Arkansas sells two certificates with neighbouring names, and only one is usually right

The Bottom Line for Arkansas LLCs

Buy the certificate of good standing through the Secretary of State's own entity search and print it on the spot. Your franchise tax has to be paid first, because in Arkansas the franchise tax and the corporate registry are the same office's business.

Owners expect the tax question to live in a different building from the filing office, which makes the certificate look like a formality. Arkansas inverts that. The Business and Commercial Services Division of the Secretary of State collects the annual franchise tax itself, and the franchise tax act it quotes prohibits further filings with that division for anyone who has not paid. Since the certificate attests that the company is qualified and has met all the requirements governing it, the tax and the paper end up being the same question asked twice.

What Arkansas Actually Calls It

Arkansas calls it a Certificate of Good Standing, issued by Arkansas Secretary of State, Business and Commercial Services Division.

"A Certificate of Good Standing is a certificate issued by the Arkansas Secretary of State certifying that a corporation or company is at this time qualified and in good standing, having met all the requirements governing this type of corporation or company in the state of Arkansas."

Why You Need One

Registering in a second state is the dominant reason: the receiving filing office wants Arkansas to vouch for the company before it will accept a foreign registration. Lenders ask at underwriting on commercial credit, and a franchisor or a large customer sometimes asks during onboarding. A buyer's lawyer will pull one in a sale. Deposit account opening seldom calls for it, and a commercial landlord asking for one is a big-lease event rather than a routine one, so do not buy in advance of a request that may never come.

What It Costs in Arkansas

Arkansas charges $25 for the Certificate of Good Standing.

Where this fee comes from: "Certificates are $25.00 each, excluding Certificates of Existence which are $15.00."

How to Order It

You can order the Certificate of Good Standing online, by mail and in person.

Immediate download online, available to re-download for 2 weeks.

Order it on the Arkansas site

A $3.00 processing fee is added when the certificate is purchased online, on top of the $25.00 certificate fee. Paying the mailed or emailed Records Request Form by credit card instead carries a 4% transaction fee with a $1.00 minimum.

Two things trip people up here, and the fee itself is neither of them. First, the state sells two documents whose names sit next to each other on the same request form, and they are priced differently because they do different jobs. If a receiving state or a lender asked for good standing, buy the one named for that; if the request is vague, resolve it before you pay. Second, the number printed beside the document is not the number that leaves your account. Buying through the online search adds a processing charge on top, while paying a mailed or emailed request form by card carries a percentage transaction fee instead. Neither is large, and both surprise people at checkout.

1. 1

   Settle which document was actually requested

   Read the request for the exact document name rather than the phrase good standing. Arkansas prices its two certificates differently and issues them for different purposes, so a one line request deserves an email back before you buy anything.

2. 2

   Check that your franchise tax report is filed and paid

   Look your LLC up on the Secretary of State's business search and confirm the annual franchise tax report is current. An unpaid franchise tax is the usual reason this certificate cannot issue, and it also bars other filings with the division.

3. 3

   Buy it through the state's own entity search

   The certificate is sold from the Secretary of State's search pages and the file is ready to print as soon as the payment goes through. Read the total at checkout rather than the amount you saw printed beside the document's name.

4. 4

   Or submit the records request form if you prefer paper

   The division accepts that form by mail, in person at its office, or by email. Card payment on this route carries its own transaction charge, and the instructions give no turnaround figure for it, so allow more time than the online purchase needs.

5. 5

   Save the file while you still can retrieve it

   Store the downloaded certificate somewhere permanent the day you buy it. The state's retrieval window closes after a short period, and once it does you would be purchasing the document again rather than fetching it.

6. 6

   Send the file as the state issued it

   Forward the original file rather than a scan of a printout, and check that the entity name matches the spelling your counterparty is using. A name mismatch on a foreign registration packet is a rejection, not a query.

What Puts You Out of Standing in Arkansas

Before Arkansas will issue the Certificate of Good Standing, your filings with the state's business filing office have to be current.

Arkansas collects its annual franchise tax through the Secretary of State rather than through a separate revenue department, so there is no third agency to clear. The franchise tax obligation belongs with your filings, not with an outside clearance step.

Arkansas folds its recurring LLC filing into the annual franchise tax report rather than running a separate annual report, and that report goes to the same division that sells the certificate. Miss it and the consequences stack: additional fees, penalties and interest, a statutory bar on further filings with the division while the tax is unpaid, and eventually revocation of the authority to do business. That last step is what turns an administrative slip into a legal one, since a revoked company cannot register elsewhere or close a loan. The route back runs through the same office and the same portal. Pay the outstanding franchise tax with its penalties and interest, let the account clear, then order the certificate.

How Long It Stays Good in Arkansas

Arkansas publishes nothing about how long the Certificate of Good Standing stays current. Whoever asked you for it does: banks, lenders and other states' filing offices each set their own recency rule, and that window is theirs, not Arkansas's. Ask what it is, and order the certificate once you know.

An online purchase hands you the file immediately and lets you retrieve it again for a short period afterwards. That retrieval window is about the file rather than about the certificate's standing with a recipient, and reading it as a shelf life is the mistake to avoid. Whoever asked for the certificate sets the age they will accept, so get their cutoff in writing and buy the document once you are ready to hand it over. If your franchise tax report is due shortly, file it first, because a certificate issued the week before a deadline describes a company whose status is about to move.

Using It Outside the United States

For use abroad, Arkansas Secretary of State, Business and Commercial Services will authenticate the certificate with an apostille for $10 per document.

What We Could Not Confirm for Arkansas

These pages only state what a primary source establishes. For Arkansas we could not confirm the following, so this page does not answer it:

• what must be current before the state will issue it

Who to Ask in Arkansas

One office answers nearly everything on this page: the Business and Commercial Services Division of the Arkansas Secretary of State. It holds the entity record, it sells both certificates, and it collects the annual franchise tax, so the question of whether your LLC can get one and the question of whether your tax is current land on the same desk. The division also accepts its records request form by email at the corporate request address it publishes, which is worth using to have a staff member confirm which of the two documents you should be buying before you spend anything.

Sources

• sos.arkansas.gov/uploads/bcs/Records_Request_Form_with_Additions1_2.pdf
• sos-good-standing.ark.org
• sos.arkansas.gov/business-commercial-services-bcs/frequently-asked-questions-faqs/business-services-faq
• sos.arkansas.gov/business-commercial-services-bcs/franchise-tax-report-forms/
• sos.arkansas.gov/uploads/LLC_Fees1.pdf
• sos.arkansas.gov/uploads/bcs/ApostilleRequestForm.pdf

Every figure on this page was read from an Arkansas government source, not from a formation service. Confidence in this record: high. See our editorial policy for how these are verified and corrected.