Updated September 6, 2026. Quick answer: In Alabama, this role is called a registered agent, governed by Alabama’s LLC registration-agent statute (Title 10A, as administered by the Alabama Secretary of State). Alabama’s $100 change fee is the highest of the states compared here, with resignation itself free.
What the address rule requires
Alabama’s own change-of-agent process (Alabama Secretary of State) treats the registered office as a real business address, not a mail drop.
Who can serve as your registered agent
An individual Alabama resident, or a domestic or foreign entity authorized to do business in Alabama, may serve.
What happens if you don’t have one
If the registered agent cannot be served with reasonable diligence, Alabama law allows substitute service under the state’s civil procedure rules rather than automatically naming the Secretary of State as agent. Alabama’s statute addresses failure to maintain an agent through the substitute-service mechanism above rather than a stated day-count dissolution trigger this session could confirm.
How to change your registered agent
$100.00 to change the registered agent or registered office; no fee to file the agent’s own resignation. (source: Alabama Secretary of State, 2026 fee schedule (sos.alabama.gov))
A note on sourcing: Alabama’s own registered-agent statute text could not be fetched directly this session (Alabama’s ALISON code portal failed to resolve and Justia/FindLaw returned repeated 403s); the physical-address and who-can-serve points above rest on secondary corroboration only. The $100/no-fee figures and the SOS process page were fetched directly and read.
| Citation | Alabama’s LLC registration-agent statute (Title 10A, as administered by the Alabama Secretary of State) |
| Confidence | Medium |
This page covers what Alabama’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: Alabama’s LLC Certificate of Good Standing cost, including who issues it and how fast you can get one.