The Division of Business and Charitable Organizations of the Tennessee Secretary of State holds the record for corporations, nonprofit corporations, limited liability companies, limited partnerships, limited liability partnerships and the statements of general partnerships. Its business entity search runs inside TNCaB and returns, for each match, an internal Id, the Secretary of State control number, the name, any other names used, the entity type, the status, the city, the place where it was formed, a state code and the registration date. It offers starts with, contains and exact matching, and a box to limit results to active entities only.
The control number matters more than it looks. It is the key the office uses on every order, and the copy request form asks for it together with the exact legal name as the record shows it. The other names used column is where assumed names appear, which makes the one search do the work that a separate trade name index does in many states. For Tennessee records county by county, see the Tennessee county pages.
- Twenty dollars: a Certificate of Existence ordered from the Secretary of State, against eighty three to a hundred and seventy five dollars from mailers.
- No DBAs: Tennessee registers assumed names only, each good for five years and renewable.
- Account first: every filing, annual reports included, now needs a TNCaB account.
- Up to three thousand: the LLC annual report fee starts at three hundred dollars and rises by fifty for each member over six.
Written by SearchSystems.net from Tennessee's own systems: the Tennessee Secretary of State business services, the TNCaB business entity search, the TNCaB home page, the order copies and certificates guide, the business forms and fees page, the business frequently asked questions, the form SS-4461 instructions for copies, the May 2021 certificate of existence scam release, the February 2022 Business Document Center release, the January 2026 third party solicitor warning, the 2014 misleading solicitation warning, each read on October 15, 2026 by the SearchSystems editorial team.
The certificate that keeps getting resold
Tennessee does not issue a certificate of good standing. Its equivalent is the Certificate of Existence, which the office defines as a document certifying that an entity is active and in good standing, and it costs twenty dollars by phone, by mail or online. In May 2021 the Secretary of State warned about a mailer titled 2021 Certificate of Existence Request, sent by a company trading as both Tennessee Certificate Service and TN Certificate of Existence Filing Company, which asked for eighty three dollars or a hundred and seventy five dollars and fifty cents and quoted language making the certificate sound like part of registration. The same mailer came back the next January with 2022 on it.
Eleven days after that repeat, a third warning named Business Document Center, whose 2022 Certificate of Status Request Form sought eighty seven dollars and twenty five cents for a Certificate of Good Standing, a document the office pointed out it does not even offer. Its message on all of them is consistent: a business may want the certificate for a loan closing or a similar transaction, but none is needed to form a company or to keep doing business in the state.
The annual report mailers
On January 12, 2026 the office issued a fresh warning about mail and email from a third party calling itself the Tennessee Business Filing Center, offering to file annual reports for hundreds of dollars in fees, and said complaints had been rising steadily. The release puts the annual report deadline at April 1 each year and says the report keeps an entity in active status so it can legally operate. The pattern is old. In 2014 the office warned about the Tennessee Council for Corporations, which offered to prepare annual corporate consent records for a hundred and twenty five dollars, internal documents that are never filed with the state, on a form resembling the official annual report notice, and it named Corporate Records Service and Annual Business Services as senders of similar letters.
Suspicious mail can be reported to the division on 615-741-2286 or to TNSOS.corpinfo@tn.gov, and complaints can go to the Attorney General on 615-741-3491.
Assumed names instead of DBAs
The business questions page states it bluntly: Tennessee does not recognize DBAs or fictitious names. An entity that trades under a different name registers an assumed name with the Secretary of State, which lasts five years and can be renewed. The fee schedule charges twenty dollars to register, change, renew or cancel one. The office also lists a foreign entity failing to maintain its assumed name after a name conflict as a ground for administrative dissolution, which tells you foreign companies with clashing names trade here under assumed names.
For a researcher this means a trading name on a sign or invoice should turn up in the other names column of the entity search, attached to the company that registered it.
Ordering copies and certificates
Copies are ordered with form SS-4461, by mail, in person or online, according to the order guide. The request needs the control number, the legal name as listed on the record, the documents wanted, the requester's details and a delivery address, and the fee is twenty dollars per set of documents. The form instructions send paper requests to the Tennessee Secretary of State, attention Certifications, 312 Rosa L. Parks Avenue, sixth floor, Nashville, with a check, cashier's check or money order payable to the Tennessee Secretary of State.
Cash is accepted only at the counter, and a request made payable to anyone else is rejected. The certifications desk answers on 615-741-6488 and at TNSOS.CERT@tn.gov.
One condition surprises people. A Certificate of Existence requires tax clearance from the Department of Revenue, the same clearance needed to reinstate, terminate, cancel or withdraw an entity. A company with an open problem at Revenue can therefore exist on the register and still be unable to get the certificate until it settles with Revenue.
Why a Tennessee company goes inactive
The office lists four causes of administrative dissolution: failing to file an annual report, being without a registered agent, a foreign entity failing to maintain its assumed name after a name conflict, and a payment returned by a bank. An entity dissolved this way shows as inactive, and the filing history link in the search shows how it got there. Reinstatement after administrative dissolution or revocation costs seventy dollars on the fee schedule.
The annual report itself is cheap for a corporation, twenty dollars, with another twenty if the registered agent or office changes, but a limited liability company pays at least three hundred dollars, plus fifty for each member beyond six, up to three thousand. Reports are commonly rejected for the wrong fee, a missing officer, an unanswered directors box, no signature or date, or a form not typed or written in ink.
A second record at the county
Tennessee keeps a copy of corporate paper locally as well. The business questions page says that where a corporation's principal address is in Tennessee, its filed document must also be recorded with the Register of Deeds in the county where the principal office sits. A researcher who cannot get what is needed from the state can therefore look for the recorded charter in the county land records. The registered office itself must be a physical Tennessee address, never a post office box, route number or box number alone, so the address shown on the record should be somewhere a process server can actually go.
Questions about looking up a Tennessee business
Related Tennessee records
Tennessee research on this site continues in the Tennessee court records guide, the Tennessee property records guide for the registers of deeds, the Tennessee public records law guide, the Tennessee unclaimed property guide, and the Tennessee county pages.