Alaska Division of Corporations, Business and Professional Licensing
Alaska Business Entity Search
Last updated . Register data is refreshed nightly.
Check whether a business name is already on file with the Alaska Division of Corporations, Business and Professional Licensing. Free, no account, all entity types.
Alaska Business Entity Search
Search the state's official business records.
Alaska's register is at commerce.alaska.gov, run by the Division of Corporations, Business and Professional Licensing. Free, no account.
It is also the only register we have looked at that opens by telling you what it does not mean.
The state's own disclaimer
Before you search anything, Alaska says it does not verify the identity of whoever filed the documents, nor the accuracy or ownership of what they filed.
That is a remarkable thing for a register to volunteer, and it reframes everything below it. A name on this database means a form was submitted and accepted. It does not mean the state checked that the person submitting it was who they said they were.
Worth holding on to if you are using the register to check who you are dealing with rather than to check a name.
Both defaults are the thorough ones
This is rare enough to note.
The match is set to Contains, not Starts With. The Current Only box is left unticked, so dissolved and expired entities are in your results by default.
Almost every other state does the opposite: Minnesota stacks three narrow settings at once, New Hampshire and Wyoming both start on Starts With. Alaska starts wide and lets you narrow, which is the right way round when the question is whether a name is free.
What it does put in your way is a robot check, which appears when you submit rather than before.
Reserved names and registrations sit in the results
The Entity Type column is doing real work here. Alongside companies you get:
- Name Reservation
- Business Name Registration
- Foreign Corporate Name Registration
So a name somebody has reserved but never formed a company around appears in the same list as a live LLC. The Status column then carries Expired Name and Canceled Name for those.
That matters. A reserved name is a claim on the name. Most states make you run a separate search to discover it; Alaska puts it in the row.
There is also a Name Type column distinguishing legal names from assumed ones, and a search for ACME returns three pages of results.
The record, and the part that is unusual
Open an entity and you get a names table separating legal from assumed names, then the entity type, number and status, the Alaska formation date, duration or expiration, home state, and the date the next biennial report falls due.
Then the registered agent with an address.
Then Officials, and this is the part no other state matches. The table carries a name, a title, and a percentage owned.
Alaska publishes ownership shares. The example record shows two members at 50.00% each. DC publishes beneficial owners by name; New Hampshire and Washington name managers and members. Alaska is the only register in this set that tells you how much of the company each person holds.
The register is downloadable
The main navigation carries a Data Downloads section, so Alaska publishes the register in bulk as well as through the search. South Dakota sells its equivalent; Alaska gives it away.
Who decides
The state has already told you it does not verify who filed what. Acceptance is a separate judgment again, made by the Division under the Alaska Revised Limited Liability Company Act, Alaska Stat. Title 10, Chapter 50.
Before you rely on it
Read the state's disclaimer. A record here is a filing, not a verification.
Leave both defaults alone. Contains and Current Only unticked are already the thorough settings.
Read the Entity Type column. A reserved name in the list still claims the name.
Look at the Officials table for percentages. You will not get them anywhere else.
Alaska filing facts
| Filing | Fee | Form |
|---|---|---|
| Articles of Organization | $250.00 | 08-0484 |
| Certificate of Authority (foreign LLC) | $350.00 | 08-414 |
| Biennial report, domestic LLC | $100.00 | |
| Biennial report, foreign LLC | $200.00 | |
| Restated articles | $25.00 | 08-486 |
| Notice of change of officials | $25.00 | 08-0491 |
At $250 to form, Alaska is among the more expensive states to start in: five times Iowa or Arizona, two and a half times Ohio. The biennial report at $100 softens the recurring side: filed every two years, that is $50 a year, less than New Hampshire's $100 and well under the District's $150.
The foreign premium runs through both: $350 to register and $200 every two years, against $250 and $100 for a domestic LLC.
We are not quoting a name reservation fee or a late fee. Figures of $25 for 120 days and $37.50 after 2 February circulate, cited to a registered-agent site rather than to the state, and neither is on Alaska's own fee table.
Against those prices the register is modest: 14,270 applications in the 52 weeks to 26 September 2026, 57 a business day, up 43.1%, 47th of 51.
