Risk Management Blog

UCC & Corporate Due Diligence

Resource Guide for Legal and Financial Professionals

Why Reserve your Business Name?

Corporate

Meeting with business partners, speaking with attorneys, making decisions, drafting documents, obtaining signatures… setting up a new business entity can take a lot of patience and planning. One important step you can take to help reduce your stress and simplify your job is to reserve your business name in advance of submitting your formation documents.

The process is simple:

  1. Complete the proper request form for that state and pay the required fee. Name reservation requests can typically be submitted by mail or in person.
  2. The state filing office will then check your desired name for availability against existing entities in their records.
  3. If the name is not already in use in that state or deceptively similar to any existing entity, the name held for your exclusive use. The duration varies, but the reservation is usually good for between 60-120 days and is renewable.

A name reservation can be particularly useful if you are planning a multi-state qualification and want to be certain your chosen name can be used in all states in which you plan to transact business. By filing a name reservation, you can secure your chosen name for your exclusive use until you are ready to file your formation documents – saving you time and money in rejected documents later.

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