Delaware Division of Corporations

Delaware Business Entity Search

Last updated October 15, 2026. Register data is refreshed nightly.

Delaware's register is at icis.corp.delaware.gov, run by the Division of Corporations. Free, and it gives you less for nothing than any other state in the country, which it tells you plainly before you search.

What is free, in the state's own words

Printed in red above the search box:

The entity information provided on this website, free of charge, consists of the entity name, file number, incorporation/formation date, registered agent name, address, phone number and residency. However, additional information can be obtained for a fee.

That is the whole of it. Two columns in the results (file number and entity name) and a record that adds the formation date, the entity kind, residency and the agent.

No status. No officers. No members. No filing history. No documents.

Most states tell you where the paywall is by letting you hit it. Delaware tells you where it starts before you begin, which is more honest and no more generous.

You cannot tell if a company is alive

This is the thing to understand about a free Delaware search, and it catches people out constantly.

The state returns active and inactive entities together and says outright that a result is not an indication of the current status of an entity.

So a name coming back does not mean a live company. A name not coming back does mean nothing is on file under it. The search answers availability and refuses to answer standing.

For a state that hosts more companies than any other, that is a significant gap and the reason a Delaware status check is a paid product rather than a free lookup.

It refuses past fifty

Search something broad and you get:

Your Search results have exceeded 50 results. Please refine your search.

Fifty is the lowest cap of any state we have measured. Illinois returns 500 and says so; Wisconsin returns all 249 of its Acmes on one page; Texas refuses outright but tells you the count. Delaware simply stops.

Quotation marks force an exact match

The search matches on substring by default, which is the thorough setting, and the page tells you that putting a name in quotation marks forces an exact match instead.

That is a genuinely useful control and almost nobody documents it. West Virginia gives you a percent-sign wildcard; Delaware gives you quotes. Everywhere else you get a dropdown or nothing.

Do not automate it

Printed under the results, verbatim:

The Division of Corporations strictly prohibits mining data. Excessive and repeated searches that may have a negative impact on our systems and customer experience are also prohibited. Use of automated tools in any form may result in the suspension of your access to utilize this service.

Maine prints the same notice word for word. Both states mean it.

Who decides

A free search here cannot even tell you whether a company is alive, so it certainly cannot tell you what will be accepted. That is decided by the Division of Corporations on examination, under the Delaware Limited Liability Company Act, Del. Code Title 6, Chapter 18.

Before you rely on it

Do not read a hit as a live company. The free search does not carry status at all.

Use quotation marks when you want exact rather than substring.

Expect fifty. Narrow the search rather than paging.

Budget for the paid lookup if you need standing, officers or documents.

Delaware filing facts

Delaware LLCs file no annual report, only a tax. And the tax is where the real money is: $400 a year, against $110 to form.

That figure is worth stating carefully, because the $300 repeated across the internet is wrong. Delaware's own page says $400. It appears as $300 in a great many places, including in search results for this exact question, and it has been wrong for long enough that the error has propagated widely.

The same fee covers a Statutory Public Benefit LLC and a Registered Series formation. Same-day and 24-hour handling are offered at $100 and $50 alongside the filing fee, though the schedule prints them in columns that did not extract cleanly, so treat the mapping as indicative.

At $400 a year Delaware is the second most expensive state to maintain that we have verified: behind Massachusetts, ahead of North Carolina's $200 and the District's effective $150. The cheap formation fee is not the cost of being a Delaware company.

Over the 52 weeks to 26 September 2026 the register took 61,080 applications: 244 a business day, up 2.9%, 33rd of 51 by volume, which for a state of under a million people tells its own story.

What the register will not tell you

Delaware has 38,232 live registered marks, and they are the flattest set in the country:

Nothing runs above four times the national rate. Not the state's name, not a city, not an industry. Nothing.

Every other state has something: Alaska at 1,535x, Vermont at 699x, Tennessee's music, Iowa's gardens. Delaware has ultra, pro, blue and plus, which are the generic boosters that turn up mildly over-represented everywhere.

The reason is the same reason the business register is the size it is. Wilmington files 64.4% of Delaware's marks, and a great many of those companies are incorporated in Delaware while operating somewhere else entirely. A register of holding companies does not develop a local vocabulary. There is no Delaware brewing scene showing up in the marks because the marks are not really Delaware's.

Which means, unusually: if you are naming a Delaware company, the state register is not what will stop you. The federal one still might.

What the Delaware portal looks like

Captured from the live register. Personal names and addresses are blacked out; everything else is as the state publishes it.

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Delaware Division of Corporations business services

Business registrations in Delaware are held by the Delaware Division of Corporations, 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.

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 Delaware business entity searches

How do I check if an LLC exists in Delaware?

Search the name on this page or on the state's own portal. What Delaware does by default is worth knowing before you read the result: substring; quotation marks force exact (stated on the page, verified 10 Sep). 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 Delaware?

Search the name, then open the record rather than reading the results line. You get the file number, entity name, entity kind and entity type, residency, domestic or foreign, and the state and the incorporation or formation date. 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 Delaware business name is approved?

Not on its own. A no-match result means the name is not on the Delaware register today, which is a preliminary answer rather than approval: Delaware Division of Corporations decides when it reviews the filing. Worth knowing about Delaware in particular: you cannot tell from a free Delaware search whether a company is alive. The state returns active and inactive entities together, says outright that a result is not an indication of current status, and puts the status itself behind a $10 charge. A search here answers whether a name is used, never whether it is in good standing. Broad searches also stop at 50 results and ask you to refine.

Can I look up who owns a business in Delaware?

The Delaware 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 Delaware?

Delaware Division of Corporations charges $110 to file the Formation, domestic, which is the document that forms the company, and currently takes 3-5 weeks to process. Reserving a name beforehand is a separate and smaller fee. Confirm the figure with the state before you file: schedules move.

Sources

• Delaware business entity search, the official register this page queries.
• Filing fees and processing times: Delaware Division of Corporations, Corporate Fee Schedule (August 2026), verified 2026-09-10. Current schedules are published by the Delaware Division of Corporations.
• 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: compiled from published directories and not yet confirmed against the contact page published by the Delaware Division of Corporations. Telephone the office before relying on an address.
• Naming statute: 6 Del. C. 18-102, published by the state.
• State seal: public domain image via Wikimedia Commons.