An integral part of forming a business is creating a unique name that will represent your brand and services. While this process can seem time-consuming, doing a business name search will take the edge off your decision-making. Not only will it give you an idea on which names have been taken, it will help you steer clear of copyright and trademark issues as well.
If your business is located in Michigan, you’ll be glad to know that doing a business name search is easy and quick. Here are the options and important points in doing a Michigan business search.
Michigan Business Entity Search Page
The first step you need to do is to access the Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs Corporations Online Filing System page, Michigan’s business entity search portal [1] . Once you’ve reached the page, you will then be allowed to search businesses by name, keyword, or identification number.
The information on this portal is duly compiled and produced by the State Secretary and is submitted by business owners as a part of their requirement to provide transparency to the public.
Here’s our guide to help you search in three different options.
Searching by Name
Step 1
On the business portal, select the option “Search Database by Name” at the topmost portion and enter a name on the blank field. Afterward, click “Search”.
Do note that this method will allow you to search for business entities which are most likely registered by a trusted LLC service.
Step 2
After loading, a list of results will appear on a separate page. You can then browse through the results and explore the names that are listed with corresponding ID numbers and type of business.
Step 3
If you want to know more about a specific company, click on the entity name on the leftmost side of the page.
Step 4
After selecting a name, you will then access all the pertinent details and information about the company. This includes the status of the company, their resident agent, office address, date of formation, among others.
Searching by Keyword
Step 1
Select the option “Search Database by Keyword”. On the blank box below the three options, enter your desired keywords and click “Search”.
Step 2
A page will then load all the names under the umbrella of the keywords you included in your search. You can find all the businesses under the “entity name” column in alphabetical order.
To access more details, click on a particular name which will link you to another page.
Step 3
If you’re directed to the said page, you will then see all the pertinent information and details made available by the state government about the company you’re interested in. You can identify its status, formation date, resident agent, and more.
Searching by Identification Number
Step 1
As the last search option on the list, select “Search Database by Identification Number”. Like in the previous options, encode the identification number on the blank field provided below and click “Search”.
Unlike the previous options above, searching with identification numbers will give you more refined results as ID numbers are unique to every business in the state.
Step 2
After clicking search, a new page will load and display all businesses with the corresponding business number, including active and inactive entities. Click on a business entity to know more about it.
Step 3
You will be directed to a page detailing all the pertinent information about the business. This includes their status, document images filed to the state, formation date, and more.
Name Availability Research
If you’re a business owner planning to file your name soon, it would be ideal to do availability research first to know which names are viable. The business name search in Michigan can be done in easy and simple steps, which is detailed down below:
Step 1
Head over to the Michigan Corporations Division Name Availability Search and enter your desired business name on the empty box beside “Name.” Select your entity type on the drop-down menu beside “Type.” After filling in everything, click the search bar.
Step 2
You will be directed to a page that details the search details of your desired business name. You will find out if your preferred business name is taken or not by looking into the “Results” section of the search results page.
If your name is unavailable, you will find “Name Not Available” in that section.
Conversely, if there are no issues, the same window will appear stating “No Conflict Found.”
