North Dakota Secretary of State
North Dakota Business Entity Search
Last updated . Register data is refreshed nightly.
Check whether a business name is already on file with the North Dakota Secretary of State. Free, no account, all entity types.
North Dakota Business Entity Search
Search the state's official business records.
North Dakota's register is at firststop.sos.nd.gov, free and without an account. It runs the same software as four other states and is the only one of the five set up the way you would want.
The same software, configured better
North Dakota runs the identical system to Michigan, Pennsylvania, Idaho and Montana: one search box, a magnifier, an Advanced panel behind it.
The difference is the setting. North Dakota matches on Contains from the start. The other four begin with a narrower default.
That matters precisely because the portals look the same. If you have used Michigan's and assume North Dakota's behaves identically, you will be wrong in the direction that helps you rather than hurts you, but the reverse is the dangerous version. A habit learned here does not transfer to the neighboring states, and on those you will get a clear result for a name that is taken.
So: thorough by default here. Check the setting anywhere else that looks like this.
Standing, three ways
Results give the name with its entity type, the SOS control ID, its status and its standing.
Open a record and the standing splits into three: annual report standing, registered agent standing, and other.
That is the same idea Wyoming takes furthest with five fields. Here it is three, and it answers the useful question: a company not in good standing is either behind on its report, missing an agent, or has something else wrong, and those are different problems with different fixes.
The record also carries the filing type, the date it went inactive where that applies, where it was formed, and its term of duration.
More than companies
Trademarks, contractors, lobbyists, charitable organizations and notaries each have their own tab. There is also a data list request tool for bulk extracts, so the register is available in quantity as well as one name at a time.
The state warns about fake annual report letters
North Dakota publishes a notice about misleading annual report letters sent by third parties: mailings designed to look official that solicit a fee for filing something you can file yourself.
Worth repeating here, because these arrive in every state and the only thing that reliably identifies them is knowing what the real fee is. North Dakota's annual report costs $50 and is due 15 November. Anything asking for substantially more, or arriving at another time of year, deserves a second look.
Who decides
Contains by default gets you the fullest list the register will give. The filing is then judged under the North Dakota Uniform Limited Liability Company Act, N.D. Cent. Code Chapter 10-32.1.
Before you rely on it
Note that Contains is already on, and do not carry that assumption to Michigan, Pennsylvania, Idaho or Montana.
Read all three standings on the record, not just the status.
Check the other tabs if your question involves a trademark or a contractor.
Diary 15 November and ignore letters that do not match $50.
North Dakota filing facts
| Filing | Fee |
|---|---|
| Articles of Organization | $135.00 |
| Annual report | $50.00, due 15 November |
At $135 to form and $50 a year, North Dakota sits close to the middle on both: more than Iowa's $50 to start, less than Alaska's $250; more than New York's $9 biennial statement to maintain, far less than Rhode Island's real $450.
The fixed 15 November deadline is unusual. Most states either use the formation anniversary, as New Jersey does, or a spring date like Mississippi's 15 April. A single autumn date for every company in the state is easier to remember and easier to miss.
We are not quoting a name reservation fee; it is not on the state's LLC page.
Small state, small register: 10,160 applications in the 52 weeks to 26 September 2026, 41 a business day, up 14.0%, 50th of 51.
What the register will not tell you
North Dakota has 2,631 live registered marks, the second-smallest pool in the country, and one manufacturer towers over it:
| word | live marks | times more common than nationally |
|---|---|---|
| bobcat | 137 | 1,260x |
| dakota | 217 | 461x |
| prairie | 99 | 144x |
| north | 105 | 33x |
| future | 131 | 30x |
| life | 67 | 3x |
Bobcat at 1,260 times the national rate is the third-steepest word we have measured anywhere, behind Alaska's own name and West Virginia's greenbrier. The compact equipment manufacturer is headquartered in West Fargo, and 137 marks in a register of 2,631 carry the word.
Prairie at 144x is the landscape doing what landscapes do in small registers, the same role maple plays in Vermont and desert in Arizona.
Future at 30x is the odd one out and we have no explanation for it that we can source, so we are not offering one.
The practical reading: Bobcat, Dakota and Prairie are occupied. In a register this small, those three words account for nearly one mark in six. Almost everything else is open country.
Fargo files 36.2% of North Dakota's marks, Bismarck 14.8%, Grand Forks 9.1%.
What the North Dakota portal looks like
Captured from the live register. Personal names and addresses are blacked out; everything else is as the state publishes it.
North Dakota Secretary of State business services
Business registrations in North Dakota are held by the North Dakota 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 | firststop.sos.nd.gov/search |
|---|---|
| Phone | (701) 328-2900 |
| Address | Secretary of State of North Dakota 600 E. Boulevard Avenue Department 108 Bismark, ND 58505 |
| Office hours | 8:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m. |
| LLC filing fee | $135 |
| 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 North Dakota business entity searches
How do I check if an LLC exists in North Dakota?
Search the name on this page or on the state's own portal. What North Dakota does by default is worth knowing before you read the result: contains, where the other states on the same software default to a narrower match. 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 North Dakota?
Search the name, then open the record rather than reading the results line. You get the filing type, its status and the date it went inactive, three separate standings: annual report, registered agent, and other, where it was formed and its term of duration. 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 North Dakota business name is approved?
Not on its own. A no-match result means the name is not on the North Dakota register today, which is a preliminary answer rather than approval: North Dakota Secretary of State decides when it reviews the filing. Worth knowing about North Dakota in particular: because this one already matches on Contains, a search here is thorough by default. That is worth knowing precisely because the identical looking portals in neighbouring states are not.
Can I look up who owns a business in North Dakota?
The North Dakota 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 North Dakota?
North Dakota Secretary of State charges $135 to file the Articles of Organization, which is the document that forms the company, and currently takes 5-7 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
- North Dakota business entity search, the official register this page queries.
- Filing fees and processing times: North Dakota Secretary of State, Limited Liability Company (LLC) business structures page, verified 2026-09-10. Current schedules are published by the North Dakota 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: compiled from published directories and not yet confirmed against the contact page published by the North Dakota Secretary of State. Telephone the office before relying on an address.
- Naming and reporting rules: North Dakota Secretary of State, Limited Liability Company (LLC) business structures page.
- Naming statute: N.D. Cent. Code Ch. 10-32.1, published by the state.
- State seal: public domain image via Wikimedia Commons.