Washington files the agent’s consent — and will not take a P.O. Box or a PMB as the street

What Washington actually requires

RCW 23.95.405 is Washington’s starting rule. A domestic entity, and a registered foreign entity, shall designate and maintain a registered agent in this state. RCW 23.95.105 defines the job. A registered agent is an agent authorized to receive service of any process, notice, or demand required or permitted by law to be served on the entity. The term includes a commercial registered agent and a noncommercial registered agent. A commercial registered agent means a person listed under RCW 23.95.420. That is a listing, not a head-count. Nevada makes a commercial agent register at ten companies. Washington does not copy that ten-company bar on the text we retrieved. We print that contrast once. Florida files a written acceptance and posts a 10–noon / 2–4 clock. Texas generally leaves the written consent with the company. Arizona waits on a signed acceptance. Colorado will not take a commercial mailbox or a P.O. Box as the street. Virginia’s LLC pays a $50 fee and files no annual report. Washington files the consent and still bills a $70 profit annual report. We do not invent a Washington clock we did not retrieve.

RCW 23.95.410 is the address rule. If a provision of this chapter other than RCW 23.95.450(1)(d) requires that a record state an address, the record must state a street address in this state, and a mailing address in this state if different from that street. The Secretary of State registered-agent page, retrieved September 10, 2026, is the street rule this page is built on. The registered agent must maintain a physical address in Washington State. P.O. Boxes or PMBs are prohibited. The same page says the registered office is the office address where the registered agent must be located during business hours. A mailing address in Washington State can be provided as well but is not required. The agent may also provide a P.O. Box address in addition to a physical address for receiving notice. We print the office’s own words. We do not treat a P.O. Box or a PMB as the street.

RCW 23.95.415 is how the agent is named. A registered-agent filing must be executed by the represented entity. It states the name of the entity’s commercial registered agent, or — if there is no commercial registered agent — the name and address of a noncommercial registered agent, or the title of an office or other position with the entity plus the address to which process, notices, or demands are to be sent. A registered agent shall not be appointed without having given prior consent in a record to the appointment. The consent shall be delivered to the secretary of state in such form as the secretary of state may prescribe. The consent shall be filed with or as a part of the record first appointing a registered agent. In the event any individual or entity has been appointed registered agent without consent, that individual or entity may deliver to the secretary of state a notarized statement attesting to that fact, and the name shall immediately be removed from the records of the secretary of state. The official registered-agent page repeats that signed and dated consent, a contact email, and the commercial-or-noncommercial type. WAC 434-112-045 is the email rule the annual-report instructions cite. An email address is required for the registered-agent and principal-office fields. We print the filed-consent rule. We do not invent a Florida-style clock to go with it.

RCW 23.95.420 is the commercial listing. A person may become listed as a commercial registered agent by delivering a commercial-registered-agent listing statement. The statement says the person is in the business of serving as a commercial registered agent in this state and gives the address of a place of business in this state to which service of process, notices, and demands may be delivered. The Corporations and Charities Filing System tools page, retrieved September 10, 2026, prices that listing at $30. Once listed, commercial registered agents appear on a public list in the online filing system. When a later filing names that listed agent, the statement-of-change instructions say an address is not required. The street already lives on the listing. RCW 23.95.425 is how that listing ends. A commercial-registered-agent termination statement takes effect at 12:01 a.m. on the 31st day after the day it is delivered for filing. Until the company names a new agent, service may be made under RCW 23.95.450. Those dollars and that clock are Secretary of State dollars. They are not the vendor’s year-1 card.

RCW 23.95.430 is how you change the line. A represented entity may change its registered agent by delivering a statement of change. A statement that designates a new registered agent must be accompanied by the new agent’s consent in a record, either on the statement or attached to it. The official registered-agent page, retrieved September 10, 2026, is how that change is filed in practice. If the company is inside the annual-report window — within 180 days of the due date — an annual report can carry the change. If the company is outside that window, an amended annual report or a statement of change can be filed. The official fee table, retrieved September 10, 2026, prices a change of registered agent or office at No Fee. An initial or amended annual report is $10. Expedited service is $100 per business entity. A LegalZoom Washington article retrieved the same day printed a $20 online change fee and a $50 expedite. Those numbers do not match the official table. We print the official dollars.

