Yes, any individual 18+ who is a Maryland resident or has a Maryland address
Can a company serve?
Yes, any business entity authorized to transact business in Maryland
Can you be your own agent?
Yes, if the owner meets Maryland residency or address requirements
Best Registered Agent Services for Maryland LLCs (2026)
Affiliate disclosure: Northwest Registered Agent, Bizee, ZenBusiness and LegalZoom pay us a commission if you sign up through our link, at no extra cost to you. We list only the registered agent services we have an affiliate relationship with, so this is not a survey of the whole market.
This table is not scored. The four are listed cheapest annual renewal first, and the rows below it say which one fits which situation. The scored ranking, and the formula behind it, is on the formation services review, which orders them on three-year cost, BBB rating and Trustpilot score.
Note: Bizee holds a C rating from the BBB and is not accredited. BBB's profile carries a live alert describing a pattern of complaints about unexpected charges, difficulty canceling and filing delays, and Bizee has posted a response to it. We flag this so you can make an informed choice.
Prices are each provider's standard published rates; year-one pricing applies when you form your LLC through the same service. BBB and Trustpilot figures as recorded September 15, 2026, not re-checked since, and both sources update continuously. These are the dates the figures were last written to our dataset, which is the most we can show: they are not verification dates. See how we evaluate these companies in our full formation services review →
Which Registered Agent Is Best for Your Maryland LLC?
You're forming a new LLC and want the agent bundled
Our pick: ZenBusiness
Registered agent is free for year one with their $0 starter formation plan, backed by an A from the BBB and a 4.8/5 Trustpilot score.
Your LLC already exists and you just need an agent
Our pick: Northwest Registered Agent
A flat $125/yr for registered agent service, the lowest renewal of the services listed here, and a privacy policy that says it does not sell your information. Registered agent customers are enrolled by default in annual report filing at $100 plus state fees, which you can cancel.
You want year one free and the cheaper renewal after it
Our pick: Bizee
Registered agent is free for year one on every Bizee plan and renews at $149/yr, $50/yr less than ZenBusiness, the other service listed here that includes year one free. Northwest renews lower still at $125/yr, but its first year comes inside a paid $39 formation package rather than free. Tradeoff: a C rating from the BBB, which cites a pattern of complaints about charges and cancellation, so read every auto-renewal term.
Complex legal needs alongside your filing
Our pick: LegalZoom
The only one of the services listed here with licensed attorney consultations, and the most expensive registered agent listed here at $249/yr, which is never included in their plans.
Ready to file your annual report?
Go directly to the Maryland Secretary of State portal.
Best for: Solo entrepreneurs who work from a fixed Maryland location and don't mind public address exposure
Friend or family member
Pros
Lower cost than professional services
Personal relationship ensures reliability
Keeps your home address private
Cons
Depends on their availability and reliability
Could strain personal relationships
No professional backup systems
Best for: Small business owners with trusted contacts who have reliable Maryland addresses
Professional service
Pros
Complete privacy protection
Guaranteed availability during business hours
Professional handling of legal documents
Mail forwarding services
Cons
Annual fee typically $100-300
Less direct control over document timing
Best for: Business owners prioritizing privacy, reliability, and professional document management
This guide is general information, not legal or tax advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. It reports what each state publishes about filing deadlines, fees, and the consequences of missing them, with the sources this page cites. It cannot tell you what your own company owes: the date turns on when and where you formed, states change these rules between our reviews, and in several states an entity-level tax falls due in a year when no report does. Confirm your own dates with the filing office named on this page before you rely on one here, because the penalty for missing a deadline can be administrative dissolution of the company.
Frequently Asked Questions
A registered agent in Maryland is a designated person or business entity that receives legal documents, tax notices, and official state correspondence on behalf of your LLC. The Maryland Department of Assessments and Taxation requires every LLC to maintain a registered agent with a physical street address, not a P.O. box, located in Maryland. Your registered agent must be available during standard business hours (typically 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.) to accept service of process, including lawsuits, subpoenas, and regulatory notices. This role is critical because failure to maintain a registered agent can result in administrative dissolution of your LLC by the state. If your LLC loses its registered agent, you've 30 days to appoint a replacement before facing potential penalties and loss of good standing. You must file the agent change using Form CLLC on the SDAT website. Rather than designating yourself, many Maryland LLC owners hire professional registered agent services (costing $75 to $300 annually) to ensure documents are never missed. Your next step is deciding whether to serve as your own agent or hire a service, then file the appropriate appointment form with the Maryland Department of Assessments and Taxation.
