Updated September 6, 2026. Quick answer: In Maryland, this role is called a resident agent, governed by Md. Code, Corps. and Ass’ns Section 4A-210 (principal office and resident agent), Section 4A-911 (forfeiture). Maryland’s own forfeiture statute is confirmed, by direct reading, to have nothing to do with a lapsed resident agent; a genuine correction to the more common assumption that every state ties this lapse to dissolution. The actual mechanism is a civil-procedure substituted-service rule, not a corporations-code penalty.
What the address rule requires
Maryland’s statute requires the LLC to have a principal office in the state and a resident agent, without spelling out an explicit street-address-only rule in the specific subsections read this session.
Who can serve as your registered agent
A Maryland resident 18 or older, a Maryland corporation, or a Maryland LLC, per the state’s own designation mechanics (the full statutory eligibility sentence itself was not independently rendered from the primary text fetched this session).
What happens if you don’t have one
Maryland has no dedicated statute making the state’s own Department (SDAT) the default agent by operation of the corporations code; instead, a court procedural rule permits substituted service directly on SDAT when no resident agent is on file, the agent is deceased or gone, or two good-faith service attempts on separate days fail. Maryland’s forfeiture statute (Section 4A-911) does NOT contain language tied to a lack of a resident agent; it is triggered only by nonpayment of taxes, unemployment-insurance contributions, or a missed annual report. The real consequence of no resident agent in Maryland is the substituted-service court procedure above, not an automatic corporate forfeiture.
How to change your registered agent
A statement or resolution is filed with the Department, effective when the Department accepts it for record; a specific dollar fee was not independently confirmed from a primary SDAT fee page this session.
A note on sourcing: Section 4A-210’s own eligibility list for who may serve as resident agent, and the exact filing fee, were not independently rendered from the primary text fetched this session and are reported as lightly-verified; the Section 4A-911 finding (no forfeiture trigger for agent lapse) and the core Section 4A-210 designation-mechanics language were confirmed directly.
| Citation | Md. Code, Corps. and Ass’ns Section 4A-210 (principal office and resident agent), Section 4A-911 (forfeiture) |
| Confidence | Medium |
This page covers what Maryland’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: Maryland’s LLC Certificate of Good Standing cost, including who issues it and how fast you can get one.