The Business Services Division of the Vermont Secretary of State, at 128 State Street in Montpelier and on 888-647-4582, registers corporations, limited liability companies, partnerships and assumed business names, and its business filings page defines good standing in four parts: the annual or biennial report is current, the registered agent and office are current, the principal office and mailing address are current, and the principal personnel, the officers, directors, managers, members or partners, are current. Everything is filed through the Online Business Service Center at bizfilings.vermont.gov, and paper forms exist only on request.
The business search on that portal takes a business name or record number with starts with, contains and exact match settings, filters by record type, record status and initial filing date, and carries an advanced search. The division says plainly that basic business information should be checked there rather than by ordering documents, and that the fiscal year end that governs a company reporting deadline is found by searching for the business online. For Vermont businesses by place, see the Vermont county pages.
- Two and a half months, or three: how long after its fiscal year end a corporation, or an LLC, has to file its annual report.
- Sixty dollars, or forty five: the domestic corporation and LLC report fees, rising to two hundred fifty and one hundred seventy for foreign entities.
- Twenty five dollars: a certificate of good standing for a business corporation, generated at once on the user dashboard, or a certified copy.
- Five years: how long a terminated company keeps its name, and how long an assumed business name registration lasts.
Written by SearchSystems.net from Vermont's own systems: the Vermont Secretary of State business filings page, the annual and biennial reports page, the reinstatements page, the assumed name registration page, the copies and certificates page, the certificates of good standing page, the certified copies page, the Business Services Division fees and statutes page, the important notices for Vermont businesses, the other filings page, the Online Business Service Center business search, Chapter 14 of Title 11A, dissolution, on the Vermont Statutes Online, Chapter 16 of Title 11A, records and reports, 11 V.S.A. Section 4033 on the LLC annual report, 11 V.S.A. Section 4034 on involuntary termination of an LLC, each read on October 15, 2026 by the SearchSystems editorial team.
A deadline set by each company own fiscal year
Vermont does not use a statewide date. The annual reports page says a profit corporation, profit cooperative or limited liability company renews its registration each fiscal year by filing an annual report within the first two and a half months after the fiscal year end on record for a corporation, or three months for an LLC, PLC or L3C; a limited liability partnership or mutual benefit enterprise files between January 1 and April 1 regardless of fiscal year; and a nonprofit files a biennial report in the same window every second year.
Section 16.22 of the business corporation act lists what the report carries: the corporation name and home jurisdiction, its registered office and the name and email of its registered agent, its principal office, and the names and business addresses of its directors and of its president, secretary, treasurer and every other officer with policy making authority, current as of the date it is signed, with a report returned for correction treated as timely if refiled within thirty days.
Under 11 V.S.A. Section 4033 an LLC report, as amended with effect from July 1, 2025, gives only the company name and home state, its designated office and the name, email and address of its agent for service of process, with the Secretary of State amending the record for any change the report specifies in purpose, email, address or principal information. All reports are filed online, and a filer who wants to pay by check prints the report and mails it.
What the report costs, and what it costs to come back
The division fees page gives the figures by entity type. A domestic business corporation pays sixty dollars for its annual report and a foreign corporation two hundred fifty; a domestic LLC pays forty five and a foreign one one hundred seventy; a nonprofit pays thirty five for its biennial report if any officer, director or employee was compensated in the prior year and nothing otherwise. Articles of incorporation or organization cost one hundred fifty five dollars, a foreign certificate of authority one hundred fifty five, an amendment or dissolution of a corporation thirty five, and a name reservation twenty dollars.
The reinstatements page explains the status a search shows: failing to file reports on time or to keep a registered agent terminates good standing, and the record reads terminated or inactive depending on how long the entity has been out of compliance; reinstatement is filed online by corporations, nonprofits, cooperatives, LLCs, LLPs and mutual benefit enterprises. Under Section 14.20 a corporation that fails to file its report terminates and is reinstated when it files the report with the required fee, and the fees page prices the reinstatement at fifty dollars for a corporation that missed a report and thirty five for an LLC, with the LLC statute requiring the report fee and reinstatement fee for each year missed. A reinstatement relates back as if the termination never happened.
Losing the name after five years
Both statutes attach a longer consequence to a report left unfiled. Under Section 14.20 a corporation loses the right to retain its corporate name if the report is not filed within five years of its due date and another corporation then asks for the name, and under Section 4034 an LLC loses the right to its name on the same five year test. Termination does not stop a suit against the company in its own name, although the suit may be dismissed unless the company reinstates, and it does not end the authority of the registered agent.
For a researcher the five year mark is the point at which a long terminated Vermont name may belong to a different company altogether.
Twenty five dollars for the certificate, and the fraud it guards against
The certificates page defines the document as confirmation that a business, the members of an unincorporated nonprofit association or the registrants of an assumed name are compliant with every legal requirement to keep sole rights to the name and the authority to do business as recorded with the Secretary of State on the date of issue, and warns that it says nothing about standing with the Internal Revenue Service, the Departments of Labor or Taxes, the Attorney General Consumer Protection Unit, or liens and lawsuits.
It is generated from the Online Business Service Center under Filings and appears at once on the user dashboard under Certificates and Filing Images, for twenty five dollars for a business corporation or thirty five for a nonprofit, with an LLC certificate of existence at thirty five. A Record Number and Certificate Number printed in the corner verify it on the Certificate Search page, and the division says a certificate without a verification number, or one that looks different, may be a fraud.
Certified copies cost twenty five dollars and are requested the same way; documents the office itself issued cannot be copied.
Assumed business names, including the one a company uses without its suffix
Vermont registers assumed business names at the state. The assumed name page, which notes that the filing was formerly called a trade name registration, requires it of a sole proprietor doing business under anything other than his own proper name, a general partnership, an unincorporated nonprofit association, and any registered entity that wants to trade under a different name or under its own name without the entity identifier such as Inc. or LLC.
Under 11 V.S.A. Section 1621 an individual whose business name includes his full legal name, John Smith Carpentry for instance, is exempt, though the page notes that banks may require the registration anyway. The fees page prices the registration at seventy dollars, a reregistration at sixty five and a certificate of cessation at thirty five, and the registration runs five years. The name may not contain corporation, incorporated, company, limited, LLC or any other entity term, and there is no distinction between a domestic and a foreign assumed name; an out of state DBA simply registers afresh.
Online registration normally takes less than a business day, paper seven to ten. For the people behind a Vermont company, the Vermont people search guide lists the state sources.
The vendor letters of May 2026
The division notices page carries a statement dated May 6, 2026 about third party service companies, including US Filing Services LLC, that had contacted Vermont businesses in the preceding weeks about their filing status and urged them to review it even when their filings were up to date. The office said the letters had left businesses understandably concerned and flooded its lines, and asked anyone worried to check their record at bizfilings.vermont.gov rather than call, since a company not in good standing can usually just file its annual or biennial report online, with videos at the foot of the homepage showing how.
The other filings page lists the registers that sit beside the business one, amusement ride operators, fantasy sports operators, telemarketers, data brokers and trademarks, each with its own search. For a dispute over a Vermont company, the Vermont court records guide covers the judiciary public portal.
Questions about looking up a Vermont business
Related Vermont records
The other Vermont guides on this site are the Vermont public records law guide for the Public Records Act, the Vermont court records guide for the judiciary portal, the Vermont property records guide for the town clerks and listers, and the Vermont county pages for every county office.