Maryland

Maryland uses the term 'resident agent'. The agent must be either an individual residing in Maryland or a Maryland corporation, LLC, or limited partnership. Every Maryland corporation must have a principal office in the state and a resident agent (Corps. & Ass'ns § 2-108(a)); every Maryland LLC likewise (§ 4A-210(a)). An owner who lives in Maryland can serve as their own entity's resident agent under the § 1-101(x) definition.

Consent required: yes.

For foreign corporations, the Department (SDAT) may act as resident agent when the entity has none or the agent cannot be found or served with reasonable diligence (§ 7-205(b)). A foreign LLCDomestic / foreignRelative to one state's records: an entity is domestic in the state that formed it and foreign everywhere else it registers to do business.Read the full entry →'s registration application must itself contain a statement appointing the Department as resident agent if none is appointed, the agent's authority is revokedRevocation / 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 →, or the agent cannot be found or served (§ 4A-1002(b)(5)). For DOMESTIC Maryland entities, § 1-401 makes service on the resident agent effective and otherwise defers to the Maryland Rules, which are outside this corpus.

• Revocation Foreign. A foreign corporation's qualification to do intrastate business in Maryland stays effective only as long as it has a resident agent in the state - losing the agent ends the effectiveness of the qualification.
• Other. If a foreign corporation does business in Maryland without a resident agent, or its agent cannot be found or served with reasonable diligence, the State Department of Assessments and Taxation may act as its resident agent - meaning the entity can be served through the state without its knowledge.

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

Maryland State Department of Assessments and Taxation (SDAT), Charter Division

State fee

$25 base; +$50 expedited = $75 total expedited (online filings via Maryland Business Express process as expedited); same-day service $425

Term

5 years from date of acceptance by SDAT

Renewal

Renewable during the last 6 months of the 5-year period for an additional 5 years (renewal fee $25 + expedite if applicable); if not renewed SDAT forfeits the 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 → and a new application is required

Publication

Not required. None

Online filing

Available

The regime

Maryland requires any person engaged in a mercantile, trading, or manufacturing business as an agent, or doing business or trading under any name other than the person's own name, to file a trade name certificate with the State Department of Assessments and Taxation (SDAT) before commencing operation of the business. It is a single statewide filing, not a county filing.

Where it is filed

The State Department of Assessments and Taxation (SDAT). The article defines 'Department' as SDAT, and SDAT maintains an indexed public 'agency record' of all trade name certificates filed under § 1-406.

Publication

Section 1-406 sets out the complete filing, recording, fee, renewal, and false-certificate provisions for Maryland trade names and contains no newspaper-publication requirementPublication 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 →; the information is simply filed in the manner SDAT requires by regulation.

Term and renewal

A trade name certificate is effective for 5 years from the date it is filed.

Name restrictions

The trade name is recorded under the entity-names subtitle (Title 1, Subtitle 5): a 'trade name filer' counts as an 'entity,' and an entity name must be distinguishable on SDAT's records from the names of entities organized or authorized in Maryland, reserved or registered names, and disclosed assumed names adopted by foreign entities. The subtitle also requires entity-indicator words (e.g., 'corporation,' 'incorporated,' 'LLC') to the 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 → required to use them and bars names implying an unauthorized purpose.

Assumed names for registered entities

Maryland's foreign-entity name-conflict mechanism: SDAT may permit a foreign corporation whose name is prohibited by the names subtitle to register or qualify in Maryland if it agrees to transact business only under a 'disclosed assumed name' that meets the subtitle's requirements and to use that assumed name in all dealings with SDAT and in its Maryland affairs. Corporations must record their names with SDAT under Title 1, Subtitle 5, and a foreign entity's disclosed assumed name blocks later confusing names under § 1-504(3).

Penalties

Willfully and knowingly executing and filing a false trade name certificate is a misdemeanor punishable on conviction by a fine of up to $1,000, imprisonment up to 1 year, or both.

Official source

dat.maryland.gov/SDAT%20Forms/nameappl.pdf↗ (opens the official source)

What it is called

None for ordinary LLCs/corps (Maryland 'franchise 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 →' = Public Service Company Franchise Tax only; Financial Institution Franchise Tax terminated after 2000)

Administering agency

SDAT Franchise Tax & Public Utilities unit (410-767-1940) administers the public-service-company franchise tax; Comptroller of Maryland administers the corporate income tax; SDAT administers the $300 annual report fee

Corporation minimum

not recorded separately

How it is computed

$0 - no annual franchise/privilege/excise/margin/net-worth tax applies to ordinary MD LLCs or corporations; the only recurring entity-level state charge is the $300 SDAT Form 1 annual report fee (CA 1-203(b)(3)(ii), captured under fees.annual_report_llc). POSITIVE citation (no longer silence-based): Md. Code Ann., Tax-General Title 8 (Franchise Taxes) imposes franchise tax ONLY on public service companies - telephone or electric/natural-gas transmission/distribution/delivery (TG 8-402(a)) at 2% of MD gross receipts (TG 8-403(a)) plus a delivery tax of $0.00062 per kWh of electricity and $0.00402 per therm of natural gas delivered for final consumption (TG 8-402.1, 8-403(b)), paid quarterly to SDAT via Forms 29E/29EW. The financial institution franchise tax (TG 8-201 et seq., historically 7% of taxable net earnings per 8-203) was TERMINATED for taxable years beginning after 12/31/2000 (TG 8-202(a)). Ordinary corporations instead pay the 8.25% corporate INCOME tax (TG 10-105(b), Form 500, Comptroller); LLCs are pass-through (elective - the filer's service-level choice). No statewide gross-receipts tax or general business-license minimum functions as an entity tax (no WA-B&O analog).