Wisconsin business filings belong to the Corporation Bureau of the Division of Corporate and Consumer Services at the Department of Financial Institutions, at 4822 Madison Yards Way in Madison and on 608-261-7577, and its general information page explains that the bureau examines and files the articles, reports and other records of corporations, limited liability companies, partnerships and cooperatives, keeps the public record of them, and issues certificates of status and certified copies as the official evidence of what is on file.
The questions page describes the corporate records information system, which it abbreviates CRIS, as a searchable database of more than 704,000 active and inactive business entities, free to search on the department website at dfi.wi.gov/apps/CorpSearch/Search.aspx, where a record shows the entity name, its type, status, registered agent and office, filing history and the quarter its report falls due. For Wisconsin businesses by place, see the Wisconsin county pages.
- Twenty five dollars, in the anniversary quarter: the online annual report of a Wisconsin corporation, LLC or nonstock corporation, plus fifteen dollars on paper.
- Eighty dollars, by March 31: the annual report of a foreign corporation or LLC, due in the first quarter of every year after its registration year.
- DLQ: the code a record prints once a report is late, the first step toward a notice of intent to administratively dissolve.
- Ten dollars: a certificate of status, a long form certificate or a certified copy, with a plain copy at five and a twenty five dollar expedite per document.
Written by SearchSystems.net from Wisconsin's own systems: the Wisconsin Department of Financial Institutions business entities general information page, the business entities frequently asked questions, the business entity filing fees page, the certificates and certified copy fees page, the file online page, the fraudulent filing page, the suspicious notices page, the corporate data services page, the statutes and rules page, the corporate records search, the annual report instructions for a domestic corporation, form 5I, each read on October 15, 2026 by the SearchSystems editorial team.
A report due in the quarter of the anniversary
The questions page sets the calendar. A Wisconsin corporation, limited liability company, nonstock corporation or cooperative files an annual report during the calendar quarter in which the anniversary of its incorporation or organization falls, every year after the year it was formed, so a company organized in May files between April 1 and June 30; a foreign corporation or LLC files during the first quarter, by March 31, every year after the year it was granted authority.
The bureau mails or emails a notice before the quarter opens to the registered agent, but the duty to file does not depend on the notice arriving. The fees page prices the online report at twenty five dollars for a domestic corporation, LLC or nonstock corporation and eighty dollars for a foreign corporation or LLC, and since March 1, 2024 a report filed on paper carries a fifteen dollar surcharge under DFI-CCS 10.01(6) of the administrative code, so the paper figures are forty and ninety five.
The form 5I instructions show what a domestic corporation reports: its registered agent and office, principal office, the nature of its business, and the names and addresses of its directors and principal officers, which is why a search returns officers for a corporation but never a list of shareholders.
DLQ, the intent to dissolve, and the way back
The questions page translates the status codes a search prints. DLQ means delinquent: a required report has not been filed, and the entity is no longer in good standing. After the delinquency has run on the bureau sends a Notice of Intent to Administratively Dissolve, and if nothing is filed the status becomes Administratively Dissolved or, for a foreign entity, Revoked; a foreign corporation or LLC that files no report within four months after March 31 is subject to revocation, and a domestic entity is dissolved after what the page calls several years of delinquency, with notice sent by mail to the registered agent and then published on the department website.
The cure for a delinquency is to file the current report together with any back reports and fees, after which the status reads Restored to Good Standing, and an administratively dissolved company reinstates by filing an application under Wis. Stat. 180.1422 or 183.0709 with the missed reports. The statutes page links the chapters themselves, 180 for business corporations, 181 for nonstock corporations, 183 for limited liability companies, 178 and 179 for partnerships and 185 and 193 for cooperatives.
Ten dollars for the certificate, and what it does not say
The certificates page lists a certificate of status at ten dollars, a long form certificate of status, which recites the filing history, at ten dollars, a certified copy of a document at ten dollars, and an uncertified copy at five, each ordered online, by mail or at the counter and normally produced within ten business days, with a twenty five dollar expedite fee per document for faster handling. The certificate confirms that the entity exists on the department record and has filed its reports; it does not speak to taxes owed to the Department of Revenue, licenses, lawsuits or liens, and the questions page says no Wisconsin business is ever required to obtain one, a point that matters because of the mailings described below.
The file online page adds the counter speeds for new filings: one hundred dollars for expedited service by the next business day, two hundred fifty dollars for service within four hours at the Madison counter, and five hundred dollars for service within one hour.
The invoices that are not from the state
The suspicious notices page names mailings the bureau has been asked about, among them letters styled as WI Certificate Service and US Business Regulations Dept that look like state invoices and offer to obtain a certificate of status or file a report for a fee far above the ten and twenty five dollars the department charges. The page says the department does not send invoices, that its own notices carry its name and address, and that the easiest check is to file directly at the department website.
The fraudulent filing page covers the other direction, a filing made against a company without authority: the bureau cannot refuse a document that meets the statutory form, but under Wis. Stat. 180.0129 and the parallel sections of the other chapters a person who signs a document knowing it to be false commits a Class I felony, and a company that finds a filing it did not make should file a corrective document and report the matter to law enforcement.
Owners, trade names and the data the state sells
Wisconsin never files ownership. The data services page, which sells the database to bulk users, says the file contains no owner, shareholder or LLC member information, and that officer and director names, although printed on corporation reports, are not part of the database extract either; it offers a monthly file of newly formed entities for five dollars a month and the full database by subscription. A sole proprietor or partnership that trades under a name files nothing with the Corporation Bureau; the questions page sends them to the trademark and trade name registration handled by the same department under chapter 132, and a sole proprietor record will therefore appear in the trademark search rather than in CRIS.
For the people behind a Wisconsin company, the Wisconsin people search guide lists the state sources, and for a dispute over one, the Wisconsin court records guide covers the circuit court access site. Under 180.1420 and 183.0708 the grounds for administrative dissolution are the unfiled report, the unpaid fee, sixty days without a registered agent or office, and an unreported change of agent, and under 180.1530 and 183.09101 the same facts revoke a foreign registration.
Questions about looking up a Wisconsin business
Related Wisconsin records
The other Wisconsin guides on this site are the Wisconsin public records law guide for the Public Records Law, the Wisconsin court records guide for the circuit court access site, the Wisconsin property records guide for the registers of deeds, and the Wisconsin county pages for every county office.