Virginia LLCs pay a $50 registration fee — the registered agent is still a separate job

What Virginia actually requires

Code of Virginia § 13.1-1015 is Virginia’s registered-agent rule. Each domestic limited liability company, and each foreign limited liability company registered here, must continuously maintain in the Commonwealth a registered office and a registered agent. The registered office may be the same as any of its places of business. The agent must be an individual who lives in Virginia and whose business office is identical with the registered office, and who is a member or manager, an officer or director of a member corporation, a partner of a member partnership, a trustee of a member trust, or a member of the Virginia State Bar; or a domestic or foreign stock or nonstock corporation, limited liability company, or registered limited liability partnership authorized to transact business in the Commonwealth, the business office of which is identical with the registered office. An entity shall not be its own registered agent. An entity agent must designate, by a writing acknowledged before a notary public, one or more natural persons at that office on whom process, notice, or demand may be served, and must keep at least one such person there. The statute also lets a Virginia resident who is an officer of the limited liability company serve, if that person or a designated natural person is available during regular business hours at the registered office. The sole duty of the registered agent is to forward to the limited liability company at its last known address any process, notice, or demand that is served on the registered agent. That is the sentence this page is built on. Georgia wants the registered office at the same street as the agent. Illinois also wants the agent’s business office identical with the registered office. Colorado will not take a commercial mailbox or a P.O. Box as the street. Florida files a written acceptance and posts a 10–noon / 2–4 clock. Delaware bans a virtual-only agent. Nevada makes a commercial agent register at ten companies. Wyoming bans UPS stores and virtual addresses. New York already names the Secretary of State as the agent. Pennsylvania files a registered office, not a registered agent. New Jersey wants a street and will not take a P.O. Box alone. Ohio files a written acceptance and cancels the articles if you miss the 30-day statutory-agent notice. Arizona waits on a signed acceptance. North Carolina’s LLC annual report is $200 paper or $203 online. Virginia’s LLC pays a $50 fee and files no annual report. We print that contrast once. We do not invent a Virginia written-acceptance form we did not retrieve.

The State Corporation Commission registered-agent FAQ, retrieved September 10, 2026, is the street rule this page is built on. A registered agent is an individual or company that accepts official paperwork such as service of process (lawsuits) and annual registration fee notices. Every authorized Virginia business must maintain a registered agent. The FAQ wants a Virginia physical business address, availability during normal business hours, and — for an individual — a Virginia resident who is a member of the Virginia State Bar or a member of the business’s management. You may use a third-party law firm or service company. A business entity cannot act as its own registered agent. The registered office is the Virginia business office where the agent receives service of process and annual registration fee notices. Because the agent must be physically present to receive documents, a Post Office box is not acceptable, except in cities or towns with a population of less than 2,000 and no street address. If you use that exception, you can file only on paper. The registered office address is part of the public record. A complete address includes the street number and name, city, state, ZIP code, and the locality — the county or independent city. We print the office’s own words. We do not treat a P.O. Box as the everyday registered office.

The same official FAQ is how you change the line and how an agent steps down. You may change the registered agent or registered office in the Clerk’s Information System, or request a paper Statement of Change of a Registered Agent and/or Registered Office. After the Clerk’s Office records the change, you receive an Acknowledgement of Change. An agent resigns by filing a Statement/Certificate of Resignation of Registered Agent, in the Clerk’s Information System or on paper. The agent must send a copy of the form by certified mail to the principal office. The FAQ says the resignation is effective on the 31st day after the statement was filed. You then have 31 days from the time the filing was completed to appoint a new registered agent. If a new agent is not appointed by then, the office says you will be notified that the business status changed to inactive. If that is not resolved by the last day of the second month after the notification, the status changes to terminated, revoked, or canceled automatically. Communications from the Commission are sent to the registered office. The principal office is a different line. It is not a Post Office box.

Code of Virginia § 13.1-1016 is how you change the office or the agent. A limited liability company, or a foreign limited liability company registered here, may change its registered office or registered agent, or both, by filing a statement of change on a Commission form. The statement names the current registered office, the new post-office address including the street and number if any, the city or county, the current agent, the new agent, and a statement that after the change the company will comply with § 13.1-1015. A statement of change must be filed whenever the agent dies, resigns, or ceases to satisfy § 13.1-1015. The official LLC form is LLC1016, Update your Registered Office Address or Change your Registered Agent. The LLC forms table, retrieved September 10, 2026, prices LLC1016 at No Fee. Those dollars are Commission dollars. They are not the vendor’s year-1 card.