RCW 23.95.445 is how an agent steps down. The agent files a statement of resignation. The statement takes effect on the earlier of the 31st day after the day it is filed, or the designation of a new registered agent. The agent promptly furnishes the company notice of the filing date. The official registered-agent page repeats that resignations take effect 31 days after the filing is placed on record. The same official fee table prices resignation of registered agent at No Fee. The LLC row of that table points at RCW 23.95.455. That section is the duty rule, not the resignation clock. We cite RCW 23.95.445 for the 31-day clock and the fee table for the dollars. We do not invent a third clock.

RCW 23.95.450 is service of process. A represented entity may be served by serving its registered agent. If the entity ceases to have a registered agent, or the agent cannot with reasonable diligence be served, the entity may be served by registered or certified mail, return receipt requested, or by similar commercial delivery service, addressed to the entity at the principal office shown on the most recent annual report. Service is effected on the earliest of the date the entity receives the mail, the date on the return receipt, or five days after deposit if correctly addressed. If that path also fails, service may be made by handing a copy to the individual in charge of any regular place of business or activity of the entity, if that individual is not a plaintiff. The secretary of state shall be an agent of the entity if process cannot be served under those earlier paths. Service on a registered agent must be in a tangible medium, but service may be made on a commercial registered agent in other forms the agent stated it will accept in its listing. The official Service of Process / Summons and Complaint page, retrieved September 10, 2026, prices service on the Secretary of State at $50 per business entity and/or address being served. Those filings are not available online and are not available for same-day in-person service. New York starts with the Secretary of State on the agent line. Washington starts with your appointed agent. We print the $50 fallback. We do not treat it as the everyday job.

RCW 23.95.455 is the duty sentence this page is built on. The only duties under this chapter of a registered agent that has complied with this chapter are to forward to the represented entity, at the address most recently supplied to the agent, any process, notice, or demand served on or received by the agent; to provide the notices this chapter requires; and to keep the filed information current. That is the job. It is not a mailbox.

Washington also bills an annual report. That bill is not the registered-agent job. RCW 23.95.255 is the report. A domestic entity shall, within 120 days of the date its public organic record became effective, deliver an initial report. After that, a domestic entity or registered foreign entity delivers an annual report. The report states the name and street and mailing addresses of the registered agent in this state, the street and mailing addresses of the principal office, and the names of the governors. If an initial or annual report contains a registered-agent name or address that differs from the record immediately before the report becomes effective, that differing information is considered a statement of change under RCW 23.95.430. The Annual Reports page, retrieved September 10, 2026, is the calendar this page is built on. The report is due by the last day of the month in which the business was originally formed or registered. The filing window opens 180 days before that date. The office says it notifies entities by regular mail and email 60 days before the expiration date. Failure of the secretary of state to provide that notice does not relieve the company from filing. The online annual-report instructions, retrieved the same day, price a profit business entity including an LLC at $70. If the status is delinquent, an additional $25 delinquency fee is assessed, for $95 on that table. An amended annual report does not meet the annual-report requirement. We print the LLC line first because that is the formation most first-time owners file. We do not treat the $70 report 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. Washington’s profit company pays $70 and still needs the agent on a street.

Confirm the live name and street on the Corporations and Charities Filing System before you treat a marketing city as current. Headquarters is not the registered office. The Secretary of State desk is not a vendor suite. The official fee-table and annual-report pages, retrieved September 10, 2026, list the mailing line as Washington Secretary of State, Corporations and Charities Division, P.O. Box 40234, Olympia, WA 98504-0234, email corps@sos.wa.gov, telephone 360-725-0377. Those lines are the Secretary of State, 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 Washington registered-agent price from the national card, except where we note a Washington-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 Washington 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/washington-registered-agent URL returned 404 the same day. We do not invent a Washington-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 Washington registered-agent article, updated November 24, 2025 and retrieved the same day, prints no LegalZoom price. We do not invent a higher year-two number.
• ZenBusiness: official Washington page: first-year and renewal dollars are the national card. The same national page says “$99 + state fees for the first year. Renews at $199/yr.” The Washington page, last updated August 27, 2025, prints the state’s $70 annual-report fee and a no-fee statement of change. It does not print a different ZenBusiness registered-agent price. The same national page says they currently do not offer registered-agent service to PLLCs or nonprofits. That is their national exclusion, not a Washington statute. Retrieved September 10, 2026 from zenbusiness.com/registered-agent and the Washington product page. That Washington page publishes no ZenBusiness street.

