Updated September 6, 2026. Quick answer: In Pennsylvania, this role is called a registered office (Pennsylvania does not use an individually named ‘registered agent’ for domestic entities), governed by 15 Pa. Cons. Stat. Section 8825 (maintain/change registered office), Section 109 (commercial registered office provider in lieu of a street address), Section 135(c) (actual street address required, no P.O. box), Sections 381-383 (annual-report notice-and-cure leading to administrative dissolution). Pennsylvania is the only state in this set with no individually named ‘registered agent’ at all: LLCs list only a physical registered-office address (or a Commercial Registered Office Provider’s name); and the state does not act as a default agent for service of process the way most states do.
What the address rule requires
The registered office must be an actual street address or rural route box number in Pennsylvania; under Section 135(c) the Department of State must refuse to receive or file any document that sets forth only a post office box address (confirmed on the official Statement of Change of Registered Office form).
Who can serve as your registered agent
Pennsylvania does not require naming an individual or company ‘agent’ at all; only a registered office address, which may be the LLC’s own place of business. Alternatively, the LLC may substitute the name of a Commercial Registered Office Provider (CROP), a business that has itself registered with the Department, ‘c/o’ its name, in lieu of stating a street address (Section 109).
What happens if you don’t have one
Pennsylvania has no Secretary-of-State/Department-as-default-agent mechanism. Per 19 Pa. Code Sections 19.2-19.3, since a 1978 law change the Department of State ‘no longer receives or forwards service of process’ for actions against associations; a plaintiff instead serves the entity’s actual principal place of business, creating real default-judgment risk if the registered office is stale. There is no dissolution ground tied directly to lacking a registered office by itself. Since Act 122 of 2022, Pennsylvania LLCs must instead file a $7 annual report (which discloses registered-office information) starting in 2025; per secondary summaries of 15 Pa.C.S. Sections 381-383, if a report is not filed the Department must send notice, and the entity has 60 days after that notice to cure before the Department administratively dissolves it, with first enforcement expected after the 2027 filing cycle under the statute’s built-in grace period.
How to change your registered agent
$5.00 nonrefundable filing fee for the Statement/Certificate of Change of Registered Office (Form DSCB:15-1507/5507/8625/8825). (source: Pennsylvania Department of State, Bureau of Corporations and Charitable Organizations, official form DSCB:15-1507/5507/8625/8825)
A note on sourcing: The annual-report/administrative-dissolution timeline (15 Pa.C.S. Sections 381-383, the 60-day cure window, and the 2027 first-enforcement date) rests on secondary law-firm summaries of Act 122 of 2022 rather than a directly fetched copy of that statutory text, which could not be retrieved this session (the PA General Assembly’s annual-report statute pages and law.justia both blocked or 404’d on repeated attempts).
This page covers what Pennsylvania’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: Pennsylvania’s LLC Certificate of Good Standing cost, including who issues it and how fast you can get one.