We called six of the larger agent companies and asked for quotes for their registered agent service.  Here are the results.

1.     The Company Corporation: $235/year, and he could not guarantee me that this price would not go up. They start low and go up every year. When you form your company they only give you six month’s agent service and then bill you again.

2.     Incorp: $99/year.  This is one of the cheaper ones, but still almost 2 times more than Harvard Business Services at $50/year.  Their $99/year is guaranteed to not go up.

3.     Bizfilings- $149/year the first year.  The first 6 months is “included” in order to steer you away from worrying about this price.  Then 6 months later, you are hit with a bill for $149.  It gets worse.  The next year, you are charged $167/year, and the associate there explained to me that she cannot guarantee that it would not continue to go up each year.

4.     Legal Zoom: $159/year, with the first month free. So you form your company through them and then one month later you get a bill for $159. Very cleverly was to hide the real cost of forming your company with them. They too could not guarantee me that the $159/year would not increase every year.

5.    Corporation Trust Company (CT Corporation): $342/year Wow!  Just say NO! They too could not guarantee this fee would not increase with “inflation”!

6.      NRAI (National Registered Agents Inc.): $189/year. No guarantee.

If you have one company with any of these agents, I have to ask why?  If you have five or ten companies with them, you can save a lot of money changing your agent to Harvard. Why pay so much more when you don’t have to?

A professional registered agent is a company that is responsible for receiving and forwarding government and legal documents to its clients in an accurate and timely fashion. Some examples of documents received and forwarded by registered agents are franchise tax reports from the Secretary of State and notices of legal actions (service of process) involving your company.

We offer this bit of research in hopes that all owners of Delaware companies will become educated on registered agent services and the fact that you can use to save money, instantly, by changing agent to Harvard. At Harvard Business Service we have charge only $50 per year agent fee and we guarantee that your $50 agent fee will never be increased so long as you keep your company in Good Standing and pay in a timely fashion. We have had this policy in effect since we were founded in 1981.

We even put this guarantee in writing! To print out your Certificate of Guarantee for the $50/year registered agent service click HERE.

This is why we take pride in our $50/year guarantee.  As long as your company is in good standing, your registered agent payment will not go up.  We have had some clients ask us why would we charge so little?  The answer is we have been doing this since 1981.  We have the registered agent business down to a science and we do not feel we should charge anymore.  Clients appreciate the fact that we can tell them what there agent payment is next year, and what it will be 10 years from now.  We think that is how it should be.

Is it complicated to change registered agents?

To CHANGE  the registered agent for an existing Delaware corporation or LLC, the State of Delaware charges a filing fee of $50 to file the Certificate of “Change of Registered Agent and Registered Office”.  We will prepare and file this form for our exact cost of $50, plus we’ll give you your first year’s agent fee for only $39.  The total cost to change agent is ONLY $89 per corporation or LLC.  Thereafter, your annual agent fee will be only $50 per company; just think of the money you’ll save!

To proceed with changing your registered agent to Harvard Business Services, Inc. Click HERE.

To watch our video on the steps to changing registered agents, please click HERE.

The highlight of the event is the “Annual Report” given by Richard J. “Rick” Geisenberger, the chief Deputy Secretary of State and Director of Corporations. This year he reported:

Delaware is now the home to 890,000 domestic entities. They include 260,000 corporations and 630,000 LLCs, LPs and Statutory Trusts. An additional 11,000 entities from outside Delaware are registered here as “foreign Entities”. Delaware, which has always had more chickens than people, now has about one company for every person who lives in the State. Most states have about 1 company per 20 people.

Delaware is home to 63% of all fortune 500 companies this year and was the choice of 734 of the 907 new IPO’s (Initial Public Offerings) in the past 7 years. IPO activity reflects the dismal economic business climate in the USA today. It wasn’t long ago that more than 400 IPO’s were launched in a single year, then the total fell abruptly to 28 new IPOs in 2008, then 37 in 2009 and 53 so far this year. The upward trend the past three years could be called a recovery, but still a poor showing when compared to the boom years of the past.

A new trend is emerging however, giving hope for more business. Foreign companies, especially from China, are incorporating in Delaware and going public in the USA. Watch for this trend to continue as China becomes the dominant player in manufacturing for the global markets.

Delaware’s Court of Chancery still makes the news regularly for its many high-profile cases. This year we saw a battle between EBAY and CRAIGSLIST fought in Delaware just up the road from my office. Meg Whitman, and the EBAY group, won this one.

Delaware has been working with the U.S. Treasury Department and the U.S. Department of Justice to reduce the incidents of the fraudulent use of Delaware companies in the International arena. Since Delaware prohibited Bearer Shares in 2003, it has been proactively issuing regulations that are designed to help prevent the fraudulent use of companies.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury has proposed several drafts of a plan to make the ownership of companies easier to trace. Currently, Registered Agents are not obliged to keep Beneficial Ownership information on the companies we form for our customers. In Delaware we are required to keep an up-to-date record of the “Communication Contact”. However, in the future the Department of the Treasury is recommending that Registered Agents will be responsible for keeping Beneficial Ownership information accurate and current.

As a final bit of good news, Mr. Geisenberger reported that the Division of Corporations brought in $878 Million dollars in the last fiscal year which accounted for 27% of the State of Delaware’s budget, emphasizing the importance of this effort for the whole state.

Agentes Autorizados no están regulados por el Estado de Delaware. Los requisitos legales para ser un Agente Autorizado en Delaware son para mantener una dirección de calle y la oficina ubicada en Delaware y estará abierta durante el horario normal con el propósito de aceptar las notificaciones judiciales de acuerdo con 8 DEL.C. § 132.

