Missouri keeps its business register in the corporation division of the Secretary of State, and the division statutes, published by the Missouri Revisor of Statutes, describe what that register holds better than any brochure. Section 351.120 of the Revised Statutes requires every Missouri corporation and every licensed foreign corporation, other than one exempt from tax, to file a corporate registration report stating its name, its registered agent and that agent physical Missouri address, the names and business or residence addresses of its officers and directors, and the mailing address of its principal place of business. That report, refreshed every year or every second year, is the public record of who runs a Missouri company.
What a corporation record will not give is its shareholders, and what an LLC record gives is set by Chapter 347, which asks for no members at all. The gap is partly filled from an unexpected direction: Chapter 417 makes the state the registrar of every fictitious name used in Missouri and requires each registration to name the owners of the business behind it. The Secretary of State website, including its business entity search, sat behind a bot verification wall when this guide was written, so the figures here are taken from the statutes the office administers. For Missouri businesses by place, see the Missouri county pages.
- Every owner, within five days: a Missouri fictitious name must be registered with the state within five days of use, naming each party with an interest.
- Fifteen dollars online, forty on paper: the corporate registration report, due in the month of incorporation, with fifteen dollars more for each thirty days late.
- Ninety days: how late a registration report may be before the Secretary of State may begin administrative dissolution under Section 351.484.
- Five dollars, and fifty cents a page: an LLC certificate of good standing and copies of any LLC document under Section 347.179.
Written by SearchSystems.net from Missouri's own systems: Section 351.120 of the Revised Statutes of Missouri on the corporate registration report, Section 351.122 on biennial registration reports, Section 351.125 on registration fees and the late fee, Section 351.127 on the technology fee, Section 351.076 on the corporate certificate of good standing, Section 351.484 on the grounds for administrative dissolution, Section 351.486 on the procedure and effect, Section 351.488 on reinstatement, Section 347.044 on the LLC certificate of good standing, Section 347.179 on LLC fees, Section 417.200 on fictitious names, Section 417.210 on fictitious name registration, Section 417.220 on the fictitious name fee, each read on October 15, 2026 by the SearchSystems editorial team.
The registration report, due in the month of incorporation
Missouri does not use a single statewide date. Under Section 351.120 a corporation formed on or after July 1, 2003 files its first corporate registration report within thirty days of incorporation or qualification and then every year in the month it was incorporated or qualified, unless it pays twenty dollars with a report to move its filing month; a corporation that existed before July 2003 keeps the month shown on its last report.
The report is signed by an officer or authorized person, may change the registered agent if the new agent written consent and a board resolution come with it, and may be corrected by a certificate of correction when an officer or director name or address is wrong. Authorized farm corporations and family farm corporations are excused from filing when nothing has changed since their last report. Since January 1, 2010, Section 351.122 has let a corporation report every two years instead, in even years if incorporated in an even year and odd years if odd, for thirty dollars online or eighty on paper plus a ten dollar technology fee, and a corporation that chooses the biennial option is held to it for the full twenty four months.
Fifteen dollars online, forty on paper, and fifteen a month late
Section 351.125 sets the annual fee at forty dollars for a report filed in a written format and fifteen dollars for one filed electronically, and attaches a late fee of fifteen dollars for each thirty day period in which the report remains unfiled, whether it is eventually filed on paper or online. The same section ties the penalty to the status field: if the report is not filed within ninety days the Secretary of State may proceed with administrative dissolution under Sections 351.484 and 351.486.
Section 351.127 adds five dollars to every fee in the corporation chapter and ten dollars to each biennial report fee, deposited in the Secretary of State technology trust fund, with that surcharge written to expire on December 31, 2026. Section 351.065 prices incorporation itself at fifty dollars for the first thirty thousand dollars of authorized shares and five dollars for each further ten thousand, plus three dollars for the certificate, and waives the fee where a majority shareholder, officer or director is a Missouri resident on active military duty or in the National Guard.