A change of agent is a separate Secretary of State filing. We cite the official fee table, retrieved September 10, 2026, not company blogs. Change of registered agent or office is No Fee. Resignation of registered agent is No Fee. The commercial-registered-agent listing is $30 on the Corporations and Charities Filing System tools page. The profit annual report is still $70. It is still not the registered-agent job. Expedited service on that table is $100. Same-day service is $150. Those dollars are office dollars.

Who publishes a Washington 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 Corporations and Charities Filing System before you file. Headquarters is not the registered office. The Secretary of State’s Olympia contacts are not vendor suites.

• Northwest. The Washington FAQ answers “Where is Northwest’s registered office in Washington?” with “We accept and scan all of our Washington clients’ documents on-site at our registered office in downtown Spokane, WA.” The office-locations page lists Spokane, WA 99201, Spokane 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 Spokane office.
• Bizee. Claims owned offices in all 50 states. The official registered-agent page names no Washington street. The Washington 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 Washington registered-agent street.
• LegalZoom. The official registered-agent overview does not publish a Washington street. The Washington article, updated November 24, 2025, says “Our Bellevue registered office meets all state requirements.” That is a city. 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 Washington product page publishes no ZenBusiness street or city. The product page shows a Washington Secretary of State contact with mailing P.O. Box 40220, Olympia, WA 98504-0220, and a physical line at the Legislative Building, 416 Sid Snyder Ave SW, Olympia, WA 98501, telephone 360-725-0377. Those lines are Secretary of State contacts, not ZenBusiness’s registered office. The fee-table and annual-report pages we retrieved the same day print P.O. Box 40234, Olympia, WA 98504-0234. We do not treat either Olympia line 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. When the agent is on the commercial list, the street lives on that listing. Northwest names downtown Spokane, ZIP 99201, Spokane County, and no street. LegalZoom’s Washington article names Bellevue and no street. Bizee and ZenBusiness publish no Washington street. We label every city vendor-claimed. We have not been to those offices. Use the Corporations and Charities Filing System.

In-state office and the PMB ban

Washington wants an in-state person or a listed commercial agent, a physical registered office, and the agent located at that office during business hours. A P.O. Box or a PMB is not that street. The agent’s prior consent is filed with the Secretary of State. Change the agent on a statement of change at no fee, or on the $70 annual report inside the 180-day window, or on a $10 amended annual report outside it. A new agent’s consent goes on that filing or is attached to it. Resignation is effective on the 31st day, or sooner if a new agent is filed. The profit annual report is due the last day of the formation month and costs $70. Washington 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. A commercial agent here is a person who filed the $30 listing. Northwest claims downtown Spokane, ZIP 99201, and no street. LegalZoom’s Washington article names Bellevue and no street. ZenBusiness’s Washington product page names no ZenBusiness street. The Olympia lines on that product page are Secretary of State contacts. Bizee names no Washington street. Process Score has not been to those offices. We do not treat a company 9-to-5 line as RCW 23.95.415.

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 Washington page adds same-day scans from the downtown Spokane 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 Washington statute.

Home-address privacy

A commercial listed agent is how most Washington owners keep a home off the agent line. The Secretary of State still publishes whatever other addresses you put on a formation filing or an annual report. Privacy of the agent line is not privacy of every field. Confirm the live line on the Corporations and Charities Filing 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 RCW 23.95.415.
• It does not treat the $70 annual report as the registered-agent job.
• It does not treat a Houston headquarters as a Washington street.
• It does not treat P.O. Box 40234, P.O. Box 40220, or 416 Sid Snyder Avenue as a vendor suite. Those contacts are the Secretary of State.
• It does not invent a Washington-only price a company did not print.
• It does not invent a ZenBusiness Washington street the product page does not publish.
• It does not treat a LegalZoom article’s Bellevue line as a published street.
• It does not treat a P.O. Box or a PMB as the registered office because a mailing line may sit next to the street.
• It does not invent a ten-company commercial-agent bar. RCW 23.95.105 defines a commercial registered agent as a person listed under RCW 23.95.420.
• It does not print LegalZoom’s $20 online change fee or $50 expedite as the official dollars. The official table is no fee to change the agent and $100 to expedite.

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. Virginia’s LLC pays a $50 annual registration fee and files no annual report: Virginia scorecard.