Harvard Business Services, Inc. ha sido uno de los agentes registrados principales de Delaware durante 29 años. Además de proporcionar servicios para formaciones de compañías en los 50 estados para clientes nacionales e internacionales, también ofrecemos una variedad amplia de servicios para empresas como el reenvío de correo, la obtención de un número de EIN y recuperación de copias certificadas de los documentos cuando usted los necesita. Si desea cambiar el nombre de su empresa o declarar más acciones, podemos ayudarle con el papeleo y el registro de los documentos necesarios. También le ayudaremos con los impuestos de franquicia.

En Harvard empleamos 25 personas y contamos con especialistas en las formaciones, las enmiendas, los impuestos de franquicia y todos los ámbitos de la creación de empresas y el mantenimiento. Como cliente valioso de Harvard Business Services, Inc. usted tiene los servicios de apoyo de por vida a su alcance, ya sea llamando o enviando un correo electrónico con sus preguntas. Actualmente representamos a más de 29.000 empresas.

Para una lista completa de los servicios ofrecidos por Harvard Business Services, Inc. siga este link: https: / / www.delawareinc.com/ourservices/

En Harvard nos esforzamos por la excelencia todos los días con cada nueva compañía que constituimos. Entre nuestra competencia, estamos orgullosos de que nuestra reputación es de tener la gente más amistosa con quien hablar y los resultados tan rápido que usted se preguntará, cómo podemos lograr que se haga tan rápidamente! Llámenos o envíenos un correo electrónico si tiene preguntas sobre la formación de una empresa en cualquier momento.

Esta categoría de blog le ayudará a entender el funcionamiento y la importancia de su agente registrado en Delaware. Te invitamos a unirte a la conversación dejando una pregunta o comentario.

I am very fortunate to represent a company that truly “gets it right”. Harvard Business Services, Inc. is a small enterprise that has flourished for more than a quarter of a century by offering a product and a level of service that exceeds the clients’ expectations and sets the standard in the industry, for others to follow. Our daily interaction with hundreds of clients by phone and email is inspiring to witness and to be a part of, especially when we know that our clients can order our service directly from the website without talking to a person. I have the enviable position of the front phone man in sales and I hear over and over how happy our clients are and how they feel each transaction is a pleasure.

So what’s the dark side? What about these “Secret Agent Fees”? Well, my friends, everyday we get angry feedback from clients who have had negative experiences with some of our competitors. My intention for this blog is not to badmouth our competitors, but rather to offer information and support to those who may be considering our services but are confused by the offers of our competitors, particularly regarding their registered agent fees. Confused? Or Misled? Registered Agent fees offer a tangible way to compare Harvard to the others.

The most common tactic applied by some of our competitors is to entice the prospective client with a price for company formation which appears almost too good to be true. One even claims to offer a “free” corporation, which, of course, isn’t FREE at all. That is the bait….here is the snafu: once they have hooked you in as a client, their Registered Agent fees are designed to milk your company for as much as possible. Some clients have reported that certain other agents have failed to disclose clearly that your initial Registered Agent fee will increase dramatically to as high as $340 per year in the near future.

At Harvard, we guarantee that your annual registered agent fee will remain FIXED at $50 per company per year so long as you pay promptly and keep your company in Good Standing.

So, for those of you who chose another registered agent and are now looking at an invoice for $169 or $250 or $340 to renew your company for the next year’s agent fee, what are your choices? Well, you may want to consider switching agents to Harvard. SWITCHING!!! Yes! For only $89 per company which INCLUDES the first year’s agent fee from Harvard Business Services, Inc. The BEST name in the business established in 1981, top in the field and Number One in SERVICE!

But don’t take my word for it…here are the facts:  This data is based upon current advertised levels for a basic DE filing – LLC or INC.  Legalzoom’s first year’s agent fee is $149.00 (a price that is offered as a FIRST YEAR SPECIAL) and then increases to $159.00 for the second year and every year after. The Company Corporation is a real value at $100.00 for your first six months and then it goes beyond the stratosphere to a level of $269.00 PER YEAR!!!  My Corporation offers an annual rate of $169.00 per year….period. Good Luck finding these prices, they are well concealed. However, when a client visits www.delawareinc.com – the $50.00 Agent Fee Banner is bold, front and center.

The home pages for many of our competitors’ web sites neglect to mention the agent fee – let alone admit that it increases rapidly. If you stay in business for 3 years (and what business plans to fail?) you can expect to pay from $400 to 500 MORE for the same service we offer with excellence.

Perhaps, now the title of this blog has a little more meaning…however; less cloak and dagger – more bait, bamboozle and snafu. Hopefully, this information will help to expose such common but questionable marketing tactics and address the misconception that our costs for filing are higher than the other three registered agent’s prices listed here. Read the fine print, you can pay us a little now or you can pay them a lot later!!!

Below is a quick comparison of our costs vs. other agent costs.

1st year agent cost:

* Harvard Business Services: Free with formation package
* The Corporation Company: $100 FIRST SIX MONTHS
* Legalzoom: $149
* My Corporation: $169

2nd year agent cost:

* Harvard Business Services: $50
* The Company Corporation: $269
* Legalzoom: $159
* My Corporation: $169

3rd year agent cost:

* Harvard Business Services: $50
* The Company Corporation: $269
* Legalzoom: $159
* My Corporation: $169

Total cost after 3 years:

* Harvard Business Services: $100
* The Company Corporation: $638
* Legalzoom: $467
* My Corporation: $507