Ninety days late, then dissolution, then a tax clearance to come back
Section 351.484 lists eleven grounds on which the Secretary of State may begin to dissolve a corporation administratively, and most of them come from other agencies: an unpaid franchise tax assessment, a franchise tax report never filed after two notices from the Director of Revenue, an income tax return not filed or assessment not paid, an unpaid employer withholding or sales and use tax assessment, each reported to the Secretary of State by the Director of Revenue, together with the Secretary own grounds, a registration report not delivered within ninety days of its due date, thirty days without a registered agent or office, thirty days without notice of an agent change or resignation, an expired period of duration, a franchise procured by fraud, or continued abuse of authority after a written demand.
Under Section 351.486 the corporation gets written notice and sixty days from its posting to correct each ground, after which a certificate of dissolution is signed and served, the corporation may do nothing but wind up, and an officer or director who carries on business afterward is personally liable for what is incurred. Section 351.488 allows reinstatement on an application that recites the dissolution date, states that the grounds are gone, confirms the name is still available, carries a certificate from the Department of Revenue that all taxes and employment security liabilities are paid or on a payback plan, and pays fifty dollars plus every delinquent fee, penalty and charge; the Secretary may waive it all where the missed report was due to military service.
Reinstatement relates back to the dissolution date, and a corporation whose name was reissued meanwhile may reinstate under a new one.
What a Missouri certificate of good standing certifies
Two statutes define the document. Section 351.076 lets anyone apply for a certificate of good standing for a domestic or foreign corporation; for a Missouri corporation it sets forth the corporate name, when and that it was incorporated under Missouri law, and that it has complied with all the requirements of the corporation division, and for a foreign corporation its home state name, the name it uses in Missouri, where it was incorporated and the same compliance statement, and subject to any qualification on its face it may be relied on as prima facie evidence that the corporation exists or is authorized to transact business.
Section 347.044, in the form effective August 28, 2026, says the same for a limited liability company and extends it to any individual series of a series LLC, domestic or foreign. Section 347.179 prices the LLC certificate at five dollars and a copy of any LLC document at fifty cents a page, beside articles of organization at one hundred dollars on paper or forty five online, a foreign registration at one hundred, an amendment or termination at twenty, a name reservation at twenty, an agent address change at five and service of process on the Secretary at twenty dollars, with the organization and reservation fees waived for a Missouri resident member on active duty.
Fictitious names, registered with the state and naming their owners
Missouri treats a trading name as a state record and as a disclosure. Section 417.200 declares every name under which a person transacts business, other than the true name, a fictitious name and makes it unlawful to do business under one without first registering it with the Secretary of State. Under Section 417.210 every person, general partnership, corporation or other organization using such a name files within five days of beginning to use it, stating the fictitious name, the physical business address and the name and residence or business address of every party owning any interest or part in the business; where an owner could claim not to be jointly liable for the business debts, the exact ownership interests must be stated, and otherwise the shares are optional.
A name may not suggest a government agency or be seriously misleading, an ownership change must be followed within five days by a cancellation and a new registration, and every registration filed since August 28, 2004 lasts five years, renewable in the six months before it expires with the same owner disclosure. Section 417.220 sets the fee at two dollars, waived for a Missouri resident owner on active military duty or in the National Guard.
The practical result is that a Missouri fictitious name search names the people behind a storefront in a way the entity search never will, and the Missouri people search guide picks up from there.
What the register leaves to others
Shareholders are not reported; Section 351.120 asks a corporation for its officers and directors only, and Chapter 347 asks an LLC for neither members nor managers. Tax standing is held by the Department of Revenue, which is why a reinstatement needs that department certificate and why four of the eleven dissolution grounds begin with a notice from the Director of Revenue. The corporation division statutes make no provision for a franchise tax search, a lien search or a license check, each of which lives with another agency, and the Missouri court records guide covers Case.net, where a suit against a dissolved corporation or its officers would appear.
A person who finds the Secretary of State search unavailable can still verify a company through the statutory certificates described above, which the office issues on application to anyone.
Questions about looking up a Missouri business
Related Missouri records
The other Missouri guides on this site are the Missouri public records law guide for the Sunshine Law, the Missouri court records guide for Case.net, the Missouri property records guide for the county recorders of deeds and assessors, and the Missouri county pages for every county office.