The Business Services Division of the Montana Secretary of State, in Room 260 of the Capitol in Helena and on 406-444-3665, keeps the register of corporations, limited liability companies, partnerships and assumed business names, and since it moved its filings to the biz.sosmt.gov portal every lookup starts there. The division help center explains the mechanics in its documents and certificates article: search for the business by name or folder ID, open the record, and the filings sit at the bottom of the right hand panel, with the original registration labeled Initial Filing and the Request Information button above it for certificates and certified copies.
The portal also answers a question most registers cannot. Its Business Principal Extract Report returns every principal tied to one business, and its Principal Search Report runs the other way, returning the businesses tied to a named person, both ordered from the Request Business Information tab. The public pages at sosmt.gov answered a security wall rather than a page when read from this server, so the fees and alerts below come from the division published fee schedule, its help center, the Montana Code and copies of its own pages held by the Internet Archive. For Montana businesses by place, see the Montana county pages.
- Five dollars: a Certificate of Existence for a domestic entity, or a Certificate of Authority for a foreign one, with any document copy ten dollars.
- January 1 to April 15: the annual report window, fee waived for a report filed inside it and thirty five dollars for one filed after.
- Ninety days: the time a corporation has after the Secretary of State September 1 notice to cure the ground before it is dissolved.
- Five years: the reinstatement window for a dissolved Montana corporation or LLC, with a Title 15 tax certificate and every missed report.
Written by SearchSystems.net from Montana's own systems: the Business Services filing fee schedule effective July 1, 2022, the Business Services filing fees page, the Secretary of State scam alerts page, the Secretary of State release on the 2026 Additional Business Documents Needed mailing, the help center article on filing an annual report, the help center article on business documents and certificates, the help center article on reinstating a business, the help center article on business name availability, the biz.sosmt.gov business services portal, Section 35-14-1621 of the Montana Code on the corporate annual report, Section 35-8-208 on the limited liability company annual report, Section 35-14-1420 on the grounds for administrative dissolution, Section 35-14-1421 on the procedure, Section 35-14-1422 on reinstatement, Section 35-8-209 on involuntary dissolution of an LLC, Section 30-13-203 on assumed business name registration, Section 30-13-206 on the term of an assumed business name, each read on October 15, 2026 by the SearchSystems editorial team.
What the annual report puts on file, including LLC members
Montana reports every year, and the statutes say exactly what the report carries. Under Section 35-14-1621 a domestic corporation gives its registered office and agent, its principal office, the names and business addresses of its directors and principal officers, a brief description of its business, and its authorized and issued shares itemized by class and series; a foreign corporation gives the same without the share counts.
Under Section 35-8-208 a limited liability company states whether it is managed by managers, with their names and business mailing addresses, or by its members, in which case the members themselves are named, and a professional LLC confirms that all of its members and at least half its managers are qualified in the profession. Both reports fall due between January 1 and April 15, the first one in the year after formation or registration, and a report returned for correction must be refiled by April 15 to count as timely.
The help center describes the report as a renewal of the registration information, not a tax or earnings report, and says the division waives the fee for every annual report filed in that window; a no change report is filed from the business record without logging in.
The ninety day notice and the five year way back
Section 35-14-1420 lets the Secretary of State begin administrative dissolution when a corporation has not paid fees, interest or penalties sixty days after they fell due, has not delivered its annual report one hundred twenty days after it was due, has had no registered agent or office for sixty days, or has gone sixty days without reporting an agent change or resignation. Under Section 35-14-1421 the office compiles a list of such corporations on or before September 1 each year and serves a notice stating that unless the grounds are rectified within ninety days the corporation will be dissolved and forfeit its right to carry on business; after ninety days without a cure a certificate of dissolution is signed, and the corporation may do nothing but wind up.
