Arizona

Arizona uses the term 'statutory agent.' A corporation must continuously maintain a known place of business and a statutory agent who may be an Arizona-resident individual, a domestic corporation, an authorized foreign corporation, an Arizona LLC, or an authorized foreign LLC. For LLCs, ARS 29-3115(B) requires the agent to have a place of business or residence in Arizona and allows the same five categories.

Consent required: yes.

Corporations: if the corporation fails to appoint or maintain a statutory agent at the address of record, the Arizona Corporation Commission is the corporation's agent for service; the commission forwards a copy to the known place of business and the corporation gets 30 extra days to respond. LLCs use a different fallback: service by registered or certified mail (or commercial delivery) to the company's principal address, and failing that, by handing a copy to the person in charge of any regular place of business (29-3119(B)-(C)).

• Administrative DissolutionRevocation / administrative dissolutionThe state involuntarily ending an entity's authority to do business - for missed annual reports, a lapsed registered agent, or unpaid fees.Read the full entry →. The Arizona Corporation Commission may administratively dissolve a corporation that is without a statutory agent or known place of business for 60 days or more, or that fails to notify the commission of an agent change or resignation within 60 days (60-day cure window after notice). LLC parallel: no statutory agent for at least 60 consecutive days, or failure to notify within 60 days (29-3708(A)(2), (4)).
• Other. Name loss: if a dissolved corporation (or LLC) has not applied for reinstatementReinstatementRestoring an entity the state revoked or administratively dissolved for missed filings - typically back-filing reports, paying accrued fees and penalties, and filing an application.Read the full entry → within six months after the effective date of administrative dissolution, the commission releases the entity's name for use by others.
• Revocation Foreign. The commission may revoke a foreign corporation's authority to transact business if it is without a statutory agent or known place of business for 60 days or more, or fails to report an agent change or resignation within 60 days; on revocation the commission becomes the corporation's agent for service of process (10-1531(D)).
• Reinstatement Fee. Reinstatement is available within six years for both corporations (10-1422(A)) and LLCs (29-3709(A)); an LLC must pay all fees and penalties that were due at dissolution and that would have accrued during dissolution, plus a $100 reinstatement application fee (corporations pay the same $100 application fee under 10-122(A)(13)).

Filing officeFiling officeThe agency that keeps the business register.Read the full entry →

Arizona Secretary of StateSOSSecretary of State - the default filing office in most states, and shorthand throughout this site for whichever agency keeps the business register.Read the full entry →, Business Services (Trade Names & Trademarks). NOTE: registration is OPTIONAL in Arizona - not legally required to use a DBA, but needed to appear on the state registry (banks often require it)

State fee

$10 (amendment $3)

Term

5 years from date of registration (A.R.S. 44-1460.02)

Renewal

Renewable for successive 5-year terms; application within the 6-month window before expiration; SOS mails notice ~60 days before expiration; renewal fee $10, renewals processed online (apps.azsos.gov/apps/tntp/nr.html); only the current owner may renew

Publication

Not required. No newspaper publicationPublication requirementA few states require newly formed or registered entities to publish a notice in designated newspapers (New York's LLC publication is the expensive example) - a real cost of formation that fee tables usually omit.Read the full entry → requirement for trade names in Arizona

Online filing

Available

The regime

Arizona has no mandatory general DBA act. Trade-name registration with the Secretary of State is voluntary ('may register') and open to any person, partnership, corporation, or other organization doing business in the state; the applicant must state that a search found the name distinguishable from names on record with the Secretary of State and from corporate names.

Where it is filed

Filings go to the Arizona Secretary of State, which issues the certificate of registration and keeps a public record of registered and renewed trade names. Electronic filing is authorized.

Term and renewal

Five years from the date of registration.

Name restrictions

The Secretary of State will not file a trade nameDBA / fictitious nameA name a business operates under that is not its legal name - 'doing business as.' Also: assumed name, trade name, fictitious business name.Read the full entry → that is not distinguishable on the record from any name already on record with that office or from an existing or reserved corporate name; the application itself must include the applicant's statement that a search found the name distinguishable on both fronts.

Assumed names for registered entities

A foreign corporation whose corporate name does not satisfy A.R.S. § 10-401 must either add a corporate designator or adopt a fictitious name (by filing a certified board resolution with the Arizona Corporation Commission) to obtain or keep authority to transact business; the fictitious name must be distinguishable from entity names, reserved names, other foreign corporations' fictitious names, and registered trade names. A foreign LLC whose name fails § 29-3112 likewise cannot register to do business until it adopts a complying alternate name (§ 29-3906).

Penalties

There is no penalty for not registering (registration is voluntary), but the Secretary of State must cancel a registration obtained fraudulently by containing false or misleading information, as well as unrenewed or court-ordered cancellations.

Official source

azsos.gov/business/tntm↗ (opens the official source)

What it is called

not captured

Administering agency

n/a (Arizona Corporation Commission collects the annual report fees; Arizona DOR administers income/TPT taxes, which appear in the corpus only as dissolution/withdrawal tax-clearance gates under A.R.S. 43-1151)

Corporation minimum

not recorded separately

How it is computed

NONE - no franchise or privilege taxFranchise taxA recurring tax on the privilege of existing as an entity in a state - not a tax on franchising a business.Read the full entry → on entities appears anywhere in the corpus. The only recurring state levies in the entity code are the corporation annual report fee ($45 flat, A.R.S. 10-122(A)(16); nonprofit $10, 10-3122(A)(16)) and $0/yr for LLCs and plain LPs (LLP/LLLP annual report $3 on time / $28 late). Computable answer: recurring franchise-type cost = $0 for all entity typesEntity typesLLC (limited liability company), corporation (for-profit; 'profit corporation' in some states' vocabulary), nonprofit corporation, LP (limited partnership), LLP (limited liability partnership), LLLP (limited liability limited partnership),Read the full entry →; the $45/$10 AR fees are filing fees, not a tax on income/capital/shares. CAVEAT: this negative is established from the fully-captured entity statutes (Titles 10 and 29) and ACC/SOS fee schedules only - Arizona's tax code (Titles 42/43, incl. corporate income tax and TPT administered by ADOR) is NOT in the corpus and was not reviewed; income tax is out of scope but its absence here should not be read as no state tax of any kind.