In a study done by WalletHub, Washington state came in first in terms of state economies. Not only does it have the best economic activity, but it also has fantastic economic health and innovation potential. This means that if you’re looking for excellent business opportunities, you’ll definitely find them in Washington.
You can’t just jump straight into creating a company though; first, you need to check if your desired business name is available. To do this, you’ll have to carry out a Washington business entity search.
In this article, we’ll give you a few ways to do a business search in WA so you’ll feel confident picking a company name.
Washington Secretary of State Business Entity Search
The Secretary of State is typically the person you’d seek out when you want to research business names. They’re responsible for all filings, so it makes sense that you’ll get a comprehensive overview of what’s available.
First, you’ll go to the Washington Secretary of State’s website and navigate to the Washington Corporation Search page. You’ll see customer login section at the top, but just scroll down past it.
In the section named “Corporation search,” you can type in the business name in the first blank. Above it, you can select “contains,” “begins with,” or “exact match.” We’d suggest using “contains” to cast a wider net.
If you’re starting a charity, fundraiser, or trust, you’ll use the section below named “Charity/fundraiser/trust search.” Here, you’d click on “organization name,” and you can search in the same manner as with the “Corporation search” option.
To narrow things down further, you can click on “Advanced search.” This gives you other options such as:
- Business type
- Business status
- Expiration date
- Date of incorporation/formation/registration
- Registered agent/governor search
- Agent address
The Results
After you’re satisfied with the search parameters, you can click on “Search.” This will take you to another page that shows results if there are any. The fields shown are:
- Business name
- UBI number
- Business type
- Principal office address
- Registered agent name
- Status
Want to find out more about a certain company? Then click on its name. Here, you’ll see its:
- UBI number
- Status
- Category
- State of incorporation
- Expiration date
- Filing date
- Registered agent
- Governing persons
Google Search
Finding out that your desired business name isn’t taken through an official state of Washington business entity search is great. However, you shouldn’t stop there; you can easily corroborate your findings by doing a WA business entity search on Google or any other search engine.
It’s as simple as typing in the company name into the search bar, alongside “Washington state” (it’s important to include “state” to differentiate between the state and Washington, DC). If you’d like, you can also include city names by doing several searches.
Whatever you choose, you should scour the results pages. You might just happen upon businesses that have similar or identical names, but haven’t registered them formally with the Secretary of State yet.
On the other hand, the name seems quite unique and untaken, you should register social media handles and reserve the domain name. This will make it easier for you to do branding later on.
Business Anywhere Business Search Tool
Here at Business Anywhere, we offer a free business registration service. On our site, you can view other services you may want in addition to basic registration, and you can add them a la carte. Once you check out, you only pay for those services and the state registration fees.
But before you do that, scroll to the top of the page and you’ll see a search bar where you can do a Washington business search. You can enter your desired company name, select LLC, PLLC, or corporation from the dropdown menu, and then click on “Check availability.”
You’ll instantly see if you can register the name yourself. You can then either stop at this point or click back to do another search (you can do this as much as you want for free).
We run a no-obligations business search tool, but if you’re interested in using our services, you can fill in your contact details on the results page. After submitting, you’ll hear back from us shortly.
Always Do a Washington Business Entity Search
A Washington business entity search is free to do, so there’s no harm in carrying one out before you try to register a company. There’s a good chance that someone has already taken a similar or identical name, and if you try to do the same, you risk serious legal consequences in the future.
So protect yourself and take some extra time to look up business records and check with search engines and tools. This can pave the road for a much smoother experience.
Sign up with Business Anywhere today to start using our services. We can be your registered agent for very affordable prices.
