The Maryland Business Express entity search takes three kinds of query: a business name, a department ID, or a federal employer identification number. That last option is unusual and useful, since an invoice or a W-9 often carries an EIN when it does not carry the exact legal name. A department ID, which SDAT also calls the SDAT ID, starts with a letter followed by eight numbers, for example D12345678, and a newly formed business gets one the business day after its formation is approved.
Each record shows two separate things that are easy to confuse: status and standing. A company can be Active and yet not in Good Standing, typically because an annual report or a late penalty is outstanding, and SDAT tells filers to check both after they file. Sole proprietorships and general partnerships appear in the search too but can never have Good Standing status at all. For records by place, see the Maryland county pages.
- April 15: the due date of the annual report for every entity that existed on January 1, with postmarks not honored.
- Three hundred dollars: the annual report fee for a stock corporation, an LLC, an LP or an LLP, with nonstock corporations and sole proprietors paying nothing.
- Twenty dollars: a certificate of good standing, the same price for the long form version.
- Seventeen percent: the charge the Central Collection Unit adds to a late penalty left unpaid.
Written by SearchSystems.net from Maryland's own systems: the Maryland Business Express entity search, the Maryland Business Express filing questions page, the Maryland Business Express fee schedule, the SDAT processing times page, the SDAT fee schedule for corporate charter documents, the SDAT forfeiture questions, each read on October 15, 2026 by the SearchSystems editorial team.
One report, two jobs
Because SDAT is the assessor as well as the registrar, the Maryland annual report and the business personal property tax return travel on a single form. Its forfeiture questions are blunt about who files: every entity that existed as of January 1 files a Form 1 by April 15, whether or not it owned property, and property in Maryland on January 1 is reported regardless of the company fiscal year. The form may not be faxed, and a mailed report must be received by the due date, because postmarks are not honored.
The fee depends on the type of entity. The Business Express fee schedule charges three hundred dollars for domestic and foreign stock corporations, limited liability companies, limited partnerships, limited liability partnerships, statutory trusts and real estate investment trusts, a hundred dollars for an SDAT certified family farm, and nothing for nonstock corporations, foreign interstate corporations, sole proprietorships and general partnerships, which file a no fee Form 2.
Credit unions file a Form 3 and banks and trust companies a Form 5. The personal property return itself carries no fee. For 2023 reports onward, a business that owns, leases or uses personal property in Maryland with a total original cost of twenty thousand dollars or more must also file the return.
Forfeiture, and why a closed company keeps getting letters
Forfeiture is the process SDAT uses to remove inactive entities that never legally ended their authority to do business in Maryland. A company that misses its report or owes a late penalty receives a forfeiture notice, and SDAT says it must send notices to every entity that has not been formally dissolved, even when someone has written in to say the business closed. Only articles of dissolution, cancellation or termination filed with the Charter Division end an entity, and articles of dissolution carry no filing fee.
An owner who simply walks away can let forfeiture run automatically, unless the company had business personal property assessed the year before, in which case it must tell the Personal Property Division what became of that property or face estimated assessments and tax bills anyway. Late penalties carry no interest at the notice stage, but an unpaid penalty goes to the State of Maryland Central Collection Unit, which adds seventeen percent.
Penalties more than three years old are paid through that unit rather than through Business Express, and a penalty payment alone does not guarantee a return to good standing. Prior year reports can be filed online, oldest first and in order, with several submitted under one payment.
What certificates and copies cost
The SDAT fee schedule, revised in May 2024, prices a certificate of good standing at twenty dollars, a long form certificate of good standing at twenty dollars, an abstract of corporate records at twenty dollars and a certificate on the status of a foreign corporation at twenty dollars. Duplicate originals ordered at the same time cost a dollar each, or two dollars for a long form. Non certified copies of documents on file cost a dollar a page in person or by mail, and certified copies of charter documents cost twenty dollars for the first certified copy plus a dollar a page.
Service of process through SDAT costs fifty dollars per defendant and requires two copies each of the complaint and the summons.
Certified documents bought along with an online filing are available immediately. A certified copy ordered on its own may not be available for up to five business days after the filing is approved. Online payments by card or PayPal carry a three percent service fee. Checks are payable to the State Department of Assessments and Taxation, and the Charter Division takes mail at 700 East Pratt Street, 2nd Floor, Baltimore.
How long a filing takes, and where two pages disagree
Maryland publishes its review speeds, and its own pages do not quite agree on the slow lane. The processing times page says filings without an expedited fee are reviewed during the second calendar month after submission, giving the example of an October filing reviewed in December. The fee schedule PDF says non expedited paper service may take four to six weeks and non expedited online documents six to eight weeks, and the Business Express fee page says they may take eight weeks.
The fifty dollar expedited lane differs a little too: the PDF promises review within seven to ten business days, while the processing page gives an initial review of seven to fourteen business days and adds that expedited filings are not reviewed before the seventh business day.
For speed, the online rush fee is three hundred and twenty five dollars: a rush filing submitted before 2:30 in the afternoon on a business day is usually reviewed within three hours, and one sent later is reviewed the next business day. A paper rush costs four hundred and twenty five dollars and goes through the dropbox by ten in the morning or by appointment. A resubmitted filing restarts the review clock, and a filer has sixty days from a rejection to correct and resubmit, or the department keeps the fee for the first review.
Trade names and the good standing rule
A trade name in Maryland is a trading as name that may differ from the legal name registered with the state, and SDAT stresses that it is not the same thing as a trademark. Filing, amending or canceling a trade name costs twenty five dollars each. Renewal can be done online up to six months before the lapse date, but only if the original trade name is still active and its owner is in good standing, so a business that let its annual reports slide can lose the right to renew its trading name as well.
Businesses that are forfeited, inactive, canceled, merged or dissolved cannot be linked to a trade name renewal until they are reinstated.
Resident agents carry their own rule. The agent named for service of process must be a Maryland resident of at least eighteen, a Maryland corporation or a Maryland limited liability company, and must consent before the filing can be made, which the law states at Corporations and Associations section 1-208(a). SDAT adds that it cannot recommend any company to act as an agent.
Forming a company and the nonprofit surcharge
Formation fees are low by national standards. Articles of incorporation for a stock or close corporation cost a hundred dollars plus a twenty dollar organization and capitalization fee when the aggregate par value of the stock is a hundred thousand dollars or less, and articles of organization for a limited liability company cost a hundred dollars. A nonstock corporation that will seek tax exempt status under Internal Revenue Code section 501(c)(3), (4) or (6) pays an extra fifty dollars, which goes to the Maryland Not-For-Profit Development Center Program Fund.
Name reservations cost twenty five dollars, and filings listed as needing a certificate of conveyance, such as some mergers and consolidations, add twenty five dollars per certificate.
Questions about looking up a Maryland business
Related Maryland records
Other Maryland guides here are the Maryland public records law guide on record requests, the Maryland court records guide for suits involving a company, the Maryland property records guide for land records, and the Maryland county pages.