Learn how to run a free Arizona business entity search, read what each status means, and check whether a business name is available before you file.
You need to check a company before you sign a contract, or clear a name before you file. Arizona keeps a free public record of every registered LLC and corporation at the Arizona Corporation Commission, and the search takes about a minute.
The part that catches people out comes next. An Arizona name check means searching two separate databases, not one, and a name that looks clear in the entity search can still be blocked. This guide covers how to look up an existing Arizona business, and how to clear a name properly before you pay a filing fee.
Key Takeaways
Entity records sit with the Corporation Commission. LLC and corporation lookups run on the ACC portal, not a Secretary of State site.
Read the status, not just the name. Dissolved and revoked entities stay in the results with their status shown.
A name check means two searches, not one. Your entity name must be distinguishable from ACC entity names and Secretary of State trade names.
Arizona says statutory agent, not registered agent. It is the same role, and the agent is searchable by name.
The search is free, and so is the name check. You only pay when you reserve a name or order a document.
Arizona Business Entity Search at a Glance
Detail | Information |
Official tool | Arizona Business Center business search, also called the Arizona corporation search, AZCC entity search, or Arizona business search |
Operated by | Arizona Corporation Commission, Corporations Division (Business Services) [1] |
Replaced | eCorp, which was switched off in January 2026 [1] |
Cost | Free, with no login or account required |
Search by | Entity name, business ID, statutory agent name, principal name, or address [2] |
Covers | LLCs, PLLCs, corporations, nonprofits, and registered foreign entities |
Does not cover | Sole proprietorships, general partnerships, trade names, and city or county licenses |
Separate search | Trade names and trademarks, held by the Arizona Secretary of State [6] |
What the Arizona Corporation Commission Database Covers
The Business Entity Division is the record keeper for every domestic Arizona entity and every out-of-state entity that has qualified to do business here.
Entity Types You Will Find
- Limited liability companies: Domestic Arizona LLCs and PLLCs.
- Corporations: For-profit, professional, and close corporations.
- Nonprofit corporations: Including those that later seek federal tax-exempt status.
- Foreign entities: Out-of-state companies that registered to transact business in Arizona.
What Is Not in the Entity Database
- Sole proprietorships: They never register with the Commission. A sole proprietor may hold a trade name at the Secretary of State instead. [6]
- General partnerships: The same applies unless they are registered as an LLP.
- Trade names and DBAs: The Commission states plainly that it does not register doing business as names. [3]
- Business licenses: Arizona licenses are issued locally and by the Department of Revenue.
This matters when a search comes back empty. A genuine, tax-paying Arizona business can be missing from the entity search simply because it never had to register as an entity.
How To Perform an Arizona Business Entity Search Step-by-Step
Step 1. Open the Arizona Business Center Search
Go to the Corporation Commission business search on the Arizona Business Center portal. [2] No account and no fee. You will pass a short human verification step before the results load.
Step 2. Choose What You Are Searching By
The portal accepts more than a name, and the alternatives are usually faster. [2]
Search By | When To Use It |
Entity name | The default, when you know or can guess the company name |
Business ID | Exact and instant, when you already have the ACC entity number |
Statutory agent name | Reverse lookup to find every entity one agent represents |
Principal name | To find companies tied to a named officer, member, or manager |
Domicile address | To see what is registered at a given address |
Step 3. Pick the Right Name Matching Mode
Use Contains rather than Starts With or Exact Match on a first pass. Starts With hides look-alikes that have a filler word in front, and Exact Match will miss a near miss that would still block your filing.
- Drop the identifier: Search "Saguaro Roofing," not "Saguaro Roofing LLC." Arizona ignores identifiers when testing names anyway. [3]
- Drop the punctuation: Periods, commas, apostrophes, and hyphens are stripped before the state checks a name. [3]
- Search the distinctive word alone: One strong keyword surfaces more conflicts than a full legal name.
