New Jersey sells three versions of this certificate, and they are not interchangeable.

The Bottom Line for New Jersey LLCs

Order it from the Division of Revenue and Enterprise Services, and pick the version before you pay. The short one answers the question almost every bank and filing office is actually asking.

New Jersey publishes three variants and prices the two longer ones identically. All three carry the entity's status, its registered agent and address, its state and date of formation, and any annual reports still outstanding. The longer two add the managers and the incorporator, and the longest of them adds the incorporator's address, the principal business address, and the dates of every amendment on file. If a lender asked for proof that your LLC exists and is in standing, the extra pages answer questions nobody put to you.

What New Jersey Actually Calls It

New Jersey issues this as the Standing Certificate, through New Jersey Department of the Treasury, Division of Revenue and Enterprise Services. Ask a bank or another state's filing office for a certificate of good standing and this is what you send them.

Standing certificates attest to the legal status of business entities such as corporations, and limited liability companies operating in New Jersey. These certificates are certified under the seal of the State Treasurer and serve as legal documents.

New Jersey also uses Short form standing certificate, Long form standing with officers and directors, Long form standing with charter documents, Certificate of Standing for documents in this family.

Two Documents, Similar Names

New Jersey has a second document with a similar name. The New Jersey Division of Taxation issues a Tax Clearance Certificate, which covers state tax obligations. It costs $20. That is not the same paper as the Standing Certificate, and the two are not interchangeable. Ask whoever requested it which one they mean.

Why You Need One

The request usually arrives from another state. When a New Jersey LLC registers to do business in Pennsylvania, New York or anywhere else, that state's filing office wants a recent certificate from New Jersey attached to the application, and it will be strict about the entity name matching. Banks ask at account opening and lenders ask again at underwriting. A large customer or a commercial landlord may ask during diligence, and a buyer's counsel will ask when you sell. License renewals rarely call for one. If nobody has asked, there is little point holding one: it carries its issue date, so a spare goes stale on the shelf.

What It Costs in New Jersey

New Jersey charges $50 for the Standing Certificate. A Long form standing certificate of LLCs and LLPs costs $100.

Where this fee comes from: Each short form standing certificate for LLCs and LLPs $50.00*

How to Order It

You can order the Standing Certificate online, by mail, in person, by phone and by fax.

New Jersey does not publish a turnaround time for the Standing Certificate, so this page does not quote one.

Order it on the New Jersey site

The Business Records Service order page for Standing Certificates is reached from the portal home page and carries the notice "Electronic filings are updated by 10:00 AM the next business day."

Four routes exist and they do not offer the same service. The online business records portal is the convenient one, but expedited handling is available on requests that arrive by fax, over the counter in Trenton, or by courier, so paying for speed means deliberately not using the portal. Anything not ordered online comes back by first class mail. A request sent by fax, mail or over the counter has to name the entity, give the business identifier the state assigned it, say which of the three versions you want, and include return instructions; leave one of those out and the Certification and Status Unit cannot act on it. One more trap sits in the notice above. A filing you submit electronically is not reflected in the record until the following business day, so a certificate ordered minutes after you fix something shows the record as it stood before the fix.

1. 1

   Ask the requester which version they mean

   A bank or another state's filing office almost always means the short one. If the request mentions officers, managers or charter documents, you need one of the longer versions, and those two differ in whether they carry the principal business address and the amendment history.

2. 2

   Pull the entity record and its state identifier

   Take the registered name exactly as filed and the identifier the state assigned from the business record itself, not from letterhead. A name that differs from the record by a comma or a suffix is the most common reason a request bounces.

3. 3

   Match the channel to the deadline

   The portal handles routine orders. The Trenton counter, a fax or a courier are the routes that carry the expedited window, which the portal and the mail do not offer.

4. 4

   Include return instructions with the request

   Orders placed anywhere other than the portal come back by first class mail, so the address you supply is where the certificate goes. Say plainly which version you are buying in the same request.

5. 5

   Read it before you forward it

   Check that the entity name matches the request that prompted it, then look at the annual report line. If it flags outstanding reports, file them and order again rather than sending it on.

What Puts You Out of Standing in New Jersey

New Jersey will issue the Standing Certificate to an LLC that is behind on its reports. It does not refuse; it states on the face of the document whether the most recent report was filed. So ordering one while you are behind does not get you a clean certificate, it hands the person who asked a written record of the delinquency. File first, then order. We found no separate tax clearance requirement from a revenue agency, though New Jersey does not publish a statement either way, so treat that as no requirement found rather than an assurance.

The fee schedule prices a "Tax Clearance certificate issued by the NJ Division of Taxation" at $20.00 as its own separate item. Nothing on the Standing Certificates page or in the Guide for Requesting Public Record Information conditions a standing certificate on that clearance.

Orders must supply the entity name and its 10-digit business ID: "For regular mail, OTC and FAX orders, provide the name and 10-digit business ID of the business entity for which the certificate is being produced, along with the type of certificate (short form, long form/officers-directors or long-form/charter documents) and return instructions."

New Jersey looks like a state that discloses rather than refuses. The state's own guide to public records lists outstanding annual reports as a field printed on all three versions of the certificate, which is how a filing office reports a delinquency instead of declining to issue. Read that as the likely behavior rather than a promise, because no New Jersey page says in as many words that a delinquent LLC still gets a certificate. Either way the practical answer is the same: file the annual reports you owe first, then order, because a certificate that announces overdue reports fails the diligence it was bought for. Annual reports go to the same Division that sells the certificate, so the fix and the purchase happen in one place.

How Long It Stays Good in New Jersey

New Jersey publishes nothing about how long the Standing Certificate 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 New Jersey's. Ask what it is, and order the certificate once you know.

Order it once the reports are current and close to the date the recipient needs it. New Jersey publishes no ordinary processing figure, which means a mailed request carries no clock you can plan around. If the deadline is tight, the counter, fax and courier routes are the ones with a published window attached, and that window is what you are buying rather than raw speed. When a lender or a filing office insists on a certificate issued within a set period, count backwards from their date rather than from the day you place the order, and allow for the overnight record refresh at the front of that.

What We Could Not Confirm for New Jersey

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

• whether the state will apostille it for use abroad

Who to Ask in New Jersey

The Certification and Status Unit inside the Department of the Treasury's Division of Revenue and Enterprise Services issues these certificates, at its Trenton counter on West State Street or through its business records portal, and the same Division takes the annual reports that keep the record clean. Tax clearance belongs to a different office: the Division of Taxation issues that document and sells it as its own item, so questions about what your LLC owes in state tax go there. Treasury's apostille and notary certification service is a third thing again. Its published scope is authenticating documents signed by New Jersey notaries and certain public officials, so ask that service directly before assuming it will authenticate a business record for use abroad.

Sources

• nj.gov/treasury/revenue/standcert.shtml
• nj.gov/treasury/revenue/fees.shtml
• nj.gov/treasury/revenue/guiderequest.shtml
• njportal.com/DOR/businessrecords/
• njportal.com/DOR/businessrecords/EntityDocs/StandingCerts.aspx
• nj.gov/treasury/revenue/apostilles.shtml

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