What the register will not tell you
Alaska has 1,883 live registered marks, the smallest pool in the country, and the most extreme concentration we have measured anywhere:
| word | live marks | times more common than nationally |
|---|---|---|
| alaska | 668 | 1,535x |
| alaskan | 105 | 1,062x |
| denali | 72 | 504x |
| bristol | 69 | 417x |
| bay | 95 | 37x |
| brewing | 98 | 22x |
| wild | 66 | 17x |
Alaska appears in 668 of 1,883 marks (more than a third of the entire state register) at 1,535 times the national rate. Nothing else in this project comes close. Vermont's 699x was the previous high; Alaska more than doubles it, and then does it again with alaskan at 1,062x.
Denali at 504x and Bristol at 417x are the same story in miniature: a small register where a handful of place names carry enormous weight. Bristol Bay is a fishery, and bay at 37x reflects the same economy.
The practical reading is blunt. If your name contains Alaska, Alaskan, Denali or Bristol, assume it is contested, not merely crowded, but occupied. In a register this small, one in three marks already uses the state's name.
Anchorage files 50.4% of Alaska's marks, Wasilla 6.9%, Fairbanks 6.8%.
What the Alaska portal looks like
Captured from the live register. Personal names and addresses are blacked out; everything else is as the state publishes it.
Alaska Division of Corporations, Business and Professional Licensing business services
Business registrations in Alaska are held by the Alaska Division of Corporations, Business and Professional Licensing, which maintains the public register this page searches, accepts new filings, and issues the certificates a bank or a counterparty may ask you for. Contact them directly for anything that has to be official.
| Business entity search | www.commerce.alaska.gov/cbp/main/search/entities |
|---|---|
| Phone | (907) 269-8160 |
| Address | 333 Willoughby Avenue, 9th Floor, State Office Building, Juneau, AK 99801 |
| Office hours | 8:00 a.m.-11:30 a.m. |
| LLC filing fee | $250 |
| Processing | 10-15 business days |
The office handles registration, not disputes. If a name is already taken, they will tell you it is unavailable but not who holds it beyond what the public record shows, and they will not advise on whether your name infringes someone’s mark.
Common questions about Alaska business entity searches
How do I check if an LLC exists in Alaska?
Search the name on this page or on the state's own portal. What Alaska does by default is worth knowing before you read the result: contains. A match means the entity is on file, and its status line tells you whether it is still active.
How do I verify a company is registered in Alaska?
Search the name, then open the record rather than reading the results line. You get a names table separating legal from assumed names, entity type, number and status, the Alaska formation date, duration or expiration and home state. The status on the record is the one to trust: a dissolved company still appears in a search and still holds its name.
Does a clear search mean my Alaska business name is approved?
Not on its own. A no-match result means the name is not on the Alaska register today, which is a preliminary answer rather than approval: Alaska Division of Corporations, Business and Professional Licensing decides when it reviews the filing. Worth knowing about Alaska in particular: it matches on Contains out of the box and leaves the Current Only box off, so both defaults are the thorough ones. What it does put in your way is a robot check, which appears only once you press Search. Read the name type column: the same company can appear twice, once under its legal name and once under an assumed name, sharing an entity number.
Can I look up who owns a business in Alaska?
The Alaska register shows the registered agent and, depending on the filing type, officers or organizers. It does not list members or shareholders for every entity, so the register identifies who accepts legal service rather than who owns the company.
How much does it cost to register a business name in Alaska?
Alaska Division of Corporations, Business and Professional Licensing charges $250 to file the Articles of Organization, which is the document that forms the company, and currently takes 10-15 business days to process. Reserving a name beforehand is a separate and smaller fee. Confirm the figure with the state before you file: schedules move.
Sources
- Alaska business entity search, the official register this page queries.
- Filing fees and processing times: Alaska Division of Corporations, Business and Professional Licensing, Corporation Forms & Fees, verified 2026-09-10. Current schedules are published by the Alaska Division of Corporations, Business and Professional Licensing.
- Formation activity: Census Bureau Business Formation Statistics, retrieved via FRED at the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis.
- Federal trademark data: United States Patent and Trademark Office, 3,374,058 live registrations cross-referenced against the state registers. Live excludes both abandoned applications and cancelled registrations.
- Register copy: bulk data published by commerce.alaska.gov, last checked October 15, 2026.
- Office contact details: Alaska Division of Corporations, Business and Professional Licensing, confirmed against the office’s own contact page.
- Naming and reporting rules: Alaska Division of Corporations, Business and Professional Licensing, Corporation Forms & Fees.
- Naming statute: Alaska Stat. Title 10, Ch. 50, published by the state.
- State seal: public domain image via Wikimedia Commons.