Florida Division of Corporations
Florida Business Entity Search
Last updated . Register data is refreshed nightly.
Check whether a business name is already on file with the Florida Division of Corporations. Free, no account, all entity types.
Florida Business Entity Search
Search the state's official business records.
Florida's register is Sunbiz, at search.sunbiz.org, run by the Division of Corporations. Free, no account.
It publishes something most states keep off the public record.
The federal EIN is on the record
Open a Florida entity and among the fields is its federal employer identification number.
Almost no other state publishes that. Wisconsin lists FEINs explicitly among the things it does not hold; most others simply never show one. Florida puts it in the open.
Whether that is a feature depends on which side of the record you are on. If you are checking a company it is genuinely useful. If it is your company, it is worth knowing the number is public.
The record also carries a last event with the date it was filed, so you can see that a company was reinstated, merged or amended, and when, without reading a full filing history.
Inactive companies are in the list and barely flagged
The results mix active and inactive without making much of it: the status column reads INACT for most of them.
That is the right way round for checking a name: an inactive company still holds it, so you want them in the list. But it is quiet enough that people skim past it and assume everything on screen is trading.
The results carry only three columns: the corporate name, the document number, and the status. There is no match toggle and no filter; each search type is its own page rather than a setting on one form.
Who decides
Acceptance is judged by the Division of Corporations on examination, under the Florida Revised Limited Liability Company Act, Fla. Stat. Chapter 605.
Before you rely on it
Read the status column. Most of what comes back is INACT and it still counts.
Note that the EIN is public if the company is yours.
Check the last event for a quick read on whether anything recent has happened.
Florida filing facts
| Filing | Fee |
|---|---|
| Articles of Organization | $125.00 total |
| Articles: filing fee | $100.00 |
| Articles: required registered agent fee | $25.00 |
| Annual report | $138.75 |
| Annual report, late | $538.75 |
| Amended annual report | $50.00 |
| Certificate of status | $5.00 |
| Certified copy | $30.00 |
| Name reservation | $25.00 |
| Reinstatement | $100.00 plus each year's annual report fee |
| Registered agent resignation, active entity | $85.00 |
| Registered agent resignation, dissolved entity | $25.00 |
Florida quotes formation as two required line items, not one. The $100 filing fee and the $25 registered agent fee are both compulsory, so the real cost is $125, and sources reporting either $100 or $125 without the breakdown are each incomplete in their own way.
The thing to actually watch is the late fee. The annual report is $138.75 on time and $538.75 after 1 May, a $400 penalty, and the state says plainly there is no provision to waive it.
That is the largest single late penalty in this project. Georgia charges $25 for the same lapse; Montana charges $35; Utah charges $10. Florida charges more to be late than most states charge to exist.
If you form a Florida LLC, the 1 May deadline is the one date to put in the diary.
The register absorbed 713,280 applications over the 52 weeks to 26 September 2026: 2,853 a business day, up 12.2%, 1st of 51 by volume.
What the register will not tell you
Florida has 176,766 live registered marks, and the list reads like the state's economy:
| word | live marks | times more common than nationally |
|---|---|---|
| florida | 3,711 | 17x |
| miami | 1,939 | 16x |
| beach | 1,980 | 5x |
| university | 2,071 | 3x |
| insurance | 1,451 | 3x |
| com | 4,038 | 2x |
Beach at 1,980 marks is the one you would not see anywhere else on this list. Hawaii has aloha and kona, Montana has sky, Florida has beach. And insurance at 1,451 reflects an industry with an outsized presence here.
Nothing runs above seventeen times normal, which is the scale effect again: a register of 176,000 marks flattens every multiplier, the same way California's 469,000 flattens california to 7x.
Miami files 13.0% of Florida's marks, Orlando 5.7%, Tampa 5.2%. That is an unusually even spread for a state this size, and a reminder that Florida has several centers rather than one.
What the Florida portal looks like
Captured from the live register. Personal names and addresses are blacked out; everything else is as the state publishes it.
Florida Division of Corporations business services
Business registrations in Florida are held by the Florida 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.
| Business entity search | search.sunbiz.org/Inquiry/CorporationSearch/ByName |
|---|---|
| Phone | (850) 245-6052 |
| Address | The Centre of Tallahassee, 2415 N. Monroe Street, Suite 810, Tallahassee, FL 32303 |
| Office hours | 8:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m. |
| LLC filing fee | $125 ($100 filing plus a required $25 registered agent fee) |
| Processing | Processed in the order received |
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 Florida business entity searches
How do I check if an LLC exists in Florida?
Search the name on this page or on the state's own portal. What Florida does by default is worth knowing before you read the result: single name box, no match toggle. 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 Florida?
Search the name, then open the record rather than reading the results line. You get document number, the federal EIN, date filed and effective date, state and status. 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 Florida business name is approved?
Not on its own. A no-match result means the name is not on the Florida register today, which is a preliminary answer rather than approval: Florida Division of Corporations decides when it reviews the filing. Worth knowing about Florida in particular: the list mixes active and inactive without flagging it loudly: the status column reads INACT for most of them. That is the right way round for checking a name, because an inactive company still holds it, but do not skim the list and assume everything you see is live.
Can I look up who owns a business in Florida?
The Florida 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 Florida?
Forming an LLC in Florida costs $125 ($100 filing plus a required $25 registered agent fee) in state filing fees, and is processed in the order received. Reserving a name before filing is a separate, smaller fee. Current schedules are set by Florida Division of Corporations and change from time to time, so confirm them on the state's own site before you file.
Sources
- Florida business entity search, the official register this page queries.
- Filing fees and processing times: Florida Department of State, Division of Corporations, LLC Fees, verified 2026-09-10. Current schedules are published by the Florida 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: Florida Division of Corporations, confirmed against the office’s own contact page.
- Naming and reporting rules: Florida Department of State, Division of Corporations, LLC Fees.
- Naming statute: Fla. Stat. Ch. 605, published by the state.
- State seal: public domain image via Wikimedia Commons.