How Nevada's business registry works
A Nevada entity that misses a single annual filing doesn't just flip to inactive — it steps onto a named, time-triggered staircase. Default lands the day after the Annual List or State Business License is late. Revoked follows automatically once the entity has sat in Default for a year. Permanently Revoked comes after roughly five more years untouched. Separate terminal states — Dissolved, Withdrawn, Expired — sit outside that ladder. The Nevada Secretary of State's Commercial Recordings division runs the register, and you search it free through the SilverFlume portal at esos.nv.gov.
The Title 7 entity classes it covers — Profit and Nonprofit Corporations, the Limited-Liability Company (Nevada hyphenates it on the record), Limited Partnerships, LLPs, LLLPs, and Business Trusts — all file formation documents with the state and all owe that Annual List. The record itself is comparatively rich: entity name, type, formation date, registered agent, the officers or managers named on the most recent Annual List, filing history, and — unusually — the status of the entity's State Business License right alongside its charter status. Nevada bundles a mandatory statewide business license into the same filing as the Annual List, so the registry tracks two compliance signals per entity, not one.
One thing to get right early: Nevada assigns every entity two identifiers. The Entity Number is the Secretary of State's internal ID. The NV Business Identification Number is the cross-agency ID used with the Department of Taxation and local governments. They are not interchangeable, and code that keys on the wrong one will silently mismatch.
BizVerify ships quick checks for Nevada today — name, entity type, jurisdiction ID, and that staircase status — on the hot path. The search surface is free; certificates and certified copies are where Nevada charges.
What Nevada specifically charges and requires
Formation
A Nevada LLC costs $425 to stand up, and that number is three filings, not one: $75 for the Articles of Organization, $150 for the Initial List of Managers or Members, and $200 for the State Business License — all filed together. A profit corporation's Articles of Incorporation fee is not flat; it scales with the value of authorized stock under NRS 78.760, from a $75 floor up to a $35,000 ceiling.
| Filing | Fee |
|---|---|
| LLC Articles of Organization | $75 |
| Initial List of