Code of Virginia § 13.1-1017 is how an agent steps down. The agent files a statement of resignation and certifies that a copy will be mailed to the principal office by certified mail on or before the business day following the day the statement is filed. When the resignation takes effect, the registered office is also discontinued. The statement takes effect on the earlier of 12:01 a.m. on the 31st day after the date it was filed, or the date a statement of change appointing a new agent is filed under § 13.1-1016. The official LLC form is LLC1017, Resign as Registered Agent. The same forms table prices LLC1017 at No Fee. That 31-day resignation clock is not the company’s later duty to put a new agent on record after the notice. We print both. We do not invent a third clock.

Code of Virginia § 13.1-1018 is service of process. The registered agent is the limited liability company’s agent for service of process, notice, or demand. If the company fails to appoint or maintain a registered agent in this Commonwealth, or the agent cannot with reasonable diligence be found at the registered office, the clerk of the Commission is an agent of the limited liability company. Service on the clerk is made in accordance with Code of Virginia § 12.1-19.1. That statute says service on the clerk is made by leaving two copies of the process for each defendant, together with the fee or fees specified in subsection G, in the office of the Clerk of the Commission. That clerk path is a fallback. It is not the everyday job. New York starts with the Secretary of State on the agent line. Virginia starts with your appointed agent. We do not invent a dollar figure for that fallback fee from a vendor article. We cite the statute’s “fee or fees specified in subsection G.”

Virginia also bills an annual registration fee. That bill is not the registered-agent job. The Maintaining Your Business page, retrieved September 10, 2026, is the price this page is built on. All Virginia and foreign limited liability companies must pay their annual registration each year after the year of formation. The fee is due by the last day of the month in which the LLC was formed. The fee is $50 and can be paid online through the Clerk’s Information System. If payment is not received by the due date, a $25 penalty is imposed. If the annual registration fee is not paid on or before the last day of the third month following its due date, a Virginia LLC’s existence — or a foreign LLC’s registration — is automatically canceled by operation of law. Stock and nonstock corporations pay an annual registration fee and file an annual report every year after the year of incorporation. Limited liability companies do not file that annual report. We print the LLC line first because that is the formation most first-time owners file. We do not treat the $50 fee as the registered-agent job. North Carolina’s LLC annual report is $200 paper or $203 online. Virginia’s LLC pays $50 and files no annual report. The $50 still does not take court papers.

The same official page repeats the agent-line clocks. Annual notices for registration fees and, for companies that file them, annual reports are mailed to the registered office. If your registered agent resigned and a new one has not been appointed within 31 days, the Clerk’s Office will notify you to appoint a new registered agent and place the business in an inactive status. If you fail to appoint a new registered agent by the last day of the second month following the month of notification, the Commission will automatically terminate, revoke, or cancel the registration. The general business FAQ repeats that notices such as annual registration fees are sent to the registered office by mail. Confirm the live name and street on the Clerk’s Information System before you treat a marketing city as current. Headquarters is not the registered office. The Commission desk is not a vendor suite. The official Business Home page, retrieved September 10, 2026, lists the mailing line as Office of the Clerk, P.O. Box 1197, Richmond, Virginia 23218, and the street as 1300 E. Main St., 1st floor, Richmond, Virginia 23219. Call-center hours on the contact page include 804-371-9733. In-person access on those pages is 8:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m., Monday through Friday. Document drop-off is 8:15 a.m. to 5 p.m. Those hours and that street are the State Corporation Commission, not a commercial registered agent.

Cited prices, retrieved September 10, 2026

We print what the company’s official registered-agent page said on the retrieval date. No company publishes a different Virginia registered-agent price from the national card, except where we note a Virginia-page renewal line. We do not invent a renewal.

