Kansas Secretary of State
Kansas Business Entity Search
Last updated . Register data is refreshed nightly.
Check whether a business name is already on file with the Kansas Secretary of State. Free, no account, all entity types.
Kansas Business Entity Search
Search the state's official business records.
Kansas puts its register at sos.ks.gov, free and without an account. It matches on Contains out of the box, and it calls the registered agent something nobody else does.
It is a resident agent here
Not a registered agent, not a statutory agent. Resident agent.
Ohio and Arizona say statutory agent; Maine folds it into Clerk/Registered Agent. Kansas says resident, and you can search by one, which makes it one of a handful of states where you can look a person up rather than a company.
The three ways in are business name, Kansas business ID, and current resident agent name. Pick which one you are searching before you type.
Forfeited is the common status, not dissolved
This is the thing to understand about a Kansas result.
The status you will see most is Forfeited, the state's word for a company that failed to file its information report on time. Not dissolved, not terminated. Forfeited.
Those companies still hold their names. A forfeited company is a company whose name is not available to you.
What Kansas does well is tell you the timetable. The record prints three dates together that most states leave you to work out: the last reporting period, the date the next report falls due, and the date the company would be forfeited if it does not arrive. The example record showed a report due 15 April 2028 with forfeiture on 15 July 2028, three months later, stated in advance.
So you can look at a live Kansas company and see exactly when it would lose its standing. Very few registers make that legible.
Reading a result
Each row carries a Select Business button, the name, the entity ID, the city and state, the status, and the resident agent.
The record sells you things, and says so
Open an entity and Kansas puts the purchase points where the information is: a button to buy certified copies beside the business ID, a button to buy a certificate of good standing beside the status, and an Update Online button beside the principal office address.
It is a tidy piece of design (the action sits next to the thing it acts on), and it is worth knowing that the free record gives you the business name, type, jurisdiction, formation date, status and addresses without paying for any of it.
Who decides
Forfeited companies still hold their names because the register records what was filed, not what is merited. What the state will accept is judged under the Kansas Revised Limited Liability Company Act, Kan. Stat. Ann. ยง 17-7662 et seq. The act's own citation section runs it from 17-7662 through 17-76,155.
Before you rely on it
Read Forfeited as taken. It is the commonest status and it does not free the name.
Note the three dates on a live company if you are waiting for a name to lapse.
Search by resident agent if your question is about a person.
Kansas filing facts
| Filing | Fee |
|---|---|
| Articles of Organization | $90.00 |
| Information report, every two years | $90.00 online, $110.00 paper |
Kansas reformed its fees in 2026, eliminating more than two dozen of them and reducing others. The formation fee came down to $90 to align with the corporation fee.
That matters when you are reading anything written before the change. A $75 formation figure appears in older references and is out of date, as are several of the fees that no longer exist at all. If a source predates 2026 on Kansas, treat all of it as suspect.
The information report is filed every two years, due 15 April of the entity's odd or even year, and it is one of the few filings where paper costs more than online: $110 against $90. Minnesota prices it the other way round, charging $20 extra to file online.
At $90 to form and $45 a year effective, Kansas is inexpensive on both counts.
We are not quoting a name reservation fee; it is not on the state's instruction sheet.
The reformed fees sit against 43,520 applications in the 52 weeks to 26 September 2026: 174 a business day, up 25.2%, ranking 37th of 51.
What the register will not tell you
Kansas has 16,372 live registered marks, and the top of the list is a state name and a camping-gear company:
| word | live marks | times more common than nationally |
|---|---|---|
| coleman | 190 | 126x |
| kansas | 313 | 107x |
| big | 257 | 4x |
| city | 184 | 3x |
| blue | 225 | 3x |
| pro | 240 | 2x |
| power | 225 | 2x |
Coleman at 126 times the national rate edges out the state's own name. The outdoor equipment company was founded in Wichita, and 190 marks carry the word. It is the same one-company pattern as Rhode Island's CVS, Wisconsin's harley and North Dakota's bobcat.
Below those two the register is unusually flat: big, city, blue, pro and power all sit at two to four times normal, which is ordinary. Kansas has two crowded words and then open country.
Filing spreads across the Kansas City suburbs and Wichita rather than concentrating in one place: Overland Park 18.8%, Wichita 16.9%, Lenexa 10.2%.
What the Kansas portal looks like
Captured from the live register. Personal names and addresses are blacked out; everything else is as the state publishes it.
Kansas Secretary of State business services
Business registrations in Kansas are held by the Kansas 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.sos.ks.gov/eforms/BusinessEntity/Search.aspx |
|---|---|
| Phone | (785) 296-4564 |
| Address | Secretary of State Docking State Office Building 915 SW Harrison Street Topeka, KS 66612 |
| Office hours | 8:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m. |
| LLC filing fee | $90 |
| Processing | within minutes for online filing |
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 Kansas business entity searches
How do I check if an LLC exists in Kansas?
Search the name on this page or on the state's own portal. What Kansas 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 Kansas?
Search the name, then open the record rather than reading the results line. You get the business ID, with a button to buy certified copies, business name, type and jurisdiction, formation date, status, with a button to buy a certificate of good standing and principal office address, with an Update…. 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 Kansas business name is approved?
Not on its own. A no-match result means the name is not on the Kansas register today, which is a preliminary answer rather than approval: Kansas Secretary of State decides when it reviews the filing. Worth knowing about Kansas in particular: the most common Kansas status is not dissolved, it is Forfeited for failing to file an information report on time, and those companies still hold their names. The record tells you exactly when a live company would lose its: on the Acme record the next report was due 15 April 2028 with forfeiture on 15 July 2028, three months later. Kansas matches on Contains by default, which is the thorough setting.
Can I look up who owns a business in Kansas?
The Kansas 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 Kansas?
Forming an LLC in Kansas costs $90 in state filing fees, and is processed within minutes for online filing. Reserving a name before filing is a separate, smaller fee. Current schedules are set by Kansas Secretary of State and change from time to time, so confirm them on the state's own site before you file.
Sources
- Kansas business entity search, the official register this page queries.
- Filing fees and processing times: Kansas Secretary of State, Instructions for Filing an Information Report (Rev. 1/23/26), verified 2026-09-10. Current schedules are published by the Kansas 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: Kansas Secretary of State, confirmed against the office’s own contact page.
- Naming and reporting rules: Kansas Secretary of State, Instructions for Filing an Information Report (Rev. 1/23/26); fee reduction from https://sos.ks.gov/media/press-releases/2026/05-26-26-secretary-of-state-reduces-fees-for-kansans.html.
- Naming statute: K.S.A. 17-7920, published by the state.
- State seal: public domain image via Wikimedia Commons.