Colorado Secretary of State
Colorado Business Entity Search
Last updated . Register data is refreshed nightly.
Check whether a business name is already on file with the Colorado Secretary of State. Free, no account, all entity types.
Colorado Business Entity Search
Search the state's official business records.
Colorado's register is at coloradosos.gov, run by the Secretary of State. Free, no account, and the whole system is online only.
Search a common word and you get nothing at all
Not a truncated list. Nothing.
Colorado returns Exceeded Record Count and tells you to refine.
That is the harshest response to a broad search of any state here. Hawaii shows you the first 300 of however many. Illinois gives you 500 and says so. Virginia offers you the first 500. Texas at least tells you the count before refusing. Colorado gives you an error.
An error here does not mean the name is free. It means too many people are already using something like it for the system to display. That is close to the opposite conclusion, and the wording does not make it obvious.
One box, several searches
The main box takes anything, and it searches trademarks and trade names alongside company names, so one query covers ground that is three separate lookups in most states.
Separate links run a name availability search, an advanced search, a trademark advanced search and a business survey search. If availability is your question, the dedicated search is the better door.
You can subscribe to a record
Open an entity and Colorado lets you subscribe to email or text alerts on it.
So you can watch a name. If a company is close to lapsing and you want the name when it goes, the state will tell you rather than making you check. Ohio offers something similar framed as fraud protection; Hawaii lets you subscribe too. Colorado's is the easiest to find.
The record
Name and status, ID number, form of entity and home jurisdiction, formation date, the month its periodic report is due, and the principal office and mailing addresses.
Results carry the ID number, document number, name, the event, status, form of entity and formation date.
Who decides
Filings are recorded; acceptance is judged by the Secretary of State on examination, under the Colorado Limited Liability Company Act, Colo. Rev. Stat. Title 7, Article 80.
Before you rely on it
Do not read Exceeded Record Count as a clear result. It is the opposite.
Use the dedicated name availability search rather than the main box.
Subscribe to the record if you are waiting for a name to come free.
Colorado filing facts
| Filing | Fee |
|---|---|
| Articles of Organization | $50.00 |
| Periodic report | $25.00 |
| Periodic report, late | +$50.00 |
| Name reservation, renewal or transfer | $25.00 |
| Trade name statement | $20.00 |
| Trade name renewal | $5.00 |
| Dissolution | $10.00 |
| Expedited, within 3 business days | +$150.00 |
| Certificate of good standing | free |
Two things are unusual.
Certificates are free. Good standing, certificates of fact, certified copies: all of them, at no charge. Nearly every other state sells these: Maine and South Dakota charge $30 to $50, Nevada $50, Arizona $10. Colorado gives them away.
Everything is online. Every paper fee on the schedule reads n/a. There is no paper route at all, which removes the online-versus-paper question that catches people out in Missouri, Idaho and Minnesota.
The periodic report rose from $10 to $25 on 1 July 2024, so anything written before then understates it. The late penalty is $50, which is twice the report itself.
At $50 to form and $25 a year Colorado is inexpensive, and free certificates make it cheaper still for anyone who needs to prove standing regularly.
A register that returns nothing for a common word is nonetheless taking 168,460 applications a year: 674 a business day over the 52 weeks to 26 September 2026, up 19.8%, 12th of 51 by volume.
What the register will not tell you
Colorado has 58,727 live registered marks, and the landscape runs through them:
| word | live marks | times more common than nationally |
|---|---|---|
| colorado | 1,790 | 53x |
| denver | 642 | 50x |
| rocky | 530 | 23x |
| mountain | 1,259 | 9x |
| brewing | 685 | 4x |
| association | 531 | 2x |
Mountain appears in 1,259 marks, more than Denver, and with rocky at 23x beside it the pair are effectively one crowded phrase. Vermont has maple, Arizona has desert, Colorado has the Rockies.
Brewing at 685 marks is the industry showing up, and it is bigger in volume than Oregon's 348 even though the multiplier is lower. Two states with large craft sectors and the same word doing work in both.
The practical reading: Colorado, Denver, Rocky and Mountain are all occupied. Given how naturally a Colorado business reaches for those, that is a real constraint rather than a footnote. Check the federal register before committing.
Denver files 26.2% of the state's marks, Boulder 9.8%, Colorado Springs 6.5%.
What the Colorado portal looks like
Captured from the live register. Personal names and addresses are blacked out; everything else is as the state publishes it.
Colorado Secretary of State business services
Business registrations in Colorado are held by the Colorado 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 | www.coloradosos.gov/biz/BusinessEntityCriteriaExt.do |
|---|---|
| Phone | (303) 894-2200 |
| Office hours | 8:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m. |
| LLC filing fee | $50 |
| Processing | Immediate for online filings |
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 Colorado business entity searches
How do I check if an LLC exists in Colorado?
Search the name on this page or on the state's own portal. What Colorado does by default is worth knowing before you read the result: single box, no match toggle on the basic search. 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 Colorado?
Search the name, then open the record rather than reading the results line. You get name and status, ID number, form of entity and home jurisdiction, formation date and the month its periodic report is due. 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 Colorado business name is approved?
Not on its own. A no-match result means the name is not on the Colorado register today, which is a preliminary answer rather than approval: Colorado Secretary of State decides when it reviews the filing. Worth knowing about Colorado in particular: search a common word in Colorado and you get no list at all. It returns Exceeded Record Count and tells you to refine, where Hawaii would show you the first 300 and Virginia would offer you 500 or all of them. An error here does not mean the name is free, it means too many people are already using it to display.
Can I look up who owns a business in Colorado?
The Colorado 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 Colorado?
Colorado Secretary of State charges $50 to file the Articles of Organization, which is the document that forms the company, and is processed immediate for online filings. Reserving a name beforehand is a separate and smaller fee. Confirm the figure with the state before you file: schedules move.
Sources
- Colorado business entity search, the official register this page queries.
- Filing fees and processing times: Colorado Secretary of State, Business Organizations Fee Schedule, verified 2026-09-10. Current schedules are published by the Colorado 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.
- Register copy: bulk data published by data.colorado.gov, last checked October 15, 2026.
- Office contact details: Colorado Secretary of State, confirmed against the office’s own contact page.
- Naming and reporting rules: Colorado Secretary of State, Business Organizations Fee Schedule.
- Naming statute: Colo. Rev. Stat. 7-90-601, full text via Justia.
- State seal: public domain image via Wikimedia Commons.