Updated September 4, 2026. Quick answer: a dissolved Michigan corporation reinstates by filing No separate certificate for profit corporations; reinstatement is accomplished by filing the delinquent Annual Report(s) (via corpfileonline/MiLogin for Business) for each year not filed, in date order, until current under MCL 450.1925 (Business Corporation Act, 1972 PA 284, Sec. 925), referencing dissolution under MCL 450.1922 (Sec. 922), with no statutory deadline to do it.
If you’d rather have the reinstatement filed for you
Bizee can prepare and file the Michigan 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 Michigan calls it
A domestic corporation automatically dissolved under Sec. 922 may renew its corporate existence by filing the annual reports and paying the fees for every year they were not filed (plus every subsequent intervening year), together with statutory penalties. Filing is done online via michigan.gov/corpfileonline, one delinquent year at a time, in chronological order. Upon completion, corporate existence is automatically renewed; no separate reinstatement certificate is issued for profit corporations (unlike LLCs, which use a distinct Certificate of Restoration of Good Standing).
How long you have to reinstate
Michigan sets no deadline for reinstating a dissolved corporation. MCL 450.1925(1) states the corporation may renew its corporate existence with no stated maximum number of years for profit corporations (a 5-year cap referenced elsewhere applies only to nonprofit corporations under a separate act). That does not mean waiting is free; back fees and penalties keep accruing the whole time the entity sits dissolved. (MCL 450.1925)
What you must pay before it goes through
Michigan will not reinstate the corporation until every year it sat delinquent is paid for. All delinquent annual report fees must be paid, plus penalties. For dissolutions after Feb. 24, 1978, the fee is $75.00 per prior-year profit-corporation report; if renewal is submitted May 15 or later, the current-year report is also required ($25.00) plus a $10/month penalty from May 16. (LARA, Renew My Corporation guidance)
Whether your name is still yours
Your original name is not guaranteed to still be yours. The statute authorizes LARA to require the corporation to adopt or use a corporate name that conforms to Michigan’s name-availability requirements if its original name is no longer available. Check Michigan’s business-name database before assuming the reinstatement filing will go through under the old name. (MCL 450.1925)
What the filing costs
No flat one-time reinstatement fee; $75.00 per delinquent prior-year annual report, plus a $25.00 current-year report fee and $10/month penalty if filed after May 15.
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 Michigan’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 Michigan instead, the filing, fee and statute are different: see reinstating an LLC in Michigan.
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.
- MCL 450.1925, official Michigan Legislature statute text: https://www.legislature.mi.gov/Laws/MCL?objectName=mcl-450-1925
- LARA Corporations Division: Renew My Corporation official page: https://www.michigan.gov/lara/bureau-list/cscl/corps/how-do-i/renewals/renew-my-corporation