louisiana's own systems: the Louisiana business filings search, the Secretary of State page on ordering documents and certificates, the fee schedule effective October 1, 2026, the business filing frequently asked questions, the search business filings page, the Commercial API implementation guide, the page on filing or locating an agent for service, the page on searching financing statements, Louisiana Revised Statutes 51:391, each read on October 15, 2026 by the SearchSystems editorial team.
The new fees from October 1, 2026
Every page of the Commercial Division site now carries the same notice: effective October 1, 2026, its fees increased in accordance with Act 921 of the 2026 Regular Legislative Session. The new schedule sets the annual report at thirty five dollars for corporations, limited liability companies and partnerships, and ten dollars for a nonprofit. A certified copy costs twenty dollars, a certified copy with amendments thirty, and an additional certificate twenty five.
Partnerships and limited liability partnerships are priced differently for copies, at two dollars plus a dollar a page. Articles of incorporation are ninety five dollars and articles of organization for a limited liability company a hundred and twenty five.
The special handling charges complete the picture: sixty dollars to have documents processed while you wait, thirty five for processing within twenty four hours, a five dollar statutory convenience fee on card payments, and twenty five dollars when a check comes back unpaid. Anyone budgeting from an older Louisiana price list should assume it is out of date.
Certificates, copies and the hundred and twenty day code
The office certifies copies of its records as true and correct and prepares certificates reflecting what is on file. The common ones are a Certificate of Good Standing for corporations and limited liability companies, a Certificate of Existence for corporations, partnerships, trade names and limited liability companies, a Certificate of Registry for partnerships, and a Certificate of No Record. Certificates issued with filings after July 15, 2005, such as a certificate of incorporation or merger or a trade name registration, can be reissued as duplicates.
Ordered online, each certificate or certified copy carries a code at the bottom that lets the buyer print more copies bearing the same date for a hundred and twenty days, so one purchase covers several banks. Requests also go by mail to P.O. Box 94125 in Baton Rouge, or by fax or email when the request gives the email of a geauxBIZ account and the last four digits of a saved card. A certificate can be checked through the office validation page.
Lists, individual searches and the API
Louisiana will run searches its public screen does not. On request, staff search by an individual name or build a custom list, and the office gives examples: every nonprofit corporation domiciled in East Baton Rouge Parish, every foreign limited liability company qualified in Louisiana, or every entity with the word environmental in its name. The minimum fee is twenty five dollars for the first forty entity records and one cent for each record after that.
For banks and service companies that need volume, the Commercial API guide describes a REST service returning JSON, with a free test token that returns test data and a live token bought for a yearly fee, used both to search filings and to validate certificates.
Trade names, DBAs and names that come back
The frequently asked questions draw a line that trips up many searches. A trade name, a word, name or symbol that identifies a business, is registered with the Secretary of State and can conflict with corporate and company names. A doing business as name is not: DBAs are filed at the parish level with the local clerk of court, so a sole proprietor trading under an assumed name will usually not appear in the state database, and the search has to move to the parish.
The same questions note that when a domestic or foreign corporation or company is revoked, its name stays unavailable for three years after the revocation date, and that a business receiving a notice of intent to revoke has thirty days to file its annual report, or sixty for a foreign entity, before its charter is revoked.
Lawsuits, out of state companies and liens
The Secretary of State is itself an agent for service of process for some defendants. Under the Code of Civil Procedure and related statutes, its Legal Services Section at 8585 Archives Avenue receives suits against all foreign insurance companies, foreign corporations not registered in Louisiana, out of state motorists sued over accidents on Louisiana highways, and others, and forwards them by certified mail. The agent for service page puts the fee at sixty dollars per service, and the section will give the name and address of an agent on request.
Liens follow a separate path: a certified UCC search is made in writing through a parish clerk of court for thirty dollars per debtor name, while the Secretary of State sells unlimited access to the UCC database for four hundred dollars a year.
The law against official looking solicitations
Louisiana wrote its answer to fake state notices into statute. R.S. 51:391, enacted in 2012 and amended in 2021, bars a private solicitation that looks like a bill from implying any state connection through a seal, an agency name or a statute citation, and specifically bars anything a registered business could read as a link to the Secretary of State or as a payment needed to stay in good standing. Every such solicitation must open with a disclaimer in type no smaller than fourteen point stating that it is not a bill, that the recipient owes nothing unless the offer is accepted, and that no Louisiana state agency approved it or is making it.
Violations carry a civil fine of up to a thousand dollars each, recovered by the Attorney General. A letter about an annual report that lacks that disclaimer is, on its face, out of line with state law.
Questions about looking up a Louisiana business
Related Louisiana records
Louisiana's other records guides on this site are the Louisiana public records law guide, the Louisiana court records guide for the parish clerks of court who also hold DBAs and liens, the Louisiana recorded documents guide, the Louisiana licenses guide, and the Louisiana parish pages for every local office.