incFACTS

Cross-jurisdiction analysis

What an agency status string actually means

Filing agencies publish an entity's status as a short string. There is no national vocabulary, agencies do not publish a legend, and the same words mean different things in different states. This record maps 2,713 distinct observed status strings across 51 jurisdictions to a good-standing verdict: 247 mean in good standing, 1,636 mean not in good standing, and 830 are deliberately left unresolved because the string is genuinely ambiguous.

1 further row held back from every page on this site. In those cases the agency status column had captured a filing agent's company name instead of a status. They are a defect in the observed vocabulary rather than a status anyone needs decoded, they name a private party, and the record is CO. Counted here, printed nowhere.

2,713Status strings mapped51 jurisdictions
1,636Mean not in good standing60%
247Mean in good standing9%
830We refuse to guess31%
2,319Verifiedof 2,713
51Widest-shared stringNOT YET FILED
409 818 1,227 1,636 In good standing 247 Not in good standing 1,636 Deliberately unknown 830
Verdict distribution across 2,713 observed status strings

The one dataset that can never carry a green tick, and why we publish it anyway

These verdicts are derived from status strings observed on agency systems over time. They are not read off a legend the agency publishes, because in most states no such legend exists. 2,319 of the rows have been through final review and ratified, which is a higher bar than most of this site clears - and it still cannot make them verified, because the provenance is an internal observation record rather than an agency publication. No amount of further review fixes that. So the decoder is published with the derivation stated plainly and no agency citation claimed, which is the honest treatment of a genuinely useful dataset that has no citable authority.

The 830 unresolved rows are the most valuable part. They are the strings on which an automated compliance decision should not be made, and marking them is a deliberate act rather than an absence of work.

Alaska - Fewer than 40AK Alabama - Fewer than 40AL Arkansas - Fewer than 40AR Arizona - 80 or more distinct status stringsAZ California - 40 to 79CA Colorado - Fewer than 40CO Connecticut - Fewer than 40CT District of Columbia - Fewer than 40DC Delaware - 40 to 79DE Florida - Fewer than 40FL Georgia - 40 to 79GA Guam - No status vocabulary heldGU Hawaii - Fewer than 40HI Iowa - Fewer than 40IA Idaho - 80 or more distinct status stringsID Illinois - 40 to 79IL Indiana - Fewer than 40IN Kansas - 40 to 79KS Kentucky - Fewer than 40KY Louisiana - 40 to 79LA Massachusetts - 40 to 79MA Maryland - 80 or more distinct status stringsMD Maine - 40 to 79ME Michigan - 40 to 79MI Minnesota - Fewer than 40MN Missouri - 40 to 79MO Mississippi - Fewer than 40MS Montana - Fewer than 40MT North Carolina - 40 to 79NC North Dakota - Fewer than 40ND Nebraska - Fewer than 40NE New Hampshire - 40 to 79NH New Jersey - 40 to 79NJ New Mexico - 40 to 79NM Nevada - Fewer than 40NV New York - 80 or more distinct status stringsNY Ohio - Fewer than 40OH Oklahoma - Fewer than 40OK Oregon - Fewer than 40OR Pennsylvania - 40 to 79PA Puerto Rico - No status vocabulary heldPR Rhode Island - Fewer than 40RI South Carolina - Fewer than 40SC South Dakota - Fewer than 40SD Tennessee - 40 to 79TN Texas - 80 or more distinct status stringsTX Utah - 40 to 79UT Virginia - 80 or more distinct status stringsVA US Virgin Islands - No status vocabulary heldVI Vermont - 40 to 79VT Washington - Fewer than 40WA Wisconsin - Fewer than 40WI West Virginia - 40 to 79WV Wyoming - 40 to 79WY
80 or more distinct status strings 640 to 79 20Fewer than 40 25No status vocabulary held 3
Size of the observed status vocabulary, 51 jurisdictions.

Strings that appear in the most jurisdictions

Where the same string carries different verdicts in different states, the meaning column shows more than one value. That is the whole argument for a per-state decoder rather than a national glossary.

Status strings observed in the largest number of jurisdictions
Observed statusJurisdictions Verdicts recorded
NOT YET FILED51unknown
NOT FILED51unknown
ACTIVE51in good standing
(BLANK)51unknown
FILED IN <YEAR>50unknown
DISSOLVED46not in good standing
REVOKED45not in good standing
WITHDRAWN44not in good standing
INACTIVE36not in good standing, unknown
UNKNOWN35unknown
NON SOS34unknown
MERGED29not in good standing
DEFAULT27not in good standing
NOT SOS FILED26unknown

Vocabulary size by jurisdiction

Observed status strings and verdict split, by jurisdiction
Jurisdiction Strings GoodNot good UnresolvedVerified
ID Idaho4353931383357
NY New York120410214114
MD Maryland11814178737
TX Texas9120442778
VA Virginia913741485
AZ Arizona845542579
UT Utah757511771
DE Delaware704471957
GA Georgia6510302555
MI Michigan551322241
NJ New Jersey546311747
NC North Carolina538281745
NH New Hampshire532321951
NM New Mexico535291942
ME Maine523262336
KS Kansas515291747
CA California494261938
IL Illinois483331242
WY Wyoming48438646
PA Pennsylvania453241841
TN Tennessee45237643
MA Massachusetts43629840
MO Missouri432291242
WV West Virginia432271441
LA Louisiana41329939
VT Vermont41626939
CO Colorado395221234
HI Hawaii39129935
MT Montana391123539
OK Oklahoma38623934
IN Indiana371211534
NV Nevada373161831
DC District of Columbia363151830
ND North Dakota36326734
CT Connecticut354171430
SC South Carolina354112022
WI Wisconsin33620733
FL Florida31319930
KY Kentucky314121525
WA Washington302161226
MS Mississippi292151226
SD South Dakota292171027
AR Arkansas27216925
IA Iowa26117824
AL Alabama24213921
OR Oregon24251720
AK Alaska22212821
MN Minnesota20310720
NE Nebraska17110616
OH Ohio1728716
RI Rhode Island1616913
Provenance - good-standing decoderPending review

Citation withheld permanently, not temporarily. These verdicts are derived from agency status strings observed over time rather than from any legend the agency publishes, so no agency citation exists and none is claimed.

Records
2,713 rows, 51 jurisdictions
Review
2,319 verified and ratified, 394 provisionally reviewed
Confidence
1,553 high, 766 medium, 394 low
Retrieved
2026-08-04
Derivation
observed agency status vocabulary, normalised, then adjudicated per jurisdiction

Publishing a decoder with an explicit derivation caveat is more useful than withholding it, and more honest than dressing it up as an agency legend.