How to search the Illinois business entity database

The Department of Business Services database covers five kinds of entity: corporations, not-for-profit corporations, limited partnerships, limited liability companies and limited liability partnerships. If a business is on file with the Secretary of State, it is in there.

A sole proprietor or a general partnership trading under an assumed name is not. Those register with the county clerk where the business operates, so the state database will not show them however carefully you search. That difference is explained in our guide to Illinois assumed names.

The State allows individual lookups only. Its own wording: the database "may not be used to copy or download bulk information searches."

The search offers eight methods, and picking the right one is most of the skill. The default, Business Name, wants the name close to exact; the looser options are the ones that find what you are actually looking for.

An Illinois entity name has to be distinguishable from every name already on the register, so a search is the cheap way to find out that your first choice is gone. Search the keyword, not the full name: "Prairie" tells you more than "Prairie Logistics Group LLC", because it surfaces the near-misses that will cost you a rejected filing.

A clear search result is not a reservation and not an approval. The name stays available to anybody until a filing is accepted, and whether two names are distinguishable is decided by the Secretary of State when your articles are reviewed, not by how the list looks to you. If a name matters, form the entity promptly or reserve it.

A search is not a trademark check either. Two businesses can hold similar names on the Illinois register while a trademark question is decided somewhere else entirely.

The same search is how your company looks to a bank, a landlord, a payment processor or a customer who wants to check you exist. It is worth looking at your own record once a year, because the parts that go stale are the parts other people use to judge you: the registered agent and office address, the officers or managers listed, and whether the annual report is current.

If the record shows a registered agent you no longer use, or an address you have left, state mail is going somewhere you will not see it. That is the usual route to a missed annual report and a company that quietly stops being in good standing.

A blank result usually means one of four things, in this order: the name is spelled differently on the register than in your head, the entity type is one the state database does not hold, the business is registered with a county rather than the State, or the entity really does not exist.

Work down that list before concluding a company is not real. Try Keyword and Partial Word, drop punctuation and the LLC or Inc suffix, and search a distinctive word rather than the whole name.