How to Change Your Registered Agent in Michigan (Form CD-520)

To change your registered agent in Michigan, you file a Certificate of Change of Registered Office and/or Resident Agent — form CD-520 — with LARA’s Corporations, Securities & Commercial Licensing Bureau. You can submit it through the MiBusiness Registry Portal in a few minutes or mail a paper copy to Lansing. The state filing fee for an LLC is nominal (single digits, and well below the $25 it costs to amend your Articles of Organization), and the change takes effect once the bureau accepts the document. There’s a second, less-known path too: your $25 annual statement, due every February 15, also collects resident agent and registered office information, so if you’re already filing it and the timing works, you can update both at once.

That’s the short version. The rest of this guide covers what Michigan actually requires of an agent, the specific reasons owners switch, how to fill out CD-520 without getting it rejected, and how to handle the awkward case where your current agent quits on you.

What Michigan actually calls it — and what the law requires

Michigan is one of the states that uses the term resident agent rather than “registered agent.” The two mean the same thing, and LARA’s own forms and the MiBusiness Registry Portal both use “resident agent.” If you’ve searched for how to change a registered agent in Michigan and kept landing on pages that say “resident agent,” that’s why.

Under the Michigan Limited Liability Company Act (MCL 450.4101 et seq.), every LLC must continuously maintain both a registered office in Michigan and a resident agent whose business office is that registered office (MCL 450.4207). The word “continuously” is doing real work there. There is no grace period built into the statute for a gap between agents.

The requirements are short but strict:

The registered office must be a physical street address in Michigan. A P.O. box alone will not satisfy it.
The resident agent must be either an individual who actually resides in Michigan, or a domestic or foreign corporation or LLC authorized to transact business in Michigan.
The agent’s business office and the registered office must be the same address.
The address is public record. Anyone — a customer, a competitor, a process server, a marketing list vendor — can look it up in LARA’s business entity search.

That last point is the reason a lot of Michigan owners eventually switch. It’s also the one nobody thinks about on day one when they type their home address into the Articles of Organization.

Why Michigan owners switch agents

In practice, changes cluster around a handful of situations:

You used your home address and now regret it. Very common with freelancers, consultants, photographers, and anyone who formed an LLC at the kitchen table. Once the business has any public presence, having your residence indexed as the official service-of-process address gets uncomfortable fast.

You moved. Either you personally relocated, or the business did. If your registered office is no longer an address where someone is reliably present during business hours, you have a compliance problem — and a practical one, because a missed service of process can turn into a default judgment.

You left Michigan but kept the LLC. Out-of-state owners who run trucking operations, rental property, or e-commerce through a Michigan entity can no longer serve as their own agent once they stop being a Michigan resident. A commercial agent becomes mandatory, not optional.

Your current agent is a friend, relative, or old business partner. These arrangements erode. The person stops forwarding mail, moves, or the relationship sours. The state doesn’t care about any of that — the address on file is still where your lawsuit will be delivered.

Your national registered agent service raised its renewal rate. The pattern is familiar: a low or free first year, then a renewal invoice that’s several times higher. Michigan-only providers are generally cheaper because they’re not maintaining offices in fifty states.

Your agent resigned. Under the LLC Act, a resident agent can resign by filing with LARA. When that happens the clock starts running, and the burden shifts entirely to you to name a replacement.

You’re cleaning up before a sale, loan, or lease. Lenders and buyers pull the LARA record. An LLC whose agent address is a former landlord’s office, or whose status shows a lapsed filing, invites questions you don’t want to answer during diligence.

Your three options, compared

Method	Best for	What you file	Speed
Form CD-520, filed online	Almost everyone; any change outside February	Certificate of Change of Registered Office and/or Resident Agent	Typically processed quickly through the MiBusiness Registry Portal
Form CD-520, mailed to Lansing	Owners who prefer paper, or filings needing an unusual signature setup	Same form, plus payment	Slower; adds mail time on both ends
Annual statement update	You’re filing your $25 annual statement anyway and the timing lines up with February 15	Annual statement with the new agent and office listed	Effective when the statement is processed
Agent resignation (initiated by the agent)	Not your choice — this is what happens when your agent quits	Agent files resignation; you then file CD-520 to name a successor	You must act before the resignation takes effect

One caution on the annual statement route: it’s convenient, but only if your February filing happens to coincide with when you need the change. Waiting four months to fix a bad agent address because you don’t want to file a separate form is a bad trade. File CD-520 and move on. If keeping up with the February deadline is itself the problem, our annual statement filing service handles that filing so the deadline stops being something you have to remember.

Filling out CD-520 without getting it rejected

The form is one page. Rejections almost always come from the same short list of errors.

1. Your exact entity name. Copy it character-for-character from your Articles of Organization, including “LLC” or “L.L.C.” exactly as filed. LARA matches on the name.

