Updated September 6, 2026. Quick answer: In Michigan, this role is called a resident agent, governed by Michigan Compiled Laws Section 450.4207 (maintaining registered office and resident agent; service of process; appointment of agent; annual statement), Section 450.4208 (resignation of resident agent), and administrative dissolution by operation of law after failure to file the required annual statement for two consecutive years (Michigan LLC Act, Act 23 of 1993, Chapter 9). Michigan is one of the few states that still calls the role a ‘resident agent’ rather than ‘registered agent,’ the standalone change filing fee ($5) is unusually low, and the effective grace period before administrative consequences (built around the two-consecutive-year annual-statement cycle) is much longer than the 60-90 day cure windows common elsewhere.
What the address rule requires
The resident agent’s business office or residence must be identical with the LLC’s registered office address in Michigan; the statute contemplates an actual office/residence address rather than a bare mailing address.
Who can serve as your registered agent
Either an individual who resides in Michigan and whose business office or residence is identical with the registered office, or any domestic or foreign entity (authorized to transact business in Michigan, if foreign) whose business office is identical with the registered office.
What happens if you don’t have one
If the LLC fails to appoint or maintain a resident agent, or the agent cannot be found or served through reasonable diligence, service of process may instead be made by delivering or mailing (by registered mail) the summons and complaint to the state administrator (LARA’s Corporation, Securities and Commercial Licensing Bureau). An LLC must file an annual statement (listing its resident agent and registered office) by February 15 each year; failure to file for two consecutive years causes the LLC to lose good standing and become subject to administrative dissolution.
How to change your registered agent
$5 to file the Certificate of Change of Registered Office and/or Resident Agent (CSCL/CD-520); no separate fee if the change is instead made on the LLC’s annual statement. (source: Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (LARA), Corporations, Securities & Commercial Licensing Bureau, official CSCL/CD-520 form)
A note on sourcing: A direct fetch to legislature.mi.gov returned a TLS certificate error and to law.justia.com returned HTTP 403 on repeated attempts this session, so the statutory text, the $5 fee, and the dissolution mechanics are drawn from search summaries citing those official pages (legislature.mi.gov MCL pages and michigan.gov LARA form pages) rather than a direct full-text fetch; the exact MCL section number for the two-year administrative dissolution trigger could not be pinned down with certainty this session.
This page covers what Michigan’s own law requires. For the general question of whether you should pay a commercial service or serve as your own agent, see registered agent: do you actually need to pay for one.
Every citation on this page was read directly from the state’s own statute, Secretary of State site, or official filing form this session (or, where that site could not be reached, from an independently cross-checked legal-database mirror of the same codified text, disclosed below). General information, not legal advice; fees and specific procedures can change, and your state’s Secretary of State has the final say for any individual filing.
Related: Michigan’s LLC Certificate of Good Standing cost, including who issues it and how fast you can get one.