What Does a Registered Agent Do?

Delaware entities are required to have a registered agent located within the state of Delaware.

If you are a Delaware resident and have a Delaware address, you are allowed to act as your own registered agent although there are a few reasons why you may not want to. We discuss this more in our post - Can You Act As Your Own Registered Agent?

But what does your registered agent actually do? Let's take a look...

Duties of a Registered Agent

The basic duties of a Delaware Registered Agent are as follows:

• To accept and forward Annual Report Tax Notices and any other official documentation from the Secretary of State to the entity contact.
• To accept and forward Service of Process.

Under Delaware law, a Registered Agent must be generally available during normal business hours to accept Service of Process.

If your registered agent is doing that for you, then they are meeting their minimum requirement to act as your agent, and charge you a fee. However, a great Registered Agent does much more.

Here are some additional things that The Incorporators Ltd. offers our registered agent clients:

Email Reminders

Worried you might miss a piece of mail or mistake it for junk mail? We send a courtesy email reminder to all entities that have an annual report and/or franchise tax due well before the due date.

Tax Filing Service

We offer a tax filing service on our website, which enables clients to easily maintain their entity information for quick, efficient filing. If you use our entity filing service, you will always have copies of your reports and payment history available online.

Direct Access to the Delaware Corporate Information System (DCIS)

The Incorporators Ltd. is a Commercial Registered Agent, with contracted direct access to the Delaware Corporate Information System (DCIS).  We are a full-service commercial agent; making filing, research and retrieval services fast and affordable.

That means that if you need a certificate of good standing quickly or you've misplaced your articles of incorporation, we've got you covered. You can order a certificate of good standing online anytime here or a copy of your articles of incorporation online here. 

Easy Additional Filings and Retrievals

Sometimes, an entity will find it necessary to make an additional filing after formation.

You may have a company name change or need to change your stock election (amendment), or be ready to wind up business and formally close the entity (dissolution/cancellation). In some cases, you may find that you need to revive your charter if it has lapsed due to not meeting statutory obligations for tax payments or maintaining a registered agent (revival).

The Incorporators can help you with these things too! DCIS access also permits us to retrieve legal filings, issue state certificates and provide UCC search, filing and retrieval services in Delaware.

A Helpful Point of Contact

Essentially, having a helpful point of contact for anything to do with your Delaware entity can prove incredibly beneficial and can help make it easier for you to focus on what is important - running your business. 

Feel free to contact us with questions about our registered agent services or change your registered agent to The Incorporators Ltd. (your first year is free!) online. 

DISCLAIMER: The Incorporators LTD. is a business formation service company only.
All content on this site is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as legal, taxation or financial advice or services.