North Dakota Secretary of State Business Search

The state of North Dakota allows you to search for business information through the website of the Secretary of State. Below well walk through the steps for doing this, and show you some additional resources you might not know about.

There are any number of reasons you might need this information. Its absolutely critical when performing due diligence and for Know Your Client (KYC) purposes. If youre only performing these kinds of searches occasionally, North Dakotas search portal allows you to find the information youre looking for quickly and easily. If youre searching records like these in high numbers, there are some tools youll want to know about, but well come back to that in just a moment.

You can find the Secretary of State Business Search page linked above. The default search interface is just a Google-esque text box, which would deliver a large number of records for each search. Hoping for some help to narrow the search down, lets click the Advanced search button. The search page now looks like this:

The only advanced options for filtering the search are to limit your results to business names that start with or contain your search term, or to only active entities.

When you perform the search, you'll be directed to the results page, which looks like this:

The results come up below the search box (rather than directing to a new page), sorted by company name in alphabetical order.

Under the Form Info column, youll see each companys name and any previous names, and the type of entity it is. Youll also find its SOS Control ID number, the current status and standing of the business, and the initial filing date.

Clicking on the business name for any of the records opens a small window on the right side of the display:

At the very top of this small window (not shown here) are options of interest to owners of the business (file an Annual Report, or request a certificate).

Further down is more information about the business, including the standing of the Annual Report filing, the standing of the Registered Agent, the state in which it was formed, and principal and mailing addresses for both the business and for the Registered Agent.

Clicking on the View History button at the bottom of that window takes you to the filing history for the business, which looks like this:

Although there isnt the option to view or download the filing itself, all the relevant information for the filing is displayed on the page.

North Dakota offers a reasonable amount of business information at no cost, and their search interface makes the process relatively smooth and simple for each search. If you need to search for hundreds - or even thousands - of these records each month, though, this would quickly consume a lot of time. Furthermore, Secretary of State data is different from one state to another, so combining and integrating data from multiple states is complex.