Kansas Foreign Registration / Resident agent

The resident agent a foreign LLC must keep in Kansas

A registered foreign LLC has to keep a resident agent and a registered office in Kansas at all times. Changing either one is done on Form ROA: $30 online, $35 on paper. The agent can be the LLC itself, a Kansas resident or a business authorized here, and the office must be a street address where someone is regularly present. This page covers who qualifies, how to change or replace the agent, and what happens when an agent resigns or vanishes.

The agent rules in brief

Term Kansas uses: Resident agent, with a registered office
Statutes: K.S.A. 17-7924 to 17-7929 and 17-7934
Change form: ROA, certificate of amendment of resident agent and registered office
Change fee: $30 online, $35 paper
Office address: Street, rural route or highway; no PO box
Resignation takes effect: 30 days after filing, without a successor

Who can serve

The statute lets the resident agent be the entity itself, an individual living in Kansas, or a domestic or foreign corporation, partnership, LLP, LLC or business trust. A Kansas-formed agent must be in good standing and run an office at the registered office address that is generally open. An individual must be present at a designated location in Kansas often enough to take service. A foreign entity serving as agent must itself be authorized to do business in Kansas.

What an agent does

The agent takes in service of process and other communications addressed to the business, passes them along, and passes along whatever the Secretary of State mails. That is the statutory job. Pick an agent who responds promptly.

The registered office

The registered office may differ from the place where the business works. Its postal address spells out the building and suite, street or rural route, city, state and zip code. Elsewhere in Kansas law, a reference to the business's principal office or place of business in the state is read as the registered office, so no other paper needs amending.

Changing the agent or the office

The business can move its registered office anywhere in Kansas and choose any qualifying agent by filing a certificate with the Secretary of State. The form for it is ROA. It asks for the business ID number, the exact name, the name of the resident agent, the Kansas registered office and a signature, and it can be filed online at the Secretary of State's change-a-business page. The fee is $30 online; nonprofit corporations pay $20.

When the agent changes its own address

An agent that serves many businesses can move all of them with one certificate that lists each business and its old and new addresses. A move to another room or suite in the same building, reported in writing, carries no fee. If the agent changes its own name, a similar certificate handles it.

When the agent resigns

There are two paths. An agent may resign and name a successor by filing a certificate that carries a statement from each affected business approving the change. Or the agent may resign with no successor named. Then the business must have received written notice at least 30 days before the filing, the resignation becomes effective on the 30th day after it, and the business has 60 days from the filing to name a new agent. Missing that deadline, the registration is declared forfeited by the Secretary of State. Until a new agent is named, service of process goes to the Secretary of State.

When the agent dies or moves away

When an agent dies or leaves the registered office, the business has 30 days to designate and certify a replacement. After that, Kansas may give 30 days' notice of its intent and then declare the business's authority forfeited. Meanwhile, legal papers can be served through the Secretary of State.

How service reaches the Secretary of State

Under K.S.A. 60-304(f) the Secretary of State can take service for registered and unregistered foreign entities, after the serving party has tried the resident agent at the registered office or where the entity has no active agent. The serving party sends the original and two copies of the process, two copies of the petition and a cover letter. For a business, the practical lesson is to keep the agent's address true, because a failed attempt at it is the first step toward service through the state.

Using yourself as the agent

The business can serve as its own agent if it keeps a registered office in Kansas where someone is regularly present. That suits a company with a Kansas location. It does not suit one run from another state, where nobody can sit at the office on an ordinary day.

Changing the resident agent

Get the new agent's yes
Name and a Kansas street address.
Look up the ID number
On the Business Entity Search page.
File Form ROA
Online for $30, or by mail.
Tell the old agent
So that papers stop arriving there.

Resident agent questions

Can I use a PO box as the registered office?

No. Kansas requires a street, rural route or highway address.

What if my agent resigns?

You have 60 days after the resignation is filed to name a new agent, or Kansas declares the registration forfeited.

Does an agent change cost anything?

$30 online and $35 on paper.

Our fee and the state's

Kansas's fee is a separate line at checkout and is the same for every kind of business. $199 plus the state fee, including your first year of registered agent service; after that the agent service renews at $149 a year.

Register in Kansas

$199

+ $115 Kansas fee

Form FA, the Application for Registration, Foreign (non-Kansas) Business, completed from your answers
The sworn good standing statement the form carries, ready for an authorized person to sign
A Kansas resident agent and registered office: ours, or the ones you already use
The packet mailed with payment, and the certified copy Kansas returns passed on to you
Renewal: after the first year, the agent service renews at $149 a year

Sources

Already working in Kansas?

Tell us the month you began and we price any back reports with the registration.