• Northwest Registered Agent: official page: “$125 Per Year.” Same price in year two on the national card. Five or more states is $100 a year per state. Retrieved September 10, 2026 from northwestregisteredagent.com/registered-agent and the Virginia product page. First year free only if you form through them; we do not treat that bundle as the standalone price.
• Bizee: official registered-agent page: free first year with formation; standalone $149/year; year two $149/year. Retrieved September 10, 2026 from bizee.com/business-management/registered-agent. A bizee.com/llc/virginia-registered-agent URL returned 404 the same day. We do not invent a Virginia-only price from a missing page.
• LegalZoom: official overview retrieved September 10, 2026: “Get registered agent services for $249/year.” Product card: $249/year. Footnote: auto-renews at the purchase rate; “The renewal rate is subject to change.” Retrieved from legalzoom.com/…/registered-agent-overview.html. The Virginia registered-agent article, updated November 6, 2025 and retrieved the same day, prints no LegalZoom price and no LegalZoom street. We do not invent a higher year-two number.
• ZenBusiness: official Virginia page: “Starts at $99 + VA state fees” for the first year. Renews at $199/year, subject to change. That Virginia page was last updated August 27, 2025. The same national page says they currently do not offer registered-agent service to PLLCs or nonprofits. That is their national exclusion, not a Virginia statute. Retrieved September 10, 2026 from zenbusiness.com/registered-agent and the Virginia product page. That Virginia page publishes no ZenBusiness street or city.

A change of agent is a separate Commission filing. We cite the official LLC forms table, retrieved September 10, 2026, not company blogs. Form LLC1016 is No Fee. Form LLC1017 is No Fee. ZenBusiness’s Virginia page also says there is no filing fee to change the agent. That matches the official table. We print the official dollars. The LLC annual registration fee is still $50. It is still not the registered-agent job.

Who publishes a Virginia street

A city is not a registered office. We print only the streets the companies publish for registered-agent use. We do not invent the rest. Confirm the live name and street on the Clerk’s Information System before you file. Headquarters is not the registered office. The State Corporation Commission’s Richmond contacts are not vendor suites.

• Northwest. The Virginia FAQ answers “Where is Northwest’s registered office in Virginia?” with “We scan all documents locally from our office in Richmond, VA.” The office-locations page lists Richmond, VA 23294, Henrico County, and says they leave the street off this list. No street is published. Same-day local scans and instant notices are vendor-claimed. We have not been to a Richmond office.
• Bizee. Claims owned offices in all 50 states. The official registered-agent page names no Virginia street. The Virginia product URL we tried returned 404 on September 10, 2026. The contact page lists 17350 State Highway 249, Suite 220, Houston, TX 77064 as headquarters. That address is not a Virginia registered-agent street.
• LegalZoom. The official registered-agent overview does not publish a Virginia street. The Virginia article, updated November 6, 2025, mentions Alexandria and Richmond as places a person might start a business. Those are example cities. They are not published LegalZoom registered offices. No street is published. We do not invent a suite. We do not treat a LegalZoom virtual-mail street as the registered-agent street.
• ZenBusiness. The Virginia product page publishes no ZenBusiness street or city. The product page shows a “Virginia Secretary of State” contact with mailing P.O. Box 1197, Richmond, Virginia 23218, and a physical line at 1300 E. Main St., Richmond, Virginia 23219, telephone 804-371-9733. Those lines are the State Corporation Commission, not ZenBusiness’s registered office. Virginia does not call that office Secretary of State. We do not treat 1300 E. Main Street as their street. We will not invent a suite.

If you are your own agent, the street on the public record is often your home. If you hire a commercial registered agent, the agent line is that organization’s name and its Virginia street. Northwest names Richmond, ZIP 23294, Henrico County, and no street. LegalZoom’s Virginia article names no LegalZoom street. Bizee and ZenBusiness publish no Virginia street. We label every city vendor-claimed. We have not been to those offices. Use the Clerk’s Information System.

