Registered Agent Service: Your Questions, Answered

Every Florida business entity is required by law to name a registered agent with a physical Florida street address where legal documents can be served during business hours. When we serve as your statutory registered agent, any legal documents that must be served upon the entity come to our office instead of your home, your rental property, or your place of business.

We scan those documents electronically the same day and email them to you or share them through your client portal, so nothing sits in a mailbox while a response deadline runs.

The fee is $75.00 per entity, per year. Invoices are due by the end of each January.

If an invoice goes unpaid, a late charge is assessed, and we may resign as your registered agent if payment is not received by May 1. A resigned agent leaves your entity out of compliance with the state, so it is worth keeping current.

Beyond the annual fee, we bill for actual costs we incur on your behalf — for example, shipping hard copies of documents to you by U.S. Postal Service or overnight courier, or other out-of-pocket expenses incurred while acting as your agent.

No. Registered agent service and annual report filing are two separate things, and confusing them is the single most common and most expensive mistake business owners make.

Your annual report must be filed before May 1 each year at Sunbiz.org. You may file it yourself, or you may engage our firm each year — for an additional fee — to file it on your behalf.

Florida assesses a substantial late penalty to renew the entity after May 1. In the meantime, the entity becomes inactive and is not permitted to conduct regular business in Florida until it is reinstated.

An inactive entity can also complicate closings, financing, and contracts — title companies and lenders check Sunbiz status. The deadline is firm and the state does not waive the penalty, so calendar it early.

When you complete the change with the state, enter our information exactly as shown here:

You will sign the new registered agent acceptance line on our behalf as follows:

Joseph E. Seagle, Manager

If we formed your entity with a trust as its manager, sign the annual report and other legal documents in the trust's name rather than your own personal name. In practice, that means signing as “John Smith, Trustee.”

Some clients have signed the annual report in the name of the trust itself without any issue, so that approach is also available to you. Alternatively, you may appoint a friend as a temporary co-trustee to sign the annual report as trustee of the management trust.

If your entity already exists and we are in the last part of the calendar year, it may be worth waiting. Rather than filing a separate change of registered agent now, wait until January and change the registered agent on the annual report form itself.

That approach handles both items in one filing and saves you time and money. If you are forming a new entity, or if your current agent has resigned or become unreachable, there is no reason to wait.