What a registered agent actually is
A person or company with a physical street address in your LLC's state, available during business hours, whose job is to receive two kinds of mail for your company: service of process (lawsuits, subpoenas) and official state correspondence (annual report notices, tax notices, dissolution warnings). That's the whole job. For a founder in your home country, it's also the piece of US physical presence the law demands that you obviously can't provide yourself.
Why the law requires one
Due process: if someone sues your LLC, the legal system needs a reliable place to deliver the papers. No agent, no way to sue you properly, so states simply refuse to let an entity exist without one. It protects you too: a lawsuit served to a functioning agent reaches you in time to respond. One served to a defunct address becomes a default judgment, you lose automatically, and find out when the bank account is frozen.
What happens if yours lapses
- Loss of good standing, usually within weeks of the state noticing. Banks and platforms that re-verify (they do) see it.
- Administrative dissolution, keep ignoring it and the state dissolves the LLC. Reinstatement is possible but costs fees, filings and time.
- The silent catastrophe: lawsuits served to a dead agent proceed without you. This is the scenario the $100/yr fee exists to prevent.
Why it's not your business address
The registered agent receives legal and state mail, not your Stripe letters, bank cards, client checks or IRS correspondence. Most agent agreements explicitly exclude general business mail. If you need a US mailing address for those, that's a virtual address/mail service, related product, different job. Using the agent's address as your public business address also puts it on documents where banks expect to see your real operating address, which creates exactly the coherence problems that stall bank applications.
What fair pricing looks like
| What you're quoted | Read it as |
|---|---|
| $50-$150/yr | Market rate for a real commercial agent with scanning and alerts |
| $0 "first year free" | Fine, check the year-two renewal before celebrating (often $299+) |
| $299+/yr | You're paying for a bundle (compliance filings, mail) or a brand. Know which. |
PowerLaunch includes the agent for year one and bills renewals at cost from year two, the agent is infrastructure, not a profit center, and renewal-fee capture is exactly the subscription mechanic our comparison pages keep pointing at.
Changing agents
Routine and cheap: new agent consents, a change-of-agent form goes to the state (free to ~$35 in most states), old agent drops off. There is never a reason to stay with an agent charging $300/yr out of inertia, and switching agents does not touch your EIN, bank account or contracts.