For an LLC, Section 35-8-209 allows involuntary dissolution by order after one hundred forty days without the annual report, sixty days without a registered agent or a statement of an agent change, or any unpaid fee. Section 35-14-1422 gives five years to reinstate, with a Department of Revenue certificate that all Title 15 taxes are paid and every unfiled annual report with its fees and penalties, and the reinstatement article puts the cost in figures: thirty five dollars for each missing report, then a reinstatement fee of thirty dollars for a profit corporation, thirty five for an LLC or ten for a nonprofit, with the Title 15 certificate uploaded unless the company is a single member LLC not taxed as a corporation. Foreign entities cannot reinstate and must requalify.
Five dollars for the certificate, ten for any copy
The division fee schedule, effective July 1, 2022, prices a Certificate of Existence for a domestic entity and a Certificate of Authority for a foreign one at five dollars each, a Certificate of Fact at fifteen, an annual report before April 15 at twenty dollars and after it at thirty five, articles of incorporation or organization at thirty five, a foreign registration at seventy, a name reservation at ten and articles of dissolution or termination at nothing, with fifty dollars added for each series member named in a series LLC.
The fees page on the division site repeats the schedule and adds the reinstatement arithmetic. The help center gives a flat ten dollars for all document copies, ordered through Request Information on the business record and paid by card or electronic check, and the business name article sends anyone checking availability to the portal search, with the distinguishability rule in ARM 44.5.131 deciding the result. Under Section 35-14-122 the fees themselves are set by the Secretary of State rather than fixed in statute.
Assumed business names, registered for five years
A Montana trading name is a state record. Under Section 30-13-203 anyone transacting business under an assumed business name, meaning any name other than the full true name of a person, registers it with the Secretary of State on an application giving the applicant name and mailing address, the complete assumed name and a description of the business transacted under it, and the fee schedule prices the registration at twenty dollars.
Section 30-13-206 gives the registration a five year term, requires the office to warn the applicant of record at least ninety days before it expires, and cancels any registration not renewed in the ninety days before the expiration date. The help center adds that an individual who wants to turn an assumed name into an LLC and keep the name must cancel the registration and register the LLC afresh, while a partnership or association can file a conversion.
The definition in Section 30-13-201 bars an assumed name from containing a business name identifier such as corporation or LLC unless the entity is one.
The mailings the Secretary has answered
The scam alerts page states the rule in one sentence: a letter or email claiming to be an official state notice demanding payment is not legitimate unless it comes directly from the Secretary of State or the business own commercial or noncommercial registered agent, and the only place to file a Montana annual report or renewal is the division portal. The business services page shows three examples beside the warning, a National Business Services document listing required 2026 business documents with a QR code, a US Filing Services email about Montana Compliance claiming the April 15 report carries a fifty one dollar fee, and a renewal notice dressed up with yellow and red borders.
The release on a mailing titled 2026 Additional Business Documents Needed describes a form printing REQUIRED BY LAW in red ink, citing fines up to twenty five thousand dollars and respond by dates, and selling an Employer Identification Number, labor law posters and a Certificate of Status, with its advertisement disclaimer in nearly unreadable type; Secretary Christi Jacobsen sent the sender a cease and desist letter, as she had to an earlier company, and reminded businesses that certificates of existence, EIN applications and labor law information come from government sites directly, the EIN free from the Internal Revenue Service. Fraud reports go to the Department of Justice Office of Consumer Protection.
What the register does not hold
A Montana corporation record names directors and officers and counts its shares, but does not name shareholders, and a manager managed LLC names only its managers. Bylaws and operating agreements are not filed. The help center separates the entity record from two other registers people confuse with it: the Independent Contractor Exemption Certificate and construction contractor registration belong to the Department of Labor and Industry, and tax standing belongs to the Department of Revenue, which is why a reinstatement needs that department certificate.
Uniform Commercial Code liens are searched separately on the same portal. The Principal Search Report is the division own answer to the question of what else a person is connected to, and the Montana people search guide lists the state sources beyond it; the Montana court records guide covers the district court records where a dissolved company or its principals would be sued.
Questions about looking up a Montana business
Related Montana records
The other Montana guides on this site are the Montana public records law guide for the right to know provisions, the Montana court records guide for the district and justice courts, the Montana property records guide for the county clerks and recorders, and the Montana county pages for every county office.