Northwest Registered Agent is a registered agent and LLC formation service that operates in all 50 states. They charge $125/year per state for registered agent service and $39 plus state fees for LLC formation. They have been in business for over 25 years, are family-owned, and have roughly 1,500 employees and offices in every state.
We recommend them as the primary registered agent option across this site. Here is why, where they fall short, and who should consider alternatives.
Northwest accepts legal and government documents on behalf of your LLC. When a document arrives at their office, they scan it and send it to you electronically, usually within the same business day. This includes service of process (lawsuit papers), annual report reminders, tax notices, and compliance letters from the Secretary of State.
If you form your LLC through them, they handle preparing and filing your Articles of Organization, provide a registered agent for the first year at no extra charge, and use their business address on your public filings instead of your home address.
Flat pricing with no upsells. The checkout process is clean. $125/year for registered agent service. $39 plus state fees for formation. They do not push you into tiered packages or pre-check add-ons. This is unusual in the industry. Most competitors (LegalZoom, ZenBusiness) use aggressive upsell flows during checkout.
Privacy by default. Northwest uses their own business address on your LLC public filings. Your home address stays off the Secretary of State records. They do not sell your data to third-party marketers. This means fewer spam calls after you form your LLC. Most budget services sell your filing data the day it hits the state database.
Physical offices in every state. This matters because a registered agent must have a real street address in each state where they accept service. Some budget services use virtual addresses or mail forwarding that technically may not qualify. Northwest owns or leases actual office space in all 50 states.
Human support. They call their support team Corporate Guides. These are US-based staff who answer the phone during business hours (Monday through Friday, 6 AM to 5 PM Pacific). No chatbots. You can request the same representative on follow-up calls.
No weekend support. If you have an urgent compliance question on a Saturday, you are waiting until Monday. For most LLC owners this does not matter. State filing offices are also closed on weekends.
Cancellation process. Multiple user reviews mention that cancelling service requires contacting them directly rather than a simple online toggle. This is a common complaint across the industry, not unique to Northwest, but worth noting.
Free trial auto-renewals. Their formation package includes free trials for digital services (domain, email, phone). These auto-renew if you do not cancel them. The core registered agent service is straightforward, but watch for these add-ons if you signed up for formation and do not need the extras.
If your LLC is foreign qualified in multiple states, you pay $125/year per state for registered agent service. A 3-state LLC pays $375/year. A 5-state LLC pays $625/year. There is no published multi-state discount.
This is where the total cost of multi-state compliance adds up. The registered agent fee is only part of it. Each state also charges its own annual report fee and possibly a franchise tax. Our state filing guides show the full breakdown for every state, including filing fees, annual obligations, and year 1 total costs.
The registered agent fee is a fixed, predictable line item. The state fees are what vary. Use our foreign qualification wizard to see exact costs for your specific states.
Northwest is not the cheapest option on this list. Harbor Compliance charges $99/year and Registered Agents Inc starts at $100/year. The difference is that Northwest includes privacy protection (their address on your filings) and formation services as a package. If you are comparing only registered agent service, the price gap is $25 to $26/year. If you factor in the formation package and privacy features, Northwest is competitive or cheaper than alternatives that charge separately for each piece.
Northwest is the right choice if you want a single provider for registered agent service across multiple states, you value keeping your home address off public records, and you want human support when you have a question. It is a straightforward, mid-priced service that does not try to be everything.
If your priority is the absolute lowest registered agent cost and you do not care about privacy features, Harbor Compliance at $99/year or being your own agent (free) are both reasonable alternatives.
Answer 3 questions to find out if your LLC requires foreign qualification.
Northwest covers all 50 states at $125/year per state.