How to Change Your Registered Agent in Michigan: The CD-520, Step by Step

To change your registered agent in Michigan, you file a Certificate of Change of Registered Office and/or Change of Resident Agent (form CSCL/CD-520) with LARA’s Corporations, Securities & Commercial Licensing Bureau. It’s a one-page document, the state fee is only a few dollars, and you can submit it through the MiBusiness Registry Portal or by mail. Once it’s processed, the new agent’s name and the new registered office address become the official public record for your LLC — and the old agent stops receiving your legal mail.

That’s the short version. The longer version matters, because the registered agent is the one piece of your LLC’s public record that has direct legal consequences when it’s wrong. A lawsuit served on a stale address can turn into a default judgment you never saw coming. Below is what actually happens when you switch, when it’s worth doing, and where owners get tripped up.

Michigan calls it a “resident agent”

If you go looking for the word “registered agent” in the Michigan Limited Liability Company Act (MCL 450.4101 et seq.), you’ll mostly find “resident agent” instead. The two terms mean the same thing in everyday use, and LARA’s own forms use both — CD-520 is literally titled a change of registered office and/or resident agent. Don’t let the vocabulary confuse you; you’re looking at the same role.

Under MCL 450.4207, every Michigan LLC must continuously maintain both:

A registered office in Michigan — a physical street address in the state. A P.O. box alone doesn’t satisfy this.
A resident agent at that office — either an individual who actually resides in Michigan, or a business entity authorized to transact business here.

The agent’s job is to be reachable during normal business hours to accept service of process, LARA correspondence, and other official notices. That’s it. It isn’t a bookkeeper, a lawyer, or a mail-forwarding hobby. But because service of process is legally effective once it’s delivered to your agent of record, whoever holds that slot controls whether you find out about a lawsuit in time to respond. Our deeper explainer on what a Michigan resident agent actually does covers the role in full.

When owners actually switch

Most changes fall into a handful of predictable situations:

You’ve been your own agent and it stopped working. Plenty of Michigan owners list themselves at their home address when they file the $50 Articles of Organization. That’s legal and free. It also means your home address is searchable in the state’s business entity database forever, and it means a process server may show up at your front door. Landlords running rentals through an LLC run into this constantly — the whole point of the structure is separation, and then the tenant-facing public record lists the owner’s kitchen table. (If that’s your situation, the Michigan landlord LLC guide walks through the related privacy and liability issues.)

You moved. Michigan or out of state, it doesn’t matter — if the registered office address is no longer one where someone is present during business hours, you’re out of compliance with MCL 450.4207 regardless of whether anyone has noticed yet.

Your agent resigned or went dark. A resident agent can resign under MCL 450.4209 by filing with LARA and notifying the LLC. Commercial agents also drop clients for non-payment. Either way, the clock starts the moment the resignation takes effect.

You’re paying too much. National registered agent services often quote a low first-year rate and then renew at a materially higher price, sometimes bundled with “compliance alerts” you never asked for. Renewal invoices are the single most common trigger for a switch.

A partner, spouse, or former business associate is the agent. When a relationship ends — a member buys out another, a marriage ends, a friend exits the business — the agent slot is easy to forget and awkward to leave in place.

You’ve outgrown a one-person setup. If you’re a trucker, contractor, or anyone whose work keeps you away from a fixed address for days at a time, being your own agent is a structural problem, not a preference. Owner-operators forming an LLC in particular should not be the person expected to sign for certified mail on a Tuesday afternoon.

What goes on the CD-520

The form is short, which is exactly why people make careless errors on it. Here’s what LARA is looking for:

The exact legal name of your LLC as it appears in the state’s records — including “LLC,” “L.L.C.,” or whatever suffix you chose. Not your DBA, not the shortened version you use on invoices.
Your LLC’s identification number (the CID/entity number LARA assigned when your Articles of Organization were filed). You can look it up free in the state’s business entity search if you don’t have it handy.
The new registered office address — a Michigan street address. Same rule as before: no bare P.O. box.
The new resident agent’s name.
A signature from an authorized person — a member, manager, or someone with authority to sign on the LLC’s behalf.

Two details that cause rejections. First, if you’re changing the agent, the registered office address must match the new agent’s Michigan address; the two fields travel together. Second, the business name on the form has to match the record character for character. A missing comma before “LLC” is enough to get the filing bounced back, which costs you a week or more.

There’s also a separate path worth knowing: if your agent simply moved their office and is changing the address for every entity they represent, the agent files that change itself. You don’t need a CD-520 for that.

