California Secretary of State
California Business Entity Search
Last updated . Register data is refreshed nightly.
Check whether a business name is already on file with the California Secretary of State. Free, no account, all entity types.
California Business Entity Search
Search the state's official business records.
California's register is at bizfileonline.sos.ca.gov, run by the Secretary of State. Free, no account.
It tells you something no other register does: who suspended a company.
Suspended by whom
Most states give you a status. California gives you a status and an author.
The results separate Suspended (FTB), meaning the Franchise Tax Board, from Suspended (SOS), meaning the Secretary of State. Open the record and it goes further still, with four standings listed one under the other: SOS, FTB, Agent, and VCFCF.
Those are different failures with different fixes. A company suspended by the Franchise Tax Board has a tax problem. One suspended by the Secretary of State has a filing problem. One with an agent standing problem has lost its representative. Wyoming splits standing five ways and North Dakota three, but neither tells you which agency is responsible.
One caveat: VCFCF appears on the record only as an acronym, and we have not verified what it expands to. We are not guessing in print.
Two limits printed on the page, and both matter
It does not cover every entity type. California searches corporations, LLCs, limited partnerships and nonprofits. Limited liability partnerships and general partnerships are not in it. If the name you are checking might be held by an LLP, this search will not find it.
The second limit is the default set. Search filter starts on Contains (Keywords), unusually the thorough one, with entity type and status both set to All. That is a good starting position and worth leaving alone.
Reading a result
The entity name with its number, the initial filing date, the status, the entity type, where it was formed, and the agent. There is also a search type toggle between entity information and publicly traded disclosure, which is a separate dataset most states do not hold at all.
Who decides
The register records filings; acceptance is judged by the Secretary of State on examination, under the California Revised Uniform Limited Liability Company Act, Cal. Corp. Code § 17701.01 et seq.
Before you rely on it
Remember what is missing. LLPs and general partnerships are not searchable here.
Read which agency suspended a company before assuming you know what is wrong with it.
Leave the filters on All. California's defaults are already the wide ones.
California filing facts
| Filing | Fee | Form |
|---|---|---|
| Articles of Organization | $70.00 | LLC-1 |
| Application to register a foreign LLC | $70.00 | LLC-5 |
| Statement of Information | $20.00 | LLC-12 |
| Statement of Information, no change | $20.00 | LLC-12NC |
| Certificate of Reservation of Name | $10.00 | |
| Conversion from a stock corporation | $150.00 | LLC-1A |
| Cancellation | no fee | LLC-4/7 |
| Name availability by telephone | $4.00 per name |
At $70 to form, California is cheaper than most people expect: less than half New York's $200, a quarter of Texas's $300. The Statement of Information at $20 is filed initially and then every two years, which works out at $10 a year and puts California among the cheapest states to maintain.
Two things are unusual. Canceling costs nothing, where several states charge as much to close a company as to open one. And California will check a name availability by telephone at $4 a name, through a Priority Telephone Service requiring a prepaid account: a paid service for a question most states answer free through the search box.
A caveat on all of these: the published schedule carries a revision date of 06/2018. It is the state's own document, and it is eight years old. Confirm before filing.
619,290 applications over the 52 weeks to 26 September 2026: 2,477 a business day, up 15.6%, and 2nd of 51 by volume, which will surprise nobody.
What the register will not tell you
California has 469,354 live registered marks, far more than any other state, nearly double New York's, and the consequence is a register where nothing stands out:
| word | live marks | times more common than nationally |
|---|---|---|
| california | 6,031 | 7x |
| los | 2,570 | 4x |
| san | 2,745 | 4x |
| pacific | 2,559 | 4x |
| valley | 2,411 | 2x |
| wine | 2,229 | 2x |
| girl | 2,052 | 2x |
The state's own name runs at only seven times the national rate. Compare Alaska at 1,535x, Vermont at 699x, Montana at 471x. California has 6,031 marks containing california and it is barely above ordinary, because the denominator is enormous.
That is the same scale effect visible in New York and Delaware, taken further. Wine at 2,229 marks is the only industry word on the list and even it sits at twice normal.
So California's naming problem is not any particular word. It is that nearly half a million marks are already registered, and whatever you pick, somebody has probably been near it. The state register will not tell you that; the federal one will.
Filing spreads across the state rather than concentrating: Los Angeles 10.5%, San Francisco 5.7%, San Diego 4.3%. No city dominates the way Boise dominates Idaho or Anchorage dominates Alaska.
What the California portal looks like
Captured from the live register. Personal names and addresses are blacked out; everything else is as the state publishes it.
California Secretary of State business services
Business registrations in California are held by the California Secretary of State, 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 | bizfileonline.sos.ca.gov/search/business |
|---|---|
| Phone | (916) 657-5448 |
| Address | 1500 11th Street, Sacramento, CA 95814 |
| Office hours | 8:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m. |
| LLC filing fee | $70 |
| Processing | 5-7 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 California business entity searches
How do I check if an LLC exists in California?
Search the name on this page or on the state's own portal. What California does by default is worth knowing before you read the result: contains (Keywords), with status and entity type both All. 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 California?
Search the name, then open the record rather than reading the results line. You get the initial filing date, the overall status, four separate standings, shown one under the other: SOS, FTB, agent and VCFCF, where it was formed and the entity type and principal and mailing addresses. 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 California business name is approved?
Not on its own. A no-match result means the name is not on the California register today, which is a preliminary answer rather than approval: California Secretary of State decides when it reviews the filing. Worth knowing about California in particular: two limits are printed on the page and both matter. California searches only corporations, LLCs, limited partnerships and nonprofits: limited liability partnerships and general partnerships are not in there at all, and getting those means a paper order form. And results stop at the 500 closest matches, which a search for Acme reaches exactly, so a common word returns a wall rather than an answer.
Can I look up who owns a business in California?
The California 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 California?
California Secretary of State charges $70 to file the Articles of Organization, which is the document that forms the company, and currently takes 5-7 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
- California business entity search, the official register this page queries.
- Filing fees and processing times: California Secretary of State, Business Entities Fee Schedule (BE FEES, Rev. 06/2018), verified 2026-09-10. Current schedules are published by the California Secretary of State.
- 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.
- Office contact details: California Secretary of State, confirmed against the office’s own contact page.
- Naming and reporting rules: California Secretary of State, Business Entities Fee Schedule (BE FEES, Rev. 06/2018).
- Naming statute: Cal. Corp. Code 17701.08, published by the state.
- State seal: public domain image via Wikimedia Commons.