2. Your CID number. Every Michigan entity has a Customer Identification Number (sometimes called the entity ID) assigned by the bureau. You can find it in seconds using LARA’s business entity search. Including it prevents mismatches with similarly named entities.

3. The current registered office and agent — as they appear on file. Not as you think they appear. Pull up your record and transcribe it. If your old agent’s suite number changed at some point and the state record was never updated, put the state’s version here.

4. The new registered office street address. Michigan street address, no P.O. box. You can list a separate mailing address if the agent uses one, but the registered office itself must be a real, physical location.

5. The new resident agent’s full legal name. For a commercial provider, use the exact registered entity name, not the brand name on their website.

6. Signature. An authorized manager or member of the LLC signs. Michigan’s form does not require the incoming agent to counter-sign — but you should absolutely have their written consent anyway. Naming someone as your agent without telling them is how mail disappears.

If you’re changing both the registered office and the agent at the same time — the usual case when you hire a service — complete both sections. Changing only one is fine too; the form is built for either.

Filing it

Online through the MiBusiness Registry Portal is the default recommendation. You create an account, locate your entity, select the change filing, enter the information, and pay by card. Paper filings go to the Corporations Division in Lansing with a check.

Michigan offers optional expedited service tiers, including $50 for 24-hour processing. For a straightforward agent change this is usually unnecessary — but it’s worth paying if you’re up against a closing date, a licensing application, or a bank that won’t move until the state record reflects the new address. If you’re mapping out all the filing costs for your entity, the Michigan LLC cost calculator breaks down the $50 Articles of Organization fee, the recurring $25 annual statement, expedite options, and the smaller amendment-type fees in one place.

What happens if you let the agent lapse

Nothing dramatic happens on day one. The damage accumulates quietly:

Service of process goes to the address on file. If nobody’s there, you may not learn about a lawsuit until there’s already a default judgment. Michigan courts don’t reopen those easily.
LARA correspondence goes to the same place. That includes annual statement reminders. An LLC that fails to file its annual statement for two consecutive years can be dissolved by operation of law — and dissolution means the liability shield you paid $50 to create stops doing its job.
Your record looks neglected. Anyone doing diligence sees it.

Restoring a dissolved Michigan LLC is possible, but it costs more and takes longer than the ten minutes CD-520 would have taken. If you’re in the middle of a cleanup, our free 10-step Michigan LLC checklist walks through everything the state expects an active entity to have in order.

What to look for in a replacement agent

Not all agents are equal, and price is the least interesting variable. Ask:

Do they scan and email documents the same day they arrive? Physical forwarding alone wastes days you may not have.
Is the address a staffed Michigan location during normal business hours? Process servers show up unannounced.
What’s the year-two price? Get it in writing before you switch.
Do they track the February 15 annual statement? A good agent flags it; a great one files it.
Are they actually in Michigan? A provider with staff in Detroit, Pontiac, or Grand Rapids understands LARA’s processing rhythms in a way a national call center doesn’t.

Our $29 registered agent switch

We handle the whole change for $29: we prepare CD-520 with your exact entity name and CID number, file it through the MiBusiness Registry Portal, name our Michigan office as your resident agent and registered office, and send you the accepted confirmation. Mail and service of process get scanned and emailed to you the day they arrive. Details are on our services page.

The reason we price it where we do is simple — for most Michigan LLCs this is a ten-minute filing, and it shouldn’t cost a recurring national-provider rate to get it right.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I be my own resident agent in Michigan? Yes, if you’re an individual who actually resides in Michigan and you list a physical Michigan street address where you’re available during business hours. The trade-off is that the address becomes public record, which is why many owners eventually switch to a commercial agent.

How long does a Michigan resident agent change take? Filed online through the MiBusiness Registry Portal, the change is typically processed promptly, and mailed filings take longer because of transit time in both directions. If you need certainty by a specific date, the $50 24-hour expedited option is available.

Do I need to notify my old registered agent? The state doesn’t require it, but you should. Tell them in writing and confirm they’ll forward anything that arrives after the switch — otherwise legal mail can sit at an address that no longer represents you.

What if my resident agent resigned on me? Under the Michigan LLC Act, a resigning agent files with LARA and the resignation takes effect after a statutory period. File CD-520 naming a successor before that date so your LLC never sits without an agent on record.

Does changing my agent affect my EIN or my annual statement deadline? No. Your EIN is a federal number issued by the IRS and is unaffected, and your annual statement is still due every February 15 with the same $25 fee. If you still need a federal tax ID, our EIN filing service handles that separately.

If your agent situation needs fixing — a home address you’d rather not publish, a provider whose renewal price jumped, or a friend who stopped forwarding mail two years ago — you can start the switch here. It’s a short form, and we take it from there.