- Try the number both ways: Search "Circle 2" and "Circle Two," because Arizona treats them as the same. [3]
Step 4. Open the Entity Record
Click the result to open its detail page. That is where the statutory agent, addresses, principals, and the document history live. Most filed documents can be viewed there without a records request. [4]
Step 5. Check the Status Before You Rely on Anything
The status field is the single most important line on the page, and it is covered in detail below.
How To Read Your Arizona Entity Search Results
Field on the Record | What It Tells You |
Entity Name | The exact registered legal name on file |
Business ID | The ACC entity number, the fastest way to pull the record again |
Entity Type | LLC, PLLC, for-profit corporation, nonprofit, or foreign registration |
Status | Whether the business may legally operate today |
Formation or Registration Date | When it was created or qualified in Arizona |
Domicile State or Country | Arizona for domestic entities, elsewhere for foreign ones |
Statutory Agent | Who accepts service of process, with an Arizona street address |
Principals | Members, managers, officers, or directors on file |
Document History | Viewable copies of formation documents, amendments, and reports |
What the Arizona Business Entity Search Does not Show
- An EIN: There is no Arizona EIN lookup. A federal Employer Identification Number comes from the IRS and is never published in a state entity database. For a vendor EIN, ask for a completed Form W-9.
- A TPT license number: The transaction privilege tax number is issued by the Arizona Department of Revenue and is a different number from the ACC Business ID.
- Financial information: No revenue, assets, credit, or tax records.
- Internal documents: Only the formation filing goes to the state, so an operating agreement, bylaws, or a shareholder register will never appear.
- Trade names: A DBA registered by that company sits in the Secretary of State records instead. [6]
What Arizona Entity Statuses Mean
Appearing in the search results does not mean a business is live. Read the status field before you sign or pay anything.
Status | What It Means | What To Do |
Active / In Good Standing | Compliant and authorized to operate | Proceed with normal due diligence |
Pending | A formation or a change is still being processed | Wait for the filing to clear before relying on it |
Pending Inactive | A corporation missed its annual report and is inside the delinquency window | It can still trade for now, but the clock is running |
Administratively Dissolved | The Commission terminated it for non-compliance | Wind-up business only. Treat as a red flag on a counterparty |
Revoked | Authority to transact business was withdrawn | Do not rely on it without a written explanation |
Dissolved | Formally closed by its owners | Do not contract with it |
One Arizona quirk worth knowing before you judge a record:
Arizona LLCs file no annual report at all. Only corporations and nonprofits do. [4] So a missing annual report is a genuine warning sign on a corporation and means nothing on an LLC. A corporation that misses its report slides to Pending Inactive first and can be administratively dissolved from there, which is why the status field moves for corporations and rarely for LLCs.
How To Check if a Business Name Is Available in Arizona
This is where most Arizona name checks go wrong. Arizona law requires a new entity name to be distinguishable from entity names on file with the Corporation Commission and from trade names on file with the Secretary of State. [3] Searching only the ACC database therefore gives you half an answer. A registered trade name you never saw can still block your LLC filing.
Here are the two searches to run:
- Search the Corporation Commission entity database for your name and its distinctive word. [2]
- Search the Secretary of State trade name and trademark database for the same terms. [7]
- Repeat both without identifiers and without punctuation, because the state strips those before testing. [3]
- Search the federal trademark register separately, since neither state search covers it.
The second thing to know is that a clear result is not an approval. The Commission describes its own role in name review as purely ministerial. Registering a name with the ACC grants no rights or interests in that name, and the Commission has no power to settle competing claims. [3] You can clear the automated check, get your filing approved, and still be infringing someone else’s mark.
If you have not settled on a name yet, the free Swyft Filings business name generator is a sensible first stop before you pay a reservation fee.