Filing methods and timing

Method	How it works	Typical turnaround
MiBusiness Registry Portal	Create/log into an account, locate the entity, submit the change electronically and pay by card	Fastest routine option; often processed within a few business days
Mail	Print CD-520, sign, mail to the Bureau in Lansing with payment	Slowest — add transit time on both ends, and rejections restart the cycle
Expedited (add-on)	Request expedited service and pay the extra fee on top of the filing fee	$50 buys 24-hour review; faster same-day and hourly tiers cost more

For most agent changes, the online portal is plenty fast and expedited service is unnecessary. The exception is when you’re switching because something urgent is happening — an agent resigned, you’ve been served at the wrong address, or a bank or licensing body is asking for current records. In that case the optional $50 24-hour expedited processing is cheap insurance.

One more option people ask about: the $25 annual statement due every February 15 also collects your resident agent and registered office information. If your renewal happens to fall right when you’re switching, you can handle both at once — but don’t wait for February to fix a broken agent situation. Eleven months of mail going to the wrong place is not a plan. (If the February deadline is the part you keep forgetting, our annual statement filing service puts it on autopilot; Michigan law provides that an LLC failing to file for two consecutive years is automatically dissolved.)

The $29 switch service

We file CD-520s constantly, so we offer the change as a flat $29 switch service through our LLC services page. You send us the LLC name, the entity number if you have it, and confirmation of who’s signing; we prepare the certificate, confirm the name matches state records before submission, file it, and send you the stamped copy back. If you want us to serve as the agent going forward, that’s handled in the same transaction — one Michigan street address, mail scanned and forwarded, no home address on the public record.

Is $29 something you could avoid by doing it yourself? Yes, honestly — the form is not complicated. The value is in the parts that aren’t the form: catching the name mismatch before LARA does, knowing which address field goes where, and not having a rejected filing sit in your mailbox for two weeks while your agent situation stays broken. If you’d rather see how agent costs stack up against the rest of your Michigan LLC expenses, the Michigan LLC cost calculator breaks out formation, annual, and optional costs side by side.

After the change is accepted

Filing the CD-520 updates the state record. It does not update everyone else. Work through this short list once you have the stamped copy:

Your operating agreement, if it names the agent or registered office.
Your bank, if the registered office doubled as the address on file.
Any state licensing board — contractors, cosmetology, food service, and liquor licensees often keep their own address records that don’t sync with LARA.
The IRS, if your registered office was also your mailing address for tax notices. That’s Form 8822-B, not a CD-520.
Contracts with notice provisions that reference the old agent or address. Notice clauses are enforced as written.
Your old agent, in writing, so they know to stop accepting mail and can close your account rather than keep billing you.

Common mistakes worth avoiding

Assuming the old agent will forward things. Once the change is on file, they have no obligation to, and most won’t.
Using an out-of-state address. The registered office must be in Michigan, full stop, even if you and your business live elsewhere.
Listing a virtual mailbox that doesn’t accept service of process. Some do, many don’t. Ask before you file.
Naming an individual who’s rarely at the address. Compliant on paper, useless in practice.
Letting a gap open. If your agent resigns, get the replacement on file promptly rather than waiting to see whether anything arrives.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does my old agent have to approve the change? No. The LLC files the CD-520 on its own authority through an authorized member or manager — the outgoing agent’s consent isn’t required and their signature isn’t on the form. Notifying them is a courtesy that stops recurring billing, not a legal prerequisite.

Can I be my own resident agent in Michigan? Yes, if you’re an individual who resides in Michigan and you can be reached at a Michigan street address during regular business hours. The tradeoffs are that your address becomes part of the public record and you have to be physically available, which is why many owners switch to a commercial agent as the business grows.

How long does LARA take to process a CD-520? Routine online filings are typically processed within a few business days, while mailed filings take considerably longer once you account for transit and any rejection cycle. The optional $50 24-hour expedited service is available if you need the change on record fast.

What happens if I ignore a resigned or invalid agent? Your LLC falls out of compliance with MCL 450.4207, and more practically, service of process and LARA notices go to an address where nobody is receiving them. That’s how owners end up learning about a lawsuit after a default judgment has already been entered.

Can I change my agent at the same time I form a new LLC? You name the agent in your Articles of Organization at formation, so there’s nothing to change yet — the $50 filing establishes it. If you’re just getting started, the free 10-step Michigan startup checklist covers the agent decision in the right order relative to your EIN, bank account, and first annual statement.

If your agent situation needs fixing — a resignation, a move, a renewal invoice you’d rather not pay, or a home address you’d rather take off the public record — we can file the CD-520 for you and take the agent role going forward. Start the switch here whenever you’re ready.