The Division of Revenue and Enterprise Services in the Department of the Treasury keeps the New Jersey register, and its business entity name search divides into two jobs. Searching registered businesses looks through the existing database by business name, by keyword or by entity identification number, and returns any entity matching the criteria regardless of its status or whether the name is available for a new registration. Searching for available names does something different: it tells you whether a name can be used to begin forming and registering a new business.
Browsing the names and the ten digit identification numbers costs nothing, and the division says so twice, because the free browse is how a requester avoids its most unusual charge. Where the office searches for a record and finds no corresponding entity, it issues a No Record Certificate and charges twenty five dollars for each entity name searched, or fifty dollars for a limited liability company. Supplying the ten digit number instead of a name avoids it. For New Jersey businesses by place, see the New Jersey county pages.
- Ten cents a page: photocopies of filed documents, with certification at twenty five dollars a document or fifty for a limited liability company.
- Twenty five dollars for nothing: a No Record Certificate is charged when a name search finds no entity, avoidable by browsing free first.
- Three standing certificates: short form, long form with officers and directors, and long form with charter documents, all available online.
- Eight and a half business hours: the expedited turnaround, at fifteen dollars a transaction or twenty five for a limited liability company.
Written by SearchSystems.net from New Jersey's own systems: the New Jersey business entity name search, the Division of Revenue page on standing certificates, the division page on copies of business entity documents, the division fee schedule, the division business records service, each read on October 15, 2026 by the SearchSystems editorial team.
Two searches that answer different questions
The distinction the division draws is worth understanding before relying on a result. A search of registered businesses goes through the existing registered business database and returns any entity that matches the criteria, regardless of status or of whether the name is available for a new business registration, so a dissolved company and a trading one both appear. A search for available names is a formation tool: it determines whether a name can be used in the business formations service to begin forming and registering a new business.
A name that appears in the first search may still be available in the second, where the existing entity is long dead, and a name absent from the first may still be refused in the second for similarity to another.
What copies cost, and what they cover
Photocopies of corporate and business entity documents cost ten cents a page, which is among the cheapest rates in the country. They cover original and amended articles of incorporation, registered agent and office changes, and filed annual reports, and a requester may ask for everything on file for an entity or specify a type, such as mergers or articles of incorporation. Many records are now available online through the division records service.
Certification is where the cost arrives: twenty five dollars for each document certified, or fifty dollars for each document of a limited liability company. Because the total cannot be worked out in advance, payment is usually made by card, by depository account, or by a cheque marked not to exceed a stated amount.
The No Record Certificate
New Jersey is unusual in charging for a failed search, and unusual again in telling requesters how not to pay it. If the office searches for a record and there is no corresponding entity, a No Record Certificate is provided, at twenty five dollars for each entity name searched or fifty dollars for a limited liability company. The division then adds the remedy in the same paragraph: this fee may be avoided by browsing entity names free of charge and providing the office with the New Jersey ten digit identification number of the entity.
For a researcher, that makes the free name browse the first step in every order, and the ten digit number the thing to carry into any paid request.
The three standing certificates
Standing certificates attest to the legal status of business entities such as corporations and limited liability companies operating in New Jersey, are certified under the seal of the State Treasurer, and serve as legal documents. There are three types: short form standing, long form standing with officers and directors, and long form standing with charter documents, and what appears on each is designated in the state public records guide.
All three can now be obtained online, and the division also provides a service for validating a certificate online, which is the check to run when a certificate is handed over rather than ordered. Corporate and limited partnership standing certificates cost twenty five dollars, covering both short and long forms. For a limited liability company or limited liability partnership the short form costs fifty dollars and the long form a hundred.
Expedited service, and the fax rule
Expedited service provides processing within eight and a half business hours, and it is available for certifications and copy requests received by fax, in person or by courier. It costs fifteen dollars per transaction for corporations, non profits and limited partnerships, or twenty five dollars per filing for limited liability companies and limited liability partnerships, charged in addition to the certificate or copy fee. One consequence catches people out: all fax requests are considered to be requests for expedited service, so a fax sent for convenience is billed at the expedited rate.
And the office will not return photocopies of corporate and business entity documents by fax, so the outward journey is always post or courier.
What to put in a written order
For an order by post, over the counter or by fax, the division asks for the name and the ten digit business identification number of the entity, the type of certificate wanted, being short form, long form with officers and directors, or long form with charter documents, and return instructions. A self addressed stamped envelope is said to speed processing. Payment is enclosed as per the fee schedule, with cheques payable to the Treasurer, State of New Jersey, or card details supplied, meaning the card type, number, expiry date and the account holder name and address.
Standing certificates not ordered online are forwarded by first class post unless other delivery arrangements have been made. For copies of annual reports, the office also needs the report year.
Timing, and where to go in Trenton
One line on the standing certificate page explains an apparent gap in the register: electronic filings are updated by ten in the morning on the next business day. A change filed this afternoon will therefore not show in a certificate ordered this evening, which matters when a transaction turns on a name change or a merger that has just been lodged. Two units handle the work from the same addresses: the certification and status unit for certificates and the records unit for copies, both at a post office box in Trenton for postal orders and at 33 West State Street in Trenton over the counter.
Requests for copies of filed tax returns go elsewhere entirely, to the Division of Taxation.
Questions about looking up a New Jersey business
Related New Jersey records
New Jersey's other records guides on this site are the New Jersey public records law guide for the Open Public Records Act, the New Jersey court records guide for the judiciary case search, the New Jersey property records guide for the county clerks, and the New Jersey county pages for every county office.