The Business Division of the West Virginia Secretary of State, at the One Stop Business Center at 13 Kanawha Boulevard West in Charleston with branch offices in Clarksburg and Martinsburg and on 304-558-8000, registers corporations, limited liability companies, partnerships and trade names, and its business page routes every filing through the One Stop Business Portal, which has been the mandatory channel for most filings since 2019.
The Business Entity Search takes an organization name and returns the free details for every match: the business address, registered number, date of creation, entity type, status and registered agent, with the data stamped as current to the day it is viewed, October 15, 2026 on the day of this reading. From the same screen a Certificate of Existence or Certificate of Authorization can be bought for ten dollars by credit card and printed at once with a validation number. For West Virginia businesses by place, see the West Virginia county pages.
- Twenty five dollars, January 1 to June 30: the annual report every registered West Virginia business files each year after its registration year.
- Fifty dollars, no waiver: the late fee added from July 1, bringing a late report to seventy five dollars, or fifty for a nonprofit.
- Ten dollars: a Certificate of Existence or Authorization printed from the entity search with a validation number.
- Free for a sole proprietor: a trade name registration, which costs an entity twenty five dollars, plus one dollar online.
Written by SearchSystems.net from West Virginia's own systems: the West Virginia Secretary of State business page, the annual reports page, the annual report form for a corporation, revised July 2026, Secretary of State Warner advice for owners who missed the annual report deadline, the business identity theft resources page, the copies and certificates page, the expedite service page, the register a trade name page, the Business Division fee schedule, the Business Entity Search, the business organization search on the Secretary of State applications site, each read on October 15, 2026 by the SearchSystems editorial team.
One window for everyone, and the half of the register that missed it
The annual reports page says every business registered with the Secretary of State files an annual report between January 1 and June 30 of each year after the year it registered, under West Virginia Code Section 59-1-2a, for a twenty five dollar fee, and that a report filed after June 30 carries a fifty dollar late fee, twenty five for a nonprofit, which the office has no authority to waive. In an article on the office site Secretary of State Kris Warner put numbers to it: of about 155,000 registered businesses, roughly 50,000 had not filed by the 2025 deadline, each now owing seventy five dollars, and a business that stays unfiled faces administrative dissolution for a domestic entity or revocation of authority for a foreign one, after which its name is open to anyone.
The corporation report form revised in July 2026 adds the change that took effect on July 1, 2026: an entity with five consecutive years of on time reports may elect to file every other year instead.
What the report puts on the public record
The July 2026 form shows why a West Virginia record is fuller than most. A corporation reports its principal office, mailing office and designated office addresses, its registered agent, an email address and website, the number of employees in the state and overall, whether it is minority, woman or veteran owned, any parent or subsidiary companies, and the name and address of every director and officer, a required field; an officer signs it, and the form states that the report is a public document.
The office recommends filing through the portal, where the report is prefilled from the record, and the page notes that filing on paper is allowed but slower. The identity theft page explains the stake: thieves look for inactive or delinquent entities whose records can be altered without the owner noticing, and the office answers with real time email alerts to the address on file whenever a document is filed against an entity, which is one reason the email on the report matters.
Ten dollars for the certificate, fifteen for a certified copy
The copies and certificates page says a Certificate of Existence for a domestic entity or Certificate of Authorization for a foreign one costs ten dollars and is bought from the Business Entity Search by credit card, printed immediately with a validation number that anyone receiving it can check on the same site. The fee schedule, in force since November 18, 2019, prices the rest: a certified copy of a document fifteen dollars, a plain copy one dollar a page, a certificate of charter fifteen dollars with five dollars for each additional document attached, any other certificate ten dollars, a name reservation fifteen dollars for one hundred twenty days, a change of registered agent fifteen, a dissolution twenty five, articles of incorporation or organization one hundred dollars for a domestic corporation or LLC, one hundred fifty for a foreign LLC, and a limited liability partnership two hundred fifty dollars domestic or five hundred foreign.
The expedite page adds three paid speeds on any filing: twenty five dollars for twenty four hour service, two hundred fifty for two hour service and five hundred for one hour.
Trade names, and the sole proprietor who pays nothing
West Virginia registers trade names with the state rather than the county clerk. The trade name page says a registered entity pays twenty five dollars to add a trade name, while an individual, sole proprietor or general partnership registers one free, with a one dollar portal fee in either case when filed online, and the fee schedule carries the same figures. A sole proprietor is first registered with the State Tax Department, and the page sends them there to confirm that the name is available before filing.
A trade name search therefore runs in the same Business Entity Search as a corporation, and a name that appears only as a trade name belongs to whoever registered it, not to a separate entity. The business organization search on the applications site is the older interface to the same data and still answers.
What the state does not show, and where the rest is
The report names directors and officers and the ownership categories a company chooses to declare, but it does not list shareholders or the members of a limited liability company, and the office does not hold bylaws, operating agreements or tax account numbers; the West Virginia people search guide lists the state sources for the people behind a company. The business page describes the One Stop Business Portal as the single place for registering with the Secretary of State, the State Tax Department and WorkForce West Virginia together, and the identity theft page asks every owner to file on time, keep the email address current and watch the alerts.
For a dispute over a West Virginia company, the West Virginia court records guide covers the circuit clerks and the magistrate courts.
Questions about looking up a West Virginia business
Related West Virginia records
The other West Virginia guides on this site are the West Virginia public records law guide for the Freedom of Information Act, the West Virginia court records guide for the circuit clerks, the West Virginia property records guide for the county clerks and assessors, and the West Virginia county pages for every county office.