Maryland law requires every LLC to maintain a resident agent at all times, and Md. Corps. & Ass'ns § 4A-210 governs how the position is filled and vacated.
There is no 30-day replacement deadline and no automatic administrative dissolution for an agent vacancy. Those are the two things most often stated incorrectly. What § 4A-911 actually allows is forfeiture of the right to do business for unpaid taxes or for failure to file the Annual Report and Business Personal Property Return. The only clock the statute sets for agents is § 4A-210(d)(2): where the LLC has one resident agent, a resignation takes effect 10 days after it is filed, which is the window you have to name a successor before service of process has nowhere to go.
The real exposure from a vacancy is practical rather than administrative. A lawsuit served on a stale address can produce a default judgment your LLC never saw coming. If your LLC has already been forfeited, the route back is the "Articles or Certificate of Reinstatement for an LLC, LLP, or LP", which costs $100 plus $50 to expedite.
**Commercial resident agent services in Maryland typically cost $100 to $300 a year, and you can serve as your own agent for free if you are available during business hours.**
Serving as your own agent means keeping a physical Maryland street address, not a P.O. box, and being there during business hours to accept service of process. That is the whole requirement; there is no state fee for naming an agent when you form the LLC.
Maryland does not license or register resident agent service companies, so there is no state registry to check a provider against. Judge one on whether it scans and forwards mail the same day, how it handles service of process, and whether the annual price includes the state filing fee when you switch to it. Changing your resident agent later costs $25 at SDAT, plus $50 if you want it expedited.
Yes. Serving as your own resident agent puts your address on the public record.
The address you give appears in SDAT's Business Entity Search, which anyone can query free of charge at dat.maryland.gov. It is not published in the Maryland Register: that is the Division of State Documents' regulatory gazette for COMAR regulations and carries no entity or agent records.
If the address is your home, that is what a competitor, a disgruntled customer or a process server sees. A commercial resident agent service exists largely to put its address there instead of yours. Contact SDAT at 410-767-1330 or visit dat.maryland.gov to verify what is currently public for your LLC.
File SDAT's "Resolution to Change Principal Office or Resident Agent" (rev. 8/2024). Maryland assigns it no form number, and it is on the forms index at dat.maryland.gov/Pages/sdatforms.aspx.
The fee is **$25**, per SDAT's fee schedule, with $50 more for expedited handling. There is no fee for a resident agent to resign. Md. Corps. & Ass'ns § 4A-210(b)(1) requires the statement to be signed by a person authorized to act for the LLC **and** by the new resident agent, so a filing without the incoming agent's signature is not valid.
Regular processing takes 4 to 6 weeks. Expedited requests and anything filed online through Maryland Business Express are handled within 7 business days. The change takes effect when the Department accepts the statement for record under § 4A-210(b)(3), not on the day you file. Mail to 700 East Pratt Street, Suite 2700, Baltimore, MD 21202, or deliver in person to 123 Market Place.
Sources
Each entry below is a document recorded in our verified Maryland sources, and each entry says what the document is. Some statutory text is read from an accurate mirror rather than from the state's own host, and those say so.
See how Northwest Registered Agent, Bizee, ZenBusiness and LegalZoom, the formation services we partner with, compare on 3-year cost, BBB rating and Trustpilot score before you choose.
Edmond Hui is a software engineer and serial entrepreneur based in New York who has founded multiple online businesses across e-commerce, media, and information publishing. Before transitioning into tech, he spent years as a commercial real estate professional closing deals totaling over 100,000 square feet, giving him firsthand experience with business formation and entity structuring. He built MyStateLLC to provide the free, state-specific LLC guidance he wished existed when forming his own companies.
