Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth
Massachusetts Business Entity Search
Last updated . Register data is refreshed nightly.
Check whether a business name is already on file with the Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth. Free, no account, all entity types.
Massachusetts Business Entity Search
Search the state's official business records.
Massachusetts keeps its register at corp.sec.state.ma.us, run by the Corporations Division of the Secretary of the Commonwealth. Free, no account.
It is the most expensive state in the country to form and keep an LLC, and its search has a gap you need to know about before you trust a result.
There is no status column
Look at a page of Massachusetts results and you get the entity name, the ID number, an old ID number where one exists, and the address.
No status.
A company that was involuntarily dissolved in 1990 sits in that list looking exactly like one trading today. The only way to tell is to open the record.
Every other state we have looked at puts status in the grid. Several put two, and Wyoming puts five. Massachusetts puts none, which means a list of twenty results is twenty records you have to open before you know anything about any of them.
For checking whether a name is taken that matters less than it sounds: a dissolved company still holds its name, so every row is a conflict regardless. For checking whether a company is alive, it means the results page is no help at all.
Four match modes, including Soundex
The search offers Begins with, Exact match, Full text and Soundex, and it starts on Begins with.
Soundex is the interesting one. It matches names that sound alike rather than look alike, so it will find Kaye for Kay and Smyth for Smith. Only Oregon and Nebraska offer anything comparable, and it is the right tool when you are worried about a name being confusingly similar rather than identical.
It ignores spaces and punctuation
Search Acme and you get A & C Metal Products and A. C. M. Engineering.
Massachusetts strips both when it matches, which is the same standard Ohio applies to punctuation and New Hampshire, Wisconsin, South Carolina and Idaho apply to spaces. It is the state showing you how it reads names, and how it will read yours when it decides whether your filing is distinguishable.
The record carries the dissolution history
Open an entity and you get the exact registered name, entity type, identification number, the date of organization in Massachusetts, the date of revival if there was one, and the date of involuntary dissolution if there was one.
Then the officers and directors by name.
Those three dates together tell a story the results page cannot: a company organized in 1988, involuntarily dissolved in 1996, revived in 2003. Few registers lay a company's lapses out that plainly.
Who decides
The register records what was filed; what the Commonwealth will accept is judged by the Corporations Division on examination, under the Massachusetts Limited Liability Company Act, Mass. Gen. Laws Chapter 156C.
Before you rely on it
Open the records. The results list has no status and cannot tell you whether anything is alive.
Try Soundex if your concern is a name that sounds like yours.
Read a result that looks like your name said aloud as a conflict, whatever the spacing or punctuation.
Massachusetts filing facts
| Filing | Fee |
|---|---|
| Certificate of Organization | $500.00 |
| Annual report | $500.00, due on the anniversary of the original filing |
| Name reservation | $30.00 |
$500 to form and $500 every year. Massachusetts is the most expensive state in the country on both counts, by a wide margin and in both directions.
Put that against the range this project has measured:
- Montana charges $35 to form and nothing annually if you file on time
- New Mexico charges $50 once and has no annual filing at all
- New York's biennial statement is $9
- Delaware's annual tax, the second dearest, is $400
Over ten years a Massachusetts LLC pays $5,500 in state fees. A Montana one pays $35. A New Mexico one pays $50.
The annual report falls due on the anniversary of your original filing rather than a fixed date, so every company has its own deadline, the same arrangement New Jersey uses. An expedited surcharge applies on a sliding scale by order subtotal; $15 on orders between $150 and $499.
If cost is a factor in where you register and you do not need to be in Massachusetts, this is the number that should drive the decision.
For all that, filings keep coming: 86,340 applications over the 52 weeks to 26 September 2026, 345 a business day, up 11.5%, ranking 23rd of 51.
What the register will not tell you
Massachusetts has 77,801 live registered marks, and the crowded words are finance, education and a city:
| word | live marks | times more common than nationally |
|---|---|---|
| boston | 1,831 | 36x |
| england | 597 | 22x |
| partners | 567 | 3x |
| school | 500 | 3x |
| capital | 598 | 2x |
| management | 656 | 2x |
| red | 632 | 2x |
Boston at 36x leads, and england at 22x is New England arriving as a separate word, the same split that gives Rhode Island rhode and island, and Montana big and sky.
Below them the list is a description of the local economy rather than the landscape: partners, capital, management for the financial sector, school for the universities. No other state in this set has that combination at the top. Vermont has maple; Tennessee has music; Massachusetts has asset management.
Nothing runs above 36 times normal, which for a register of nearly eighty thousand marks is unremarkable, the same scale effect that flattens New York's list.
Boston files 18.3% of the state's marks, Cambridge 5.7%, Waltham 3.3%.
What the Massachusetts portal looks like
Captured from the live register. Personal names and addresses are blacked out; everything else is as the state publishes it.
Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth business services
Business registrations in Massachusetts are held by the Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth, 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 | corp.sec.state.ma.us/corpweb/CorpSearch/CorpSearch.aspx |
|---|---|
| Phone | (617) 727-9640 |
| Address | One Ashburton Place, 17th Floor, Boston, MA 02108 |
| Office hours | 8:45 a.m.-5:00 p.m. |
| LLC filing fee | $500 |
| Processing | 5-10 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 Massachusetts business entity searches
How do I check if an LLC exists in Massachusetts?
Search the name on this page or on the state's own portal. What Massachusetts does by default is worth knowing before you read the result: begins with. 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 Massachusetts?
Search the name, then open the record rather than reading the results line. You get the exact registered name, entity type, identification number, date of organisation in Massachusetts and date of revival if any. 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 Massachusetts business name is approved?
Not on its own. A no-match result means the name is not on the Massachusetts register today, which is a preliminary answer rather than approval: Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth decides when it reviews the filing. Worth knowing about Massachusetts in particular: there is no status column in the results. A company that was involuntarily dissolved in 1990 sits in the list looking exactly like a live one, and you only find out by opening it. Combined with the Begins with default, that makes this one of the easier states to misread.
Can I look up who owns a business in Massachusetts?
The Massachusetts 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 Massachusetts?
Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth charges $500 to file the Certificate of Organization, which is the document that forms the company, and currently takes 5-10 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
- Massachusetts business entity search, the official register this page queries.
- Filing fees and processing times: Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth, Corporations Division Filing Fees, verified 2026-09-10. Current schedules are published by the Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth.
- 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: Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth, confirmed against the office’s own contact page.
- Naming and reporting rules: Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth, Corporations Division Filing Fees; annual report fee also set in 950 CMR 112.
- Naming statute: Mass. Gen. Laws c.156C 3, published by the state.
- State seal: public domain image via Wikimedia Commons.