What Makes an Arizona Business Name Distinguishable
Arizona publishes an unusually specific rulebook on this, and reading it saves rejected filings. "Distinguishable" is a minimal standard: a name qualifies if it differs in any way, except that certain differences are ignored entirely. [3]
Differences That do NOT make a name distinguishable
Difference | Example |
Entity identifiers such as Inc., LLC, Corp., Ltd. | "Fox Co." is not distinguishable from "Fox LLC" |
Spaces between words | "Right Now Co." is not distinguishable from "Rightnow Co." |
Punctuation and most symbols | "Mission: Mars" is not distinguishable from "Mission Mars" |
Possessive versus plural | "Bob’s" is not distinguishable from "Bobs" |
Upper or lower case | "CRAZY cat" is not distinguishable from "Crazy Cat" |
Ampersand versus the word and | "Tom & Joe’s" is not distinguishable from "Tom and Joe’s" |
Numerals versus number words | "Circle Two" is not distinguishable from "Circle 2" |
The articles a, an, and the | "The Lighthouse Inn" is not distinguishable from "Lighthouse Inn" |
Differences That Make a Name Distinguishable
Difference | Example |
A different word order | "House Party" is distinguishable from "Party House" |
Creative or alternative spelling | "Crispy Cream" is distinguishable from "Krispy Kream" |
Abbreviations and acronyms | "Arizona Boot Barn" is distinguishable from "AZ Boot Barn" |
Adding the word Arizona | "Arizona Pet Food Specialists" is distinguishable from "Pet Food Specialists" |
Roman numerals | "Bookstore III" is distinguishable from "Bookstore Three" |
Singular versus plural | "Good Deed Inc." is distinguishable from "Good Deeds Inc." |
Prepositions and conjunctions | "Into the Deep Co." is distinguishable from "To the Deep Co." |
Words in another language | "Rio Verde" is distinguishable from "Green River" |
Certain symbols such as $, %, @, + | "Dollar Store" is distinguishable from "$ Store" |
Two extra limits catch people out. A name cannot be made up only of identifiers, so "Service Corporation, Limited" is invalid while "Arizona Service Corporation, Limited" is fine. And the database truncates names longer than 120 characters. [3]
Arizona LLC and Corporation Naming Rules
Distinguishability is only half the test. Your name also has to carry the right identifier for the entity type you are forming, and it cannot borrow one from a different type.
Entity Type | The Name Must Contain | The Name Must Not Contain |
Limited liability company | Limited Liability Company, Limited Company, LLC, L.L.C., LC, or L.C. | Incorporated, Corporation, or Association |
Professional limited liability company | Professional Limited Liability Company, PLLC, PLC, P.L.L.C., or P.L.C. | Corporate identifiers |
For-profit corporation | Company, Corporation, Incorporated, Association, Corp., or Inc. | LLC, Limited Company, or any LLC identifier |
Professional corporation | Professional Corporation, Professional Association, Chartered, PC, PA, SC, or Chtd. | LLC identifiers |
Nonprofit corporation | A corporate identifier, per its formation documents | LLC identifiers |
Your name also cannot suggest you are a government body or that you carry out a regulated activity you are not licensed for.
How To Reserve an Arizona Business Name
A name reservation is optional in Arizona, unlike some states. It is worth doing when you have cleared a name but are not ready to file, because it stops someone else registering it while you get your paperwork together.
Detail | Regular Processing |
How long the hold lasts | 120 days |
Renewable? | No |
Where you file it | Arizona Business Center portal |
Every Commission filing fee is non-refundable by statute, so a rejected name costs you the fee. [5] Once the name is clear and held, you can form your Arizona LLC or file as a C Corp or nonprofit.
Arizona Trade Name (DBA) Search
Arizona trade names are the Secretary of State’s territory, and they behave very differently from entity names. This is the search behind queries like "Arizona trade name search" and "DBA Arizona."
