Michigan Business Entity & Corporation Search

Businesses in Michigan are registered with the Corporations, Securities & Commercial Licensing Bureau (CSCL). The department comes under the Office of the Secretary of State of Michigan. Once registered, business entities are added to an online database maintained by the  Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (LARA), Michigan. All registered businesses entities can be searched online on SOS corporation division website.

The types of businesses that can be whose information is available are:

1. Subchapter Corporation (S Corporation)
2. Conventional Corporation (C Corporation)
3. Limited Partnership
4. Limited Liability Company (LLC)
5. Limited Liability Partnership (LLP)

Searching for a business is useful as it indicates whether the business is legally registered or not and whether it is in good standing with the state. It can also be used to search for the registered address of the company and the name of the registered agent, amongst many other things

You can follow this reference guide on how to search for a Business Entity in the state of Michigan.

Michigan Business Entity Search

One can search for any business using any of the following attributes:

• Business Name
• Individual Name
• Identification Number
• Filing number

 Search by Business Name

Step 1: Open Michigan corporations division search page – Link (opens in new tab).

Step 2: Select ‘Search by entity name‘ option and enter the search string in ‘entity name‘ text box.

Following search filters are available to narrow down the results:

• Begin with (your search string)
• Exact match
• Keyword (recommended)
• Soundex search (phonetically sounds like)

Optionally you can choose the number of items you want to see per page.

Step 4: Click on ‘Search‘ button.

In the following example, we searched for ‘Automobiles insurance‘ with the keyword filter. The results look like this:

Step 5: On the next page, you can view the list of results which matches the query. For each business, you can view the ID Number, the Old ID number and the Registered Address of the company.

Step 6: Click on the desired business name to view more details.

Step 7: On the final page, you can check the following information about the business:

• To request certificates like the certificate of fact/good standing/status, click on ‘Request Certificate‘ button.
• To view datewise filing history and order certified copies, click on ‘View Filings‘ on the bottom of the page.

 Search by Individual Name

Use this search option, to find a business based on any member/registered agent’s name.

Visit Michigan secretary of state business search page. Select ‘Search by Individual Name’ and enter the name of the person you are searching for. Click on the search button. On the next page, you can view the results which matched the person’s name. You can view the following details about each entry:

• Name
• Position
• Individual’s
• Address
• Entity Name
• ID No.
• Old ID No.

Click on the business name associated with the person, to view complete information about it.

 Search by Identification/Filing Number

If you know the Identification number (6 or 9 characters) or filing number, then you can directly find the business information.

On the corporation division search page, select either search by ID number or filing number based on the information available. Enter the number in the corresponding text box and click on search button. On the next page, you can view the business information associated with ID/Filing number.

 Contact Information

Sources and Links

1. https://www.michigan.gov/sos/
2. https://www.michigan.gov/lara/0,4601,7-154-61343-139996–,00.html

Last Updated on: 05/10/2018