Updated September 4, 2026. Quick answer: a dissolved Montana corporation reinstates by filing Application for Reinstatement following Administrative Dissolution, filed with the Montana Secretary of State under Mont. Code Ann. § 35-14-1422 (Montana Business Corporation Act, Title 35, Chapter 14, Part 14 – Dissolution, effective June 1, 2020); name-protection cross-reference at § 35-14-401, but only within 5 years of dissolution.
If you’d rather have the reinstatement filed for you
Bizee can prepare and file the Montana reinstatement paperwork described above on your behalf. State filing fees and any back taxes owed are separate, and you pay those directly either way.
Bizee’s BBB rating, verified directly against BBB’s own listing on September 2, 2026: a C, not accredited. BBB’s own finding: the business “has failed to resolve underlying cause(s) of a pattern of complaints,” with 83 complaints filed. Most complaints we found described difficulty canceling recurring services and strict refund policies, worth knowing before you hand over a card for the year-two renewal. Check BBB’s current listing yourself before you buy; a rating we didn’t just verify is worse than none.
We earn a commission if you purchase through this link, between $20 and $175 depending on which service you buy, disclosed here rather than left vague. This does not change the price you pay. We are not a law firm and this is not legal advice. Affiliate Disclosure.
Opens on Bizee’s site in a new tab.
The filing, and what Montana calls it
Montana calls this ‘reinstatement following administrative dissolution.’ It is triggered by administrative dissolution under §35-14-1421 (e.g., failure to file annual reports or pay state taxes). The corporation applies to the Secretary of State with a Department of Revenue tax certificate, all unfiled annual reports and their fees/penalties, and the filing fee; once approved, reinstatement relates back to the effective date of dissolution as if it never happened.
How long you have to reinstate
Montana does not let a dissolved corporation reinstate forever. You have just 5 years from the dissolution or revocation date; miss it and the only path back is forming a new entity from scratch, losing the original formation date and history. A corporation administratively dissolved may apply to the Secretary of State for reinstatement within 5 years after the effective date of dissolution. Fetched directly from the statute text on Montana’s official code site. (Mont. Code Ann. § 35-14-1422(1))
What you must pay before it goes through
Montana will not reinstate the corporation until every year it sat delinquent is paid for. Before reinstatement, the corporation must submit: (1) a certificate from the Department of Revenue stating that all taxes imposed under Title 15 have been paid, (2) the filing fee, and (3) all annual reports not yet filed with the Secretary of State together with their related fees and penalties. (Mont. Code Ann. § 35-14-1422(2))
Whether your name is still yours
Your original name is not guaranteed to still be yours. An administratively dissolved corporation’s name is protected in the Secretary of State’s records for only 120 days after the effective date of dissolution. After that 120-day window, the name becomes available for use/registration by other entities, which can block reinstatement under the original name if someone else has taken it. Check Montana’s business-name database before assuming the reinstatement filing will go through under the old name. (Mont. Code Ann. § 35-14-401)
What the filing costs
Montana’s official fee-schedule PDF and SOS business/fees pages blocked access when this page was built, so the exact dollar reinstatement fee could not be independently confirmed from a primary source. Left null rather than using a formation-service-quoted number.
What this page does not answer
Reinstating the entity at the state level and squaring things up with the IRS are two separate processes. Late federal returns, penalty abatement requests, and reinstating a lapsed EIN’s associated accounts are governed by federal law, not by Montana’s corporation statute, and this page does not source them. We have the state-filing answer at primary and the federal-cleanup answer not at all.
This page covers a for-profit business corporation. If you are reinstating an LLC in Montana instead, the filing, fee and statute are different: see reinstating an LLC in Montana.
Sources
Every citation on this page is statutory or the Secretary of State’s own official filing instructions. No formation service, no registered-agent marketing page and no aggregator is cited anywhere in this cluster as a source of law; those are the only publishers of the competing versions.
- Mont. Code Ann. § 35-14-1422 (official code site): https://mca.legmt.gov/bills/mca/title_0350/chapter_0140/part_0140/section_0220/0350-0140-0140-0220.html
- Mont. Code Ann. § 35-14-401 (official code site): https://mca.legmt.gov/bills/mca/title_0350/chapter_0140/part_0040/section_0010/0350-0140-0040-0010.html