Service of Process

It is a legal term. It means delivery of legal documents to people or entities authorized to receive them.

The Agent accepts service of process for certain entities in our records. Examples of entities in our records are corporations and LLCs. After accepting service, the Agent forwards the documents to the last known address of the entity’s Principal Office.

No, we can only serve business entities.

• When the status of the company you want to serve is “withdrawn” or “revoked” on the Secretary of State’s website;
• When the Registered Agent is listed as “Agent Resigned-Office Discontinued”; or
• When you have tried to serve the Registered Agent and the service was not accepted. You must make an attempt to serve the Registered Agent before using the Secretary of State as a process agent.

You need to send us:

• A cover letter explaining what you want us to do;
• Proof you tried to serve the business’ Registered Agent;
• Name, address, phone number and email for the person sending the documents to be served;
• 2 copies of all documents you want us to serve; and
• The $10.00 fee for each document being served on the business.

• Mailing Address
  • NC Department of the Secretary of State
    Attn: Service of Process Agent
    PO Box 29622
    Raleigh, NC 27626-0622
• Street Address
  • NC Department of the Secretary of State
    Attn: Service of Process Agent
    2 South Salisbury Street
    Raleigh, NC 27601

We don’t accept e-filing for service of process.

No. The Secretary of State can serve only business entities that are registered with the Secretary of State.

We serve them within 2-3 business days after we get them from you.

• We’ll send you a copy of the letter we sent when we served the documents.
• We’ll send you whatever we get back from the US Postal Service:
  • The return receipt card; or
  • The undelivered documents.

It depends on how many documents you want served. The fee is $10.00 for every document we serve.

There are 3 reasons we may not have served your documents:

• You didn’t include the fee or paid too little;
• You didn’t include 2 copies of each document we were supposed to serve; and
• You want us to serve a business that is not in our records.

Yes. You can search by either the Docket Number or our file number.

No. If you want to serve the Secretary of State with legal documents, you need to serve the Department’s agent for the service of process. The name of that agent is always on file with the NC Department of Justice. To serve the Department, serve:

Ann Wall, General Counsel
NC Department of the Secretary of State
PO Box 29622
Raleigh, NC 27626-0622