Minnesota Secretary of State
Minnesota Business Entity Search
Last updated . Register data is refreshed nightly.
Check whether a business name is already on file with the Minnesota Secretary of State. Free, no account, all entity types.
Minnesota Business Entity Search
Search the state's official business records.
Minnesota's register lives at mblsportal.sos.mn.gov and costs nothing to search. It also arrives configured to hide most of what you are looking for, which is where this page starts.
Three narrow settings, all on at once
This is the thing to fix before you search anything.
Minnesota starts you on the three most restrictive options simultaneously, and its own results URL spells them out:
“ IncludePriorNames=False & Status=Active & Type=BeginsWith “
Begins With. Active only. Prior names excluded.
No other state we have looked at stacks all three. Each one on its own hides something; together they hide a great deal. That combination will not show you a dissolved company holding the name you want, it will not show you a company that used the name and dropped it, and it will not show you anything with your word in the middle.
Three controls sit above the results and all three want changing if you are checking whether a name is free: search scope to Contains, filing status to Inactive as well as active, and include prior names to Include.
The record tells you which law it was filed under
Open a record and among the fields is one almost no register carries: MN Statute.
An assumed name record reads MN Statute: 333, pointing at Minn. Stat. ch. 333. An LLC would cite chapter 322C. That matters more than it sounds, because Minnesota returns assumed names and LLCs in the same result set, and the rules for one are not the rules for the other. The record tells you which set applies before you start reasoning about it.
The Business Type column in the results is what tells them apart, and the record's shape changes with the type: an assumed name names an Applicant where an LLC would name members or managers.
The rest of the record
Business Record Details carries the business type, file number, filing date, renewal due date, mailing address, the MN Statute number, home jurisdiction, the status given as Active / In Good Standing, and the principal place of business.
Below that, two tabs: Filing History and Renewal History.
Filing History does something useful: it puts a checkbox against every row and an Order Selected Copies button, so you tick the filings you want rather than ordering them one at a time. The example record reads Original Filing 2015, Administrative Expiration 2018, Annual Reinstatement 2018, Amendment 2025: a lapse and a recovery, legible at a glance.
It is published in a dozen languages
The portal offers Spanish, Hmong, Somali, Vietnamese, Russian, Chinese, Khmer, Amharic, Oromo and Karen among others, from the header of every page.
No other state portal we have looked at is translated at all. If English is not the first language in the room, Minnesota is the only register that has thought about it.
The site footer also carries Safe at Home, Minnesota's address confidentiality program, a reminder that some people on any public register have a specific reason not to be findable.
Who decides
The governing law is the Minnesota Revised Uniform Limited Liability Company Act, Minn. Stat. Chapter 322C, and acceptance is a judgment made on the filing rather than by the database. Worth weighting that more heavily here than elsewhere: with the default settings above, a clear result is the weakest evidence of availability any state will give you.
Before you rely on it
Change all three settings. Contains, include inactive, include prior names. A clear result on the defaults means very little.
Read the Business Type column. An assumed name and an LLC are different things returned in the same list.
Check the MN Statute field on the record to know which rules apply.
Use the checkboxes in Filing History rather than ordering copies one by one.
Minnesota filing facts
| Filing | By mail | Online or in person |
|---|---|---|
| Articles of Organization | $135.00 | $155.00 |
| Amendment | $35.00 | $55.00 |
| Name reservation | $35.00 | $55.00 |
| Reinstatement | $25.00 | $45.00 |
| Annual renewal | no charge | no charge |
Two things stand out.
Minnesota charges $20 more to file online than by post, on every filing. Most states discount the online route to push you toward it; Minnesota prices it as the premium service. If you are not in a hurry, the post is cheaper.
The annual renewal is free while the entity is active and in good standing. Set that beside New Hampshire at $100 a year or Washington at $70: over a decade the recurring cost of a Minnesota LLC is nothing at all. The $155 to form is above average; the cost to keep it alive is the lowest in the country.
The register took 79,830 applications in the 52 weeks to 26 September 2026, 319 each business day, up 12.6% against the year before. That is 25th of 51 by volume.
What the register will not tell you
Minnesota has 60,535 live registered marks, a large pool, and an unusually flat one:
| word | live marks | times more common than nationally |
|---|---|---|
| minnesota | 1,096 | 58x |
| wild | 455 | 3x |
| super | 486 | 2x |
| fresh | 472 | 2x |
| plus | 552 | 2x |
| gold | 447 | 2x |
| pro | 843 | 2x |
| business | 485 | 2x |
Only the state's own name is genuinely contested. Everything below it sits at two or three times the national rate, which is to say barely above ordinary: pro, plus, super, business and fresh are the generic boosters that turn up mildly over-represented in every state in the country.
That is a different picture from Hawaii, where seven words run between 36 and 438 times normal, or Wyoming, where one runs at 503x. Minnesota has no crowded naming ground except its own name.
Filing concentrates in the Twin Cities: Minneapolis 25.6%, St. Paul 11.4%, then Eden Prairie and Minnetonka at 4.3% each.
What the Minnesota portal looks like
Captured from the live register. Personal names and addresses are blacked out; everything else is as the state publishes it.
Minnesota Secretary of State business services
Business registrations in Minnesota are held by the Minnesota 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 | mblsportal.sos.mn.gov/Business/Search |
|---|---|
| Phone | (651) 296-2803 |
| Address | First National Bank Building, 332 Minnesota Street, Suite N201, St. Paul, MN 55101 |
| Office hours | 8:00 a.m.-4:00 p.m. |
| LLC filing fee | $155 |
| Processing | 5-7 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 Minnesota business entity searches
How do I check if an LLC exists in Minnesota?
Search the name on this page or on the state's own portal. What Minnesota does by default is worth knowing before you read the result: begins with, active only, prior names excluded. 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 Minnesota?
Search the name, then open the record rather than reading the results line. Business Record Details: business type, file number, filing date, renewal due date, mailing address, and on the right an MN Statute number, home jurisdiction, status given as "Active / In Good Standing", and the principal…. 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 Minnesota business name is approved?
Not on its own. A no-match result means the name is not on the Minnesota register today, which is a preliminary answer rather than approval: Minnesota Secretary of State decides when it reviews the filing. Worth knowing about Minnesota in particular: it starts you on the three narrowest settings at once. Its own results URL spells them out: begins with, active only, and prior names excluded. That combination will hide a dissolved company, a company whose name sits mid-title, and a name somebody used to trade under, all in one search. Change all three before you trust a clear result.
Can I look up who owns a business in Minnesota?
The Minnesota 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 Minnesota?
Forming an LLC in Minnesota costs $155 in state filing fees, and currently takes 5-7 business days to process. Reserving a name before filing is a separate, smaller fee. Current schedules are set by Minnesota Secretary of State and change from time to time, so confirm them on the state's own site before you file.
Sources
- Minnesota business entity search, the official register this page queries.
- Filing fees and processing times: Minnesota Secretary of State, Business Filing Fee Schedule, verified 2026-09-10. Current schedules are published by the Minnesota 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: Minnesota Secretary of State, confirmed against the office’s own contact page.
- Naming and reporting rules: Minnesota Secretary of State, Business Filing Fee Schedule.
- Naming statute: Minn. Stat. 322C.0108, published by the state.
- State seal: public domain image via Wikimedia Commons.