Trade Name Versus Legal Entity Name in Arizona
Your legal entity name is what appears on your Articles of Organization or Incorporation at the Corporation Commission. A trade name is a public record of a name you trade under. Filing one is not legally required, and the Secretary of State is explicit that a trade name does not grant exclusive rights to a business name. [6]. Let’s find out what that means in practice:
- It is a notice, not a right: A trade name registration will not stop someone else using a similar name, and the Secretary of State cannot resolve conflicts between filers. [6]
- It still blocks entity names: Even so, a registered trade name counts when the Commission tests whether your entity name is distinguishable. [3]
- Terms differ from trademarks: Trade names last five years from the date of receipt, trademarks last ten, and both have a six-month renewal window before expiry. [6]
- Miss the window, and you lose it: An unrenewed trade name can be registered by someone else. [6]
- Filing is online only: PDF applications are returned. Review takes a few weeks, and an expedite fee shortens that considerably. [6]
- Names must match exactly: If the owner is an LLC or corporation, enter the name exactly as filed with the Commission, including the corporate ending. [6]
If you need a second trading name set up properly, Swyft Filings handles Arizona DBA registration, and for genuine brand protection you need federal trademark registration rather than a state filing.
Arizona Business Entity Search Costs
Both searches are free. These are the only costs attached to searching, to holding a name, and to the records you can order from a search result. [5] [6] Confirm current amounts with the agency before you pay, since fees change.
Service | Regular | Expedited | Notes |
Arizona business entity search | Free | Free | No account needed [2] |
Statutory agent and principal search | Free | Free | Same portal, different search field [2] |
Trade name and trademark search | Free | Free | Held by the Secretary of State [7] |
Application to Reserve Name | $10.00 | $45.00 | Holds the name 120 days [5] |
Certificate of Good Standing | $10.00 | $45.00 | Regular takes 7 to 10 business days [4] |
Certificate for any other purpose | $10.00 | $45.00 | Ordered from the entity record [5] |
Certified copy of a filed document | $5.00 plus 50 cents per page | Add expedite fee | Most documents are viewable free [4] |
Duplicate trade name certificate | $3.00 | Not applicable | Requested from the Secretary of State [6] |
How To Verify a Company Using the Arizona Entity Search
- Search the exact legal name from the invoice or contract, not the marketing name.
- Confirm the status reads Active or In Good Standing.
- Check the formation date against how long they claim to have traded.
- Read the statutory agent. Arizona requires a physical in-state street address, not a PO box.
- Run a statutory agent search to see how many other entities share that agent.
- Open the document history and look for recent amendments or a name change.
- Check whether the name on the contract is the legal name or an unregistered trade name. [7]
- Ask for a Certificate of Good Standing if the deal is significant.
Red Flags Worth a Second Look:
- A company using LLC or Inc. in its name with no entity record at all.
- A corporation sitting at Pending Inactive while presenting itself as fully operational.
- A very recent formation date behind a claim of long experience.
- A statutory agent address that is only a mail drop, or an agent who has resigned.
- A legal name that does not match the name on the paperwork you were sent.
Need proof of your own standing for a bank or another state? Swyft Filings can obtain a Certificate of Good Standing for you.
Let Us File Your Arizona Business
Once your search confirms a name is clear across both databases, filing is the remaining step. Swyft Filings has helped more than 600,000 businesses get started since 2015. We handle LLC, C Corp, and nonprofit filings, statutory agent service, trade name registration, annual report filing, and business name changes, so the sequence lines up correctly.
Bibliography
- Arizona Corporation Commission. Corporations Division (Business Services). Accessed on August 5, 2026.
- Arizona Corporation Commission. Search for a Business, Arizona Business Center. Accessed on August 5, 2026.
- Arizona Corporation Commission. Determining Distinguishability of Entity Names. Accessed on August 5, 2026.
- Arizona Corporation Commission. Business Services FAQs. Accessed on August 5, 2026.
- Arizona Corporation Commission. Schedule of Fees, Limited Liability Companies. Accessed on August 5, 2026.
- Arizona Secretary of State. Trade Names and Trademarks. Accessed on August 5, 2026.
- Arizona Secretary of State. Trade Name and Trademark Search. Accessed on August 5, 2026.
