Updated September 4, 2026. Quick answer: a dissolved North Carolina corporation reinstates by filing Application for Reinstatement Following Administrative Dissolution (Form B-08) under N.C. Gen. Stat. § 55-14-22 (North Carolina Business Corporation Act, Article 14) for $100, with no statutory deadline to do it.
If you’d rather have the reinstatement filed for you
Bizee can prepare and file the North Carolina reinstatement paperwork described above on your behalf. State filing fees and any back taxes owed are separate, and you pay those directly either way.
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The filing, and what North Carolina calls it
A corporation administratively dissolved under G.S. 55-14-21 applies to the Secretary of State for reinstatement. The application must state the corporation’s name, the effective date of dissolution, and that the grounds for dissolution either did not exist or have been eliminated; it can be filed online or on paper. If approved, the Secretary of State cancels the certificate of dissolution and issues a certificate of reinstatement, which relates back to the date of dissolution.
How long you have to reinstate
North Carolina sets no deadline for reinstating a dissolved corporation. The statute sets no time limit; an application may apply to the Secretary of State for reinstatement with no stated expiration window in G.S. 55-14-22. That does not mean waiting is free; back fees and penalties keep accruing the whole time the entity sits dissolved. (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 55-14-22)
What you must pay before it goes through
North Carolina will not reinstate the corporation until every year it sat delinquent is paid for. All delinquent annual reports must be filed and their fees paid, plus the $100 reinstatement application fee, before the Secretary of State will process reinstatement. (NC SOS Business Registration Manual, Reinstatement)
Whether your name is still yours
Your original name is not guaranteed to still be yours. If the corporation’s name is no longer distinguishable from another entity’s name on the Secretary of State’s records, the corporation must amend its name to a distinguishable one before a certificate of reinstatement can be issued. Check North Carolina’s business-name database before assuming the reinstatement filing will go through under the old name. (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 55-14-22 (referencing § 55D-21))
What the filing costs
North Carolina’s Application for Reinstatement Following Administrative Dissolution (Form B-08) carries a $100 filing fee. $100 reinstatement application fee only; delinquent annual report fees are additional and billed separately.
What this page does not answer
Reinstating the entity at the state level and squaring things up with the IRS are two separate processes. Late federal returns, penalty abatement requests, and reinstating a lapsed EIN’s associated accounts are governed by federal law, not by North Carolina’s corporation statute, and this page does not source them. We have the state-filing answer at primary and the federal-cleanup answer not at all.
This page covers a for-profit business corporation. If you are reinstating an LLC in North Carolina instead, the filing, fee and statute are different: see reinstating an LLC in North Carolina.
Sources
Every citation on this page is statutory or the Secretary of State’s own official filing instructions. No formation service, no registered-agent marketing page and no aggregator is cited anywhere in this cluster as a source of law; those are the only publishers of the competing versions.
- N.C. Gen. Stat. 55-14-22, official statute text (NC General Assembly): https://www.ncleg.gov/EnactedLegislation/Statutes/HTML/BySection/Chapter_55/GS_55-14-22.html
- NC SOS: Reinstatement and Requalification overview: https://www.sosnc.gov/divisions/business_registration/Reinstatement_and_Requalification