In-state office and the identical-office rule

Virginia wants an in-state person or an authorized company, a physical registered office, and the agent’s business office on that same street. A P.O. Box is not the registered office except in a town under 2,000 with no street, and then only on paper. Change the agent on Form LLC1016 at no fee. Miss the $50 annual registration fee long enough and the LLC is canceled. Resignation is effective at 12:01 a.m. on the 31st day, or sooner if a new agent is filed. Stay without a replacement past the later notice and the Commission terminates, revokes, or cancels the registration. The LLC annual registration fee is due the last day of the formation month and costs $50. Virginia does not post a Florida-style 10–noon / 2–4 clock, and it does not run a Nevada-style ten-company commercial-agent register on the text we could read. Northwest claims Richmond, ZIP 23294, and no street. LegalZoom’s Virginia article names no LegalZoom street. ZenBusiness’s Virginia product page names no ZenBusiness street. The 1300 E. Main Street line is the State Corporation Commission. Bizee names no Virginia street. Process Score has not been to those offices. We do not treat a company 9-to-5 line as Code of Virginia § 13.1-1015.

Service of process, not marketing mail

We grade scan-and-forward of service of process and official notices:

• Bizee: notifications by text and email; court papers mailed via FedEx with tracking; portal upload by employees. Contact-page support hours are Monday–Friday 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. CST. Those are support hours, not registered-office hours.
• Northwest: “We scan every document you receive right where you receive it—in our office.” The Virginia page adds same-day scans from the Richmond office. Their mail-forwarding extras are a different product. We do not grade those extras as a mailbox.
• LegalZoom: upload, email, and a postcard for urgent legal mail; they say they shred junk mail. Junk-mail shredding is not the job we score.
• ZenBusiness: scan and upload to a dashboard; email; overnight the original for urgent legal notices. Their own FAQ says you cannot use the agent address as your business address. Their national product currently excludes PLLCs and nonprofits; that is their exclusion, not a Virginia statute.

Home-address privacy

A commercial organizational agent is how most Virginia owners keep a home off the agent line. The State Corporation Commission still publishes whatever other addresses you put on a formation filing. Privacy of the agent line is not privacy of every field. Confirm the live line on the Clerk’s Information System.

Scorecards

What this page does not do

• It does not rank mailbox networks or virtual offices.
• It does not publish combined star ratings or a fake 4.8.
• It does not treat a company 9-to-5 line as Code of Virginia § 13.1-1015.
• It does not treat the $50 annual registration fee as the registered-agent job.
• It does not treat a Houston headquarters as a Virginia street.
• It does not treat 1300 E. Main Street as a vendor suite. That contact is the State Corporation Commission.
• It does not invent a Virginia-only price a company did not print.
• It does not invent a ZenBusiness Virginia street the product page does not publish.
• It does not treat a LegalZoom article’s mention of Alexandria or Richmond as a LegalZoom registered office.
• It does not treat a P.O. Box as the everyday registered office because a town under 2,000 has a paper-filing exception.
• It does not invent a self-appointment path. Code of Virginia § 13.1-1015 says an entity shall not be its own registered agent.
• It does not invent a dollar figure for service on the clerk. Code of Virginia § 12.1-19.1 says “the fee or fees specified in subsection G.”

Choosing among being the agent yourself, asking a lawyer, or hiring a commercial agent: DIY vs lawyer vs commercial. California’s scorecard is a different statute: California scorecard. Texas keeps the written consent with the company: Texas scorecard. Florida files the acceptance and posts a 10–noon / 2–4 clock: Florida scorecard. Delaware bans a virtual-only agent and sets the commercial bar above 50: Delaware scorecard. New York starts with the Secretary of State already on the agent line: New York scorecard. Nevada makes a commercial agent register at ten companies: Nevada scorecard. Wyoming bans UPS stores and virtual addresses as the registered office: Wyoming scorecard. Arizona makes the statutory-agent appointment wait on a signed acceptance: Arizona scorecard. Illinois gives you 60 days after your agent resigns, then you are not in good standing: Illinois scorecard. Ohio cancels the articles if you miss the 30-day statutory-agent notice: Ohio scorecard. Georgia wants the registered office at the same street as the agent: Georgia scorecard. Pennsylvania files a registered office, not a registered agent: Pennsylvania scorecard. New Jersey wants a street for your registered agent and will not take a P.O. Box alone: New Jersey scorecard. Colorado will not take a commercial mailbox or a P.O. Box as the registered-agent street: Colorado scorecard. North Carolina’s LLC annual report is $200 paper or $203 online by April 15. That filing is not the registered-agent job: North Carolina scorecard.