Looking for information on how to check for business name availability in Washington?
Or maybe, you’re looking to gather some information about a competing business?
Independent of what the reason is, all you need to do is a simple business entity search on Washington secretary of state website.
On this page, we’ve shared step by step instructions on how to carry out the search. Additionally, we’ve also tips to verify if the business name is legally valid or not and does it infringe any trademarks.
Before that, here are a few points you must know:
- Records of all the business entities (LLC, Corporation, Partnerships) are maintained by Corporations And Charities Filing System. CCFS is a subdivision of the Secretary of State.
- Business entity information is a matter of public records and is freely available on the SOS website.
- While researching a name for your business, make sure there is no trademark registered for the same name.
- Business owners need to create an account with CCFS to file annual reports or to file any amendments.
Washington Business Entity Search
You can conduct the search either by business name or Unified Business Identifier (UBI) number.
Additionally, there is an ‘Advanced Option’ which is best suited for conducting research on competitors.
Search By Name or UBI Number
Step 1: Open Washington Corporation & Charity Division page – Link.
Step 2: Next, scroll down to ‘Corporation Search’ section.
Step 3: Based on the information available, enter either the business name or UBI number (9 digits).
If you’re searching by name, choose the appropriate filter – Contains, Began With and Exact Match.
Step 4: Click on the ‘Search’ button.
Step 5: On the next page, you’ll be able to view the list of business entities matching the searched string.
Note: Search by UBI number, will show one valid result.
Step 6: Click on the desired business entity name to view detailed information about the business.
Following information pertaining to each business entity is available: Business Name, UBI#, Business Type, Principal Office, Address, Registered Agent Name, and Status.
How to check for Business Name Availability
Checking availability of a business name is a straightforward process. It involves a couple of steps and some amount of permutation and combination. The trick here is to find a unique name which is distinguishable enough compared to any existing business name.
Just follow this process:
Iteration #1: Exact match search
Example let’s say the name you selected is ‘Epic Web Media LLC‘.
Step 1: On the search page, enter the full name without the business endings like LLC or corporation. In this case, it will be ‘Epic Web Media’.
Step 2: Choose the filter as ‘Exact Match’ and click on ‘Search’ button.
Step 3: On the next page, if you see the message ‘No Values Found’, proceed to the next iteration. If you see a similar name, you would need to come with a different name.
Iteration #2: Partial Match search
Next repeat the search process, with just the combination of the prominent word in the name. Use ‘Contains’ search filter.
In this case, we will try searching the or following terms:
- Epic Media
- Epic Webmedia
- Web Media
- Webmedia
The aim of this process to find out if there are any closely similar names or not.
Luckily in this, case the name ‘Epic Web Media LLC‘ is available and it can be registered in Washington.
Final Step: Verify if there is any trademark infringement
On the search page, scroll to the trademark section. Enter the selected name and follow the same process (Iteration #1 & #2) shared above.
If you see ‘No results Found’ in each of the cases, the name is legally valid and you can go ahead.
Contact Information
If still have any query, you can contact the Secretary of State offie using any of the channels shared below.
| Address | Physical Address: Washington Secretary of State, Corporations Division, 801 Capitol Way South PO Box 40234, Olympia, WA 98504-0234Mailing Address: PO Box 40234 OLYMPIA WA 98504-0234 |
| Contact Number |
|
| Social Media | Twitter / FB |
| corps@sos.wa.gov | |
| Office Hours | 8 AM – 5 PM (Mon to Fri) Sat/Sun – Closed National Holidays – Closes |
Links & References
Last Updated: 17/01/2019
The post Washington Business Entity Search (LLC, Corporation, Partnership) appeared first on .
source https://businessentity.org/wa/washington-business-entity-corporation-search/
