A registered agent is the address the world uses to reach your business officially. Choose it carefully.
Tennessee requires every LLC and corporation to name a registered agent — a real address where legal notices and service of process can be delivered during business hours.
Most owners list themselves, at their place of business, and never think about it again.
Then something gets served.
Registered agents receive all documents that are being served. That includes the ones you would not want delivered in front of your staff.
Picture a deputy walking into your office in the middle of a Tuesday to serve a notice — a child support matter, a garnishment, a lawsuit — and the water cooler conversation that starts before he reaches the parking lot. Your employees do not know what the paperwork says. They only know what they saw.
When we are your registered agent, it comes to us instead. We handle it and we get it to you, and nobody but you and the other party ever knows it happened.
That is the part of this service nobody puts on a website, and it is the reason it is worth paying for.
The quieter risk is administrative. Your registered agent address is where the state sends everything official — annual report reminders, franchise and excise notices, and the warnings that come before an entity is dissolved.
If that address is stale, or it is a home you moved out of, or it is an office where mail piles up, those notices go into the circular file and your LLC can be administratively dissolved without you ever having seen a word about it.
An entity that has been dissolved has lost the liability protection you formed it for. Reinstating it is possible. Explaining the gap to a bank or a court is harder.
1. You name us as your registered agent.
A short filing with the Secretary of State. Email us and we will get you into our program.
2. Anything official comes to us.
Service of process, state notices, annual report reminders.
3. We get it to you the same day, quietly.
4. Never worry about remembering to renew your LLC! We’ve got you covered.
Can I just be my own registered agent?
Legally, yes, if you have a Tennessee street address and you are there during business hours. Whether you want to be is a different question — being your own agent means anything served on your business gets served on you, wherever you happen to be standing, in front of whoever happens to be there.
What actually gets sent to a registered agent?
Service of process for lawsuits, garnishments, and family court matters, plus official correspondence from the state — annual report notices, tax notices, and dissolution warnings.
What happens if my registered agent address is out of date?
You stop receiving notices you are still legally responsible for. The most common consequence is administrative dissolution of the entity, which removes the liability protection you formed it to have.