How to Change Your Registered Agent in Texas

Texas gives you one specific form for swapping registered agents, charges $15 to process it for an LLC, and records the change in your entity's public file. The paperwork is genuinely simple. What matters is doing the steps in the right order so your company is never left without an agent on record.

Form 401: The Statement of Change of Registered Office/Agent

The filing that changes your agent is the Statement of Change of Registered Office/Agent, Form 401, submitted to the Texas Secretary of State. You can download the official form as a PDF from the Secretary of State. A few things worth knowing before you fill it out:

The fee is $15 for an LLC Nonprofit corporations and cooperative associations pay $5 instead, but for the typical LLC or for-profit company the state charges $15. If you pay by credit card, the statutorily authorized 2.7 percent convenience fee gets added on top.

Your new agent has to consent Under Tex. Bus. Orgs. Code § 5.207, the person or company you designate must have agreed to serve, in writing or electronically. The state publishes Form 401-A as its consent form. When you hire us, we take care of the consent as part of signup.

The statutes behind the filing Section 5.201 of the Business Organizations Code establishes the registered agent and registered office requirement, and § 5.202 authorizes the statement of change you are about to file.

Steps to Change Your Registered Agent in Texas

1. Line up the new agent first. Texas accepts an individual who resides in the state or an organization registered to do business in Texas, and your company cannot name itself.
2. Secure the new agent's consent, written or electronic, as § 5.207 requires. Form 401-A is the state's consent document; our consent comes with your signup.
3. Complete Form 401 with your entity name, file number, and the incoming agent's name and Texas street address.
4. Submit the form to the Texas Secretary of State with the $15 fee, either on paper or electronically through the SOSDirect system. Card payments carry the 2.7 percent convenience fee.
5. Look up your entity afterward and confirm the new agent appears in the record before you release the old one.

Why Companies Make the Switch

Your home address is sitting in a public database When you or a family member serves as agent, that address shows on the Secretary of State's records for anyone to find. Moving to a commercial agent replaces it with ours.

The current agent is not doing the job Documents forwarded late, scans that never arrive, phone calls into the void. An agent who fumbles service of process can leave you learning about a lawsuit after the response clock has run.

The person you named is no longer available Employees leave, partners retire, people move out of state. The agent obligation requires someone reliably present at a Texas address during business hours, and life gets in the way of that.

You are simply overpaying Plenty of national providers bill well north of $200 a year for the same statutory role we fill for $99. The state does not care which agent you use, so the extra spend buys you nothing.

How We Make the Change Painless

Sign up and we immediately hand you everything Form 401 asks about the new agent: our name, our Texas registered office address, and our consent to serve. You file the form with the state, pay the $15, and the switch is done once the Secretary of State processes it. From that day forward we accept your legal documents and state mail, scan them the same day, and post them to your secure portal.

If anything about the form confuses you along the way, our team answers questions during business hours. Most clients wrap up the whole change in a single sitting.

Ready for a Better Agent?

For $99 per year you get a Texas registered office that never moves, same-day document scanning, compliance reminders, and a home address that stays off the public record. The only money the state ever sees for the switch is the $15 filing fee for Form 401.

Order today and you will have everything needed to file your change before the end of the day.