Oregon Secretary of State
Oregon Business Entity Search
Last updated . Register data is refreshed nightly.
Check whether a business name is already on file with the Oregon Secretary of State. Free, no account, all entity types.
Oregon Business Entity Search
Search the state's official business records.
Oregon's register is searchable free through the Secretary of State's Corporation Division at sos.oregon.gov. No account needed.
The best-designed search of any state
That is not a compliment we hand out. Oregon does three things no other register does.
It ranks its search methods. Seven of them, listed in order and labeled More restrictive to Less restrictive:
1. Business Name Availability Check: "Very restrictive. Positional. Only (As keyed)." 2. Exact words in exact word order: "(Only. As keyed) Fastest." 3. Exact words in exact word order, followed by anything else 4. Exact words in any word order: the default 5. Sound-alike words in exact word order 6. Sound-alike words in any word order 7. Extended Search in any word order: "Adds Synonym style search results. More names returned. Slowest."
It tells you the trade-off. The second is marked Fastest; the last is marked Slowest and returns the most names. You are being told what each costs you before you choose.
It restates what it did. The results page opens with a line reading Using Exact Words in Any Word Order, For Active and Inactive businesses, so there is no guessing which settings produced the list in front of you.
The default sits fourth of seven, which is a sensible middle. When a name genuinely matters, reach for the seventh. The extended search adds synonyms, so it returns names that mean the same as yours rather than merely looking like it, and the state warns you it is the slowest. That is the trade you want when the answer matters more than the wait.
Status, twice
The results carry an entity status and a name status, and they answer different questions.
Entity status is the company: active, inactive. Name status is the name: CUR for the name the company uses now, PRE for one it used before. So a result can be a live company under a dead name, and Oregon says so in the row rather than leaving you to open the record and find out.
Your search is also auto-uppercased: type Acme and the header comes back reading ACME.
You can search for a person
The form carries an Associated Business Search, offering By Business or By Individual.
Searching a person and getting back what they are attached to is something only Oregon, Illinois and Arizona let you do from the public search. If you are checking a registered agent, or working out what else a director is involved in, that is the tool.
The record is longer than it looks
Open a record and the top gives you Business Entity Data: registry number, entity type, entity status, jurisdiction, registry date, next renewal date and whether renewal is due. Then Associated Names: the principal place of business with a full address, the registered agent with an appointment date, and the officers (president, secretary), each with an address.
Keep scrolling. Two tables below the fold are the reason to.
Name History lists every name the entity has held, each marked CUR or PRE. The example record is filed as A AACME CONTRACTORS, INC. and the history shows it was METAL CONCEPTS, INC. until a name change in 1996. Nothing at the top of the record tells you that.
Summary History is a dated log of every filing (new filing, amended renewal, name amendment, entity name change, involuntary dissolution), each with a transaction date and a status. The same record shows the state involuntarily dissolved the company in 1997. An Image Available column carries a document icon where the filed image can be ordered.
So a record that reads as a going concern at the top turns out, forty lines down, to be a renamed company the state dissolved thirty years ago.
Who decides
The Oregon Limited Liability Company Act, ORS Chapter 63 governs, and the Corporation Division decides on examination. Note what that means for the first search method on the list: the Business Name Availability Check is the state's own preliminary view of your name, offered up front, and still not a ruling.
Before you rely on it
Use the seventh method when the name matters. Synonyms, slowest, most results: that is the point of it.
Read the name status, not just the entity status. CUR and PRE are the difference between a name in use and a name abandoned.
Scroll to Name History and Summary History. The top of an Oregon record can be actively misleading on its own.
Try the By Individual search if you are checking people rather than names.
Oregon filing facts
| Filing | Domestic | Foreign |
|---|---|---|
| Articles of Organization | $100.00 | n/a |
| Application for Authority | n/a | $275.00 |
| Renewal, annually | $100.00 | $275.00 |
| Amendment or dissolution | $100.00 | $100.00 |
| Amendment to an annual report | no charge | no charge |
The foreign premium is the thing to notice. Oregon charges an out-of-state LLC $275 to register and $275 every year afterwards, against $100 and $100 for a domestic one. That is 2.75 times the recurring cost, every year, for the life of the company, not a one-off registration surcharge of the kind most states apply. If you are choosing where to form and you expect to operate in Oregon, it is worth doing that arithmetic before you file somewhere else.
64,740 applications landed in the 52 weeks to 26 September 2026, down 1.6%, roughly 259 a business day, and 31st of 51 by volume.
What the register will not tell you
Oregon has 31,430 live registered marks, and they are concentrated in a way the business register is not:
| word | live marks | times more common than nationally |
|---|---|---|
| oregon | 1,179 | 120x |
| portland | 458 | 87x |
| pacific | 384 | 10x |
| mountain | 316 | 5x |
| brewing | 348 | 4x |
| coffee | 404 | 3x |
| green | 328 | 3x |
Portland accounts for 36% of every mark in the state, which is why the city's own name runs at 87 times the national rate, higher than most states manage for anything.
Below the two place names it flattens quickly. Brewing at 4x and coffee at 3x are recognizably Oregon and mildly crowded rather than contested; green and good are ordinary. The practical reading: if your name uses Oregon or Portland, assume the ground is taken and check the federal register. Almost everything else is open.
What the Oregon portal looks like
Captured from the live register. Personal names and addresses are blacked out; everything else is as the state publishes it.
Oregon Secretary of State business services
Business registrations in Oregon are held by the Oregon 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 | sos.oregon.gov/business/Pages/find.aspx |
|---|---|
| Phone | (503) 986-2200 |
| Address | 255 Capitol St. NE, Suite 151, Salem, OR 97310-1327 |
| Office hours | 8:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m. |
| LLC filing fee | $100 |
| 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 Oregon business entity searches
How do I check if an LLC exists in Oregon?
Search the name on this page or on the state's own portal. What Oregon does by default is worth knowing before you read the result: exact words in any word order; status defaults to active AND inactive. 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 Oregon?
Search the name, then open the record rather than reading the results line. Business Entity Data: registry number, entity type, entity status, jurisdiction, registry date, next renewal date, renewal due. 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 Oregon business name is approved?
Not on its own. A no-match result means the name is not on the Oregon register today, which is a preliminary answer rather than approval: Oregon Secretary of State decides when it reviews the filing. Worth knowing about Oregon in particular: it starts you on exact words in any word order, and on active and inactive together, which is a sensible place to begin. The one to reach for when a name matters is the extended synonym search at the bottom. It returns the most names and the state warns it is the slowest, which is the trade you want here.
Can I look up who owns a business in Oregon?
Oregon lists the president, secretary and registered agent with addresses under Associated Names.
How much does it cost to register a business name in Oregon?
Oregon Secretary of State charges $100 to file the Articles 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
- Oregon business entity search, the official register this page queries.
- Filing fees and processing times: Oregon Secretary of State, Business Registry Fee Schedule, verified 2026-09-10. Current schedules are published by the Oregon 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.
- Register copy: bulk data published by data.oregon.gov, last checked October 14, 2026.
- Office contact details: Oregon Secretary of State, confirmed against the office’s own contact page.
- Naming and reporting rules: Oregon Secretary of State, Business Registry Fee Schedule.
- Naming statute: Or. Rev. Stat. Ch. 63, published by the state.
- State seal: public domain image via Wikimedia Commons.