The Bureau of Corporations and Charitable Organizations at the Pennsylvania Department of State keeps the register, and its searchable database is online through the state filing system. The record searches page sets out what the search can and cannot do, and the limits are unusually strict: the records may only be accessed by the correct entity name or the entity number, not by an officer or owner name, and businesses are not indexed by type, by tax or federal identification number, by purpose or by business address.
The gaps in the record matter as much as the gaps in the index. The bureau states that its records do not reflect officer addresses, stockholders, business telephone numbers or any tax information. So a Pennsylvania search answers whether an entity exists, under exactly what name and number, when it was filed and what its status is, and it will not answer who owns it or where to telephone it. For Pennsylvania businesses by place, see the Pennsylvania county pages.
- Name or number only: no officer or owner search, and no index by type, tax number, purpose or address.
- Fifteen dollars a history: a written printout gives the complete filing history of an entity, priced for each entity number.
- Two names a call: telephone representatives search two entity names per call, on lines open from eight until a quarter to five.
- No active status: the bureau has no active status for corporations, and good standing means nothing has happened to end the entity.
Written by SearchSystems.net from Pennsylvania's own systems: the Pennsylvania Department of State record searches page, the business fee exemption for veteran owned and reservist owned small businesses, the department business fees and payments pages, the bureau forms and documents library, the Department of State annual reports page, the business and charities scam alerts page, each read on October 15, 2026 by the SearchSystems editorial team.
What the bureau will tell you by telephone
Pennsylvania still runs a staffed inquiry line, with one rationing rule attached: in order to accommodate the volume of incoming calls, customer service representatives may search two entity names per call. Information is provided on active companies unless the caller specifies otherwise. What a representative can give is listed: the entity number, the exact entity name, the filing date, the effective date if there is one, the business type, the status and, when available, the officers, general partners or fictitious name owners.
The business purpose is given for fictitious names and professional corporations, and the classification for trademarks, while the purpose for other entities may or may not be listed. The lines are open from eight in the morning until a quarter to five.
Good standing, and why there is no active status
Pennsylvania defines standing by exclusion rather than by a positive mark on the file. A corporate entity, limited partnership or limited liability entity is considered to be in good standing if it has not been dissolved, canceled, merged, withdrawn, effected a name change or had an expired term. The bureau then says the thing that confuses people reading a Pennsylvania record for the first time: it does not have an active status for corporations.
Fictitious names are different again, having no good standing status at all, but remaining in effect unless canceled. For a researcher, that means reading the filing history for an ending event rather than looking for a word like active in the status field.
The fifteen dollar filing history
Where the free lookup is not enough, the bureau sells the full record. A written printout of a record search costs fifteen dollars for each entity number and provides a complete filing history of the entity, which is the document to order when the question is what has happened to a company over time rather than what its name is today. The request is made by letter to the bureau at its box in Harrisburg, and the letter must contain the name and address of the entity to be searched.
Because the fee is charged per entity number, a group of related companies costs fifteen dollars each, and the entity numbers are worth collecting from the free search first.
Subsistence certificates, copies and the rush lanes
Pennsylvania issues no certificate of good standing. The fee page lists a subsistence certificate for a domestic entity and a certificate of registration for a foreign one at forty dollars each, and the department says they are generally emailed within two hours of an online order. A record search printout costs fifteen dollars and may simply record that there is no record. Plain copies cost fifteen dollars plus three dollars a page and certified copies fifty five dollars plus three dollars a page, screen printouts and microfilm copies in the reception room three dollars a page, and an engrossed certificate under the Secretary seal, such as a certificate of non existence, one hundred twenty five dollars. Registering a fictitious name costs seventy dollars.
Speed is priced on top of the statutory fee: one hundred dollars for same day service on a document received before ten in the morning, three hundred for three hour service received before two in the afternoon, and a thousand dollars for one hour service received before four. Annual reports have no expedited option because an online report is approved automatically. The bureau states that its fees are nonrefundable.
The veteran and reservist fee exemption
Pennsylvania waives the cost of starting a business for veterans and reservists under Act 135 of 2016, effective January 2, 2017. A business fee means any fee required to be paid to the Commonwealth or a political subdivision for starting or opening a business in Pennsylvania, and the exemption does not extend to fees for maintaining a license or other requirement for continuing to operate. The small business must be independently owned, not dominant in its field of operation and employ a hundred or fewer employees, and it must be owned and controlled by veterans or reservists.
A veteran is someone who served in the United States Armed Forces, including a reserve component or the National Guard, and was discharged or released under conditions other than dishonorable; a reservist is a member of a reserve component or the National Guard.
The annual report that began in 2025
Act 122 of 2022 gave Pennsylvania a yearly filing, and the annual reports page sets out the regime that began on January 1, 2025. Domestic business and nonprofit corporations, limited liability companies, limited partnerships, limited liability partnerships, professional associations, business trusts and every registered foreign association file a report giving the business name, jurisdiction of formation, registered office, principal office, the name of at least one governor, meaning a director, member or partner, the names and titles of the principal officers, and the entity number.
No financial information is asked for. The fee is seven dollars for business corporations, LLCs, LPs and LLPs and nothing for nonprofits or entities with a not for profit purpose, and the report information is displayed on the public search together with whether the association is compliant.
The deadline depends on the type: June 30 for corporations, September 30 for limited liability companies and December 31 for limited partnerships, limited liability partnerships, business trusts and professional associations, with the first report due the year after formation or registration. There is no late fee, but a report for a past calendar year can no longer be filed. The transition period ends with the reports due in 2027: an association that fails to file that year faces administrative dissolution, termination or cancellation six months after its due date, its name becomes available to others, and a domestic entity may reinstate at any time, for thirty five dollars electronically plus seven dollars for each unpaid report, while a foreign association must register afresh.
An entity whose status reads Inactive in any form owes no report; one reading Active does.
The mailings the department has named
The business scam alerts page is updated often enough to be read before paying any letter. On October 9, 2026 it named emails from US Filing Services headed Pennsylvania Compliance, which told companies a 2025 report was overdue and led to a site charging from one hundred forty nine dollars plus state fees, when a lapsed year cannot be filed at all; legitimate reminders come from no_reply@pa.gov. On August 27, 2026 it named National Filing Corp, charging one hundred thirty six dollars for an LLC and one hundred seventy one for a corporation and citing a thirty five dollar state late fee that does not exist.
Earlier entries cover a Business Document Center form selling a Pennsylvania Certificate of Good Standing for eighty seven dollars twenty five, a document the department does not issue, a National Business Services letter pricing a certificate of status at eighty nine ninety five and an employer identification number at one hundred eighty five, and a New Business Filing LLC mailing that sent companies to busfile.org to pay one hundred seventy five dollars for the seven dollar report.
The department repeats the same test each time: the subsistence certificate costs forty dollars direct, the annual report seven or nothing, labor posters and OSHA manuals are free from the agencies that require them, and a federal employer identification number costs nothing from the Internal Revenue Service.
Questions about looking up a Pennsylvania business
Related Pennsylvania records
Pennsylvania's other records guides on this site are the Pennsylvania public records law guide for the Right to Know Law, the Pennsylvania court records guide for the unified judicial system portal, the Pennsylvania property records guide for the county recorders of deeds, and the Pennsylvania county pages for every county office.