Updated September 4, 2026. Quick answer: a dissolved West Virginia corporation reinstates by filing West Virginia Application for Reinstatement of Revoked or Administratively Dissolved Corporation, Limited Partnership, Limited Liability Partnership, Voluntary Association, or Business Trust (Form CO-LP-RE), filed with the West Virginia Secretary of State, Business & Licensing Division under W. Va. Code §31D-14-1422 (reinstatement following administrative dissolution); dissolution itself governed by §31D-14-1421 (procedure for and effect) and §31D-14-1420 (grounds) for $25, but only within 2 years of dissolution.
If you’d rather have the reinstatement filed for you
Bizee can prepare and file the West Virginia 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 West Virginia calls it
West Virginia calls this process ‘reinstatement following administrative dissolution.’ It is triggered when the Secretary of State has administratively dissolved a corporation under §31D-14-1421 (e.g., for failing to file annual reports or maintain a registered agent) and the corporation later wants to resume business. The corporation files Form CO-LP-RE with the Secretary of State’s Business & Licensing Division, certifying the ground for dissolution no longer exists, that its name still meets naming requirements, and attaching a Tax Commissioner certification that all taxes are paid, plus any missing annual reports and fees. Once approved, the dissolution certificate is canceled and a certificate of reinstatement is issued that relates back to the original dissolution date, as if dissolution never occurred.
How long you have to reinstate
West Virginia does not let a dissolved corporation reinstate forever. You have just 2 years from the dissolution or revocation date; miss it and the only path back is forming a new entity from scratch, losing the original formation date and history. A corporation administratively dissolved under §31D-14-1421 may apply to the Secretary of State for reinstatement within two years after the effective date of the administrative dissolution. The application must recite the corporation’s name and dissolution date, state that the grounds for dissolution either did not exist or have been eliminated, state that the corporation’s name currently satisfies the naming requirements of §31D-4-401, and contain a certificate from the Tax Commissioner that all taxes owed have been paid. The statute text does not describe what happens after the two-year window closes. (W. Va. Code §31D-14-1422(a))
What you must pay before it goes through
West Virginia will not reinstate the corporation until every year it sat delinquent is paid for. Two categories of back obligations must be satisfied: (1) a tax clearance – ‘a certificate from the Tax Commissioner reciting that all taxes owed by the corporation have been paid’ (in practice a ‘Letter of Good Standing’ from the WV State Tax Division; the SOS reinstatement form states the application ‘will be REJECTED and RETURNED’ without it); and (2) SOS-side fees – all missing/delinquent signed annual reports, the delinquent annual report fee for each missing year (including current), and a late fee for each missing year: $50/year for-profit, $25/year non-profit, plus the annual report fee itself and the base reinstatement fee. (W. Va. Code §31D-14-1422(a)(4); WV Secretary of State Form CO-LP-RE (Rev. 07/2025))
Whether your name is still yours
Whether West Virginia protects a dissolved corporation’s name against a new filer during the dissolved period was not independently confirmed this session; Not squarely resolved by the primary sources fetched. Under §31D-14-1421(c), an administratively dissolved corporation ‘continues its corporate existence’ (it just may not carry on business except wind-up activity). §31D-4-401 requires new corporate names to be ‘distinguishable upon the records of the Secretary of State,’ and the SOS’s own name-guidance document explains that test but does not mention dissolved/revoked/inactive entities at all. Neither source states outright whether a dissolved corporation’s name can be claimed by a new filer during dissolution, or what happens after the two-year reinstatement window lapses. Left as an open/unconfirmed point.. (W. Va. Code §31D-14-1421(c); W. Va. Code §31D-4-401)
What the filing costs
West Virginia’s West Virginia Application for Reinstatement of Revoked or Administratively Dissolved Corporation, Limited Partnership, Limited Liability Partnership, Voluntary Association, or Business Trust (Form CO-LP-RE), filed with the West Virginia Secretary of State, Business & Licensing Division carries a $25 filing fee. Confirmed from the Secretary of State’s own current reinstatement form (Form CO-LP-RE, Rev. 07/2025): base reinstatement application fee is $25. Separate from, and in addition to, delinquent annual report fees ($25/missing year including current) and late fees ($50/year for-profit, $25/year non-profit) – total scales with years delinquent. The SOS general fee schedule does not list a separate reinstatement line item, so the $25 comes from the reinstatement form itself.
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 West Virginia’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 West Virginia instead, the filing, fee and statute are different: see reinstating an LLC in West Virginia.
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.
- W. Va. Code §31D-14-1422 – Reinstatement following administrative dissolution: https://code.wvlegislature.gov/31D-14-1422/
- W. Va. Code §31D-14-1421 – Procedure for and effect of administrative dissolution: https://code.wvlegislature.gov/31D-14-1421/
- W. Va. Code §31D-4-401 – Corporate name requirements: https://code.wvlegislature.gov/31D-4-401/
- WV Secretary of State Form CO-LP-RE (Rev. 07/2025): https://sos.wv.gov/sites/default/files/2026-04/co-lp-re.pdf