Updated September 6, 2026. Quick answer: In Tennessee, this role is called a registered agent, governed by Tenn. Code Ann. Section 48-249-109 (maintain registered office/agent), Section 48-249-110 (change of registered agent/office), Section 48-249-604(a)(2) and (a)(4) (grounds for administrative dissolution; no agent/office for 2+ months, or failure to notify the Secretary of State of an agent/office change within 2 months), Section 48-249-112(b) (Secretary of State as default agent). Tennessee has two overlapping registered-agent dissolution triggers; one for actually lacking an agent/office for 2+ months, and a separate, easier-to-trip one for simply failing to tell the Secretary of State about an agent change or resignation within 2 months.
What the address rule requires
The statute requires a registered office ‘which may be the same as any of its places of business,’ with the agent’s business office at that same street address; the Secretary of State’s own Form SS-4534 instructions state plainly that ‘A post office box is not acceptable for the registered agent/office address.’
Who can serve as your registered agent
Per Section 48-249-109: an individual who resides in Tennessee, or a domestic or foreign entity (corporation, nonprofit, LLC, partnership, or registered LLP) authorized to do business in Tennessee, provided the agent maintains a business office at the same street address as the registered office.
What happens if you don’t have one
Per Section 48-249-112(b) and Section 48-249-113, if the LLC has no agent, the agent can’t be found with reasonable diligence, or a foreign LLC transacts business without authority, the Secretary of State becomes the LLC’s agent; service is made by filing with the SOS, which mails a certified copy to the LLC’s registered or principal office, and no judgment may be entered for at least one month after service is completed. Per Section 48-249-604(a)(2), lacking a registered agent or registered office for two months or more is an independent ground for administrative dissolution; a related ground in (a)(4) covers merely failing to notify the SOS of an agent change or resignation within two months, even where a real agent exists throughout.
How to change your registered agent
This session could not independently confirm the current dollar fee to change a Tennessee registered agent/office (Form SS-4534) from a source it could itself read; the exact figure is omitted rather than guessed.
A note on sourcing: Tennessee’s official General Assembly code site (capitol.tn.gov) 404’d and law.justia.com was Cloudflare-blocked, so statutory text came from the secondary database codes.findlaw.com. The original research pass also cited a Wayback Machine archive of the official Tennessee SOS form SS-4534 for a $20 change fee, but this session’s own attempt to re-fetch that same archived snapshot for independent verification returned a Wayback “no capture” page rather than the actual form, so that fee figure is not reported on this page at all rather than repeated unconfirmed.
This page covers what Tennessee’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: Tennessee’s LLC Certificate of Good Standing cost, including who issues it and how fast you can get one.