Rhode Island Secretary of State
Rhode Island Business Entity Search
Last updated . Register data is refreshed nightly.
Check whether a business name is already on file with the Rhode Island Secretary of State. Free, no account, all entity types.
Rhode Island Business Entity Search
Search the state's official business records.
Rhode Island's register is at business.sos.ri.gov, free and without an account. On its default settings it is the register most likely in the country to tell you a name is free when it is not.
The default hides the companies that matter
Status is a radio choice between Active and Inactive, and it arrives set to Active.
That is a different thing from a tick box you might notice. It is a binary: you are looking at live companies or dead ones, not both. And dissolved companies still hold their names.
So the default view is precisely the one that will show you nothing where a dissolved company sits on the name you want. Switch it to Inactive and run the search again: two searches, every time, before you conclude anything.
The name match is also set to Begins with, so a company with your word in the middle will not appear either.
You can search what a company does
This is the good part, and no other state offers it.
Rhode Island lets you search by business purpose and by NAICS code.
So you can look for companies doing what you plan to do rather than only ones named like you. If you are opening a bakery in Providence, you can find the bakeries, not the businesses with "bakery" in the name, but the ones that told the state that is what they do.
That is a different question from name availability and often a more useful one. Alongside it you can search by entity name, individual name, identification number, filing number, agent, or business address.
Reading a result
The grid gives the entity name, the ID number, the NAICS code, an inactive status where one applies, and the address. Page size runs 25, 50 or 100.
The record
The exact registered name and entity type. The identification number. The date of qualification in Rhode Island and its effective date. The state and country it was originally organized in. Then the agent and officers, each with an address.
Who decides
Two searches, active and inactive, still only tell you what has been filed. What the state will accept is decided under the Rhode Island Limited Liability Company Act, R.I. Gen. Laws Chapter 7-16 when the Department examines the paperwork.
Before you rely on it
Run the search twice: once on Active, once on Inactive. The radio is the single biggest cause of a false clear in this state.
Change Begins with to catch names with your word in the middle.
Try the purpose and NAICS search if your question is about competition rather than availability.
Rhode Island filing facts
| Filing | Fee | Form |
|---|---|---|
| Articles of Organization | $150.00 | Form 400 |
| Annual report | $50.00 | Form 632 |
| Minimum annual tax | $400.00 |
The annual report is not the recurring cost. Rhode Island levies a $400 minimum tax that is owed whether or not the business trades, whether or not it makes a profit, and it is not pro-rated for part of a year.
So the real cost of keeping a Rhode Island LLC alive is $450 a year, not the $50 the report suggests. Form the company in December and you owe the full $400 for those few weeks.
That puts Rhode Island alongside Delaware's $400 tax as one of the two most expensive states to maintain, and it is the one people are least likely to have budgeted for, because the fee schedule and the tax sit in different places, and only one of them looks like a filing fee.
If you are comparing states on cost, this is the number that matters here.
We are not quoting a name reservation fee; it is not on the state's costs and fees page.
For all that, the register is active: 13,090 applications in the 52 weeks to 26 September 2026, up 12.0%, 52 a business day, 49th of 51.
What the register will not tell you
Rhode Island has 11,122 live registered marks, and the two words at the top are companies rather than places:
| word | live marks | times more common than nationally |
|---|---|---|
| cvs | 302 | 414x |
| rhode | 176 | 306x |
| citizens | 235 | 142x |
| island | 175 | 11x |
| gold | 171 | 6x |
| power | 217 | 4x |
| you | 203 | 2x |
CVS at 414 times the national rate tops the list, and citizens at 142x sits third. Both are Rhode Island institutions: the pharmacy chain is headquartered in Woonsocket, and Citizens Bank in Providence. Between them they account for 537 marks in a register of eleven thousand.
That is the same pattern as Wisconsin's harley, Arizona's ping and Nebraska's dtn: in a small register, one or two large companies dominate the vocabulary. Rhode Island is unusual only in having two of them.
Rhode at 306x and island at 11x are the state's own name split across two words, which is what happens when your name is two words.
Filing concentrates around the capital: Providence 24.9%, Pawtucket 15.2%, Cranston 6.6%.
What the Rhode Island portal looks like
Captured from the live register. Personal names and addresses are blacked out; everything else is as the state publishes it.
Rhode Island Secretary of State business services
Business registrations in Rhode Island are held by the Rhode Island 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 | business.sos.ri.gov/CorpWeb/CorpSearch/CorpSearch.aspx |
|---|---|
| Phone | (401) 222-3040 |
| Address | 148 W. River Street, Providence, RI |
| Office hours | 8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. |
| LLC filing fee | $150 |
| 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 Rhode Island business entity searches
How do I check if an LLC exists in Rhode Island?
Search the name on this page or on the state's own portal. What Rhode Island does by default is worth knowing before you read the result: begins with, and status radio set to Active only. 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 Rhode Island?
Search the name, then open the record rather than reading the results line. You get the exact registered name and entity type, the identification number, the date of qualification in Rhode Island and its effective date, the state and country it was organised under and principal office and mailing…. 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 Rhode Island business name is approved?
Not on its own. A no-match result means the name is not on the Rhode Island register today, which is a preliminary answer rather than approval: Rhode Island Secretary of State decides when it reviews the filing. Worth knowing about Rhode Island in particular: it is the most likely of any state to tell you a name is free when it is not. Status is a choice between Active and Inactive, set to Active, so dissolved companies are left out rather than pushed down the list, and you cannot see both at once. Searching Acme on the default settings returns 22 records where states with the filter off return hundreds. The name match also begins on Begins with.
Can I look up who owns a business in Rhode Island?
The Rhode Island 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 Rhode Island?
Rhode Island Secretary of State charges $150 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
- Rhode Island business entity search, the official register this page queries.
- Filing fees and processing times: Rhode Island Department of State, Business Services, Costs and Fees, verified 2026-09-10. Current schedules are published by the Rhode Island 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: Rhode Island Secretary of State, confirmed against the office’s own contact page.
- Naming and reporting rules: Rhode Island Department of State, Business Services, Costs and Fees.
- Naming statute: R.I. Gen. Laws 7-16-9, published by the state.
- State seal: public domain image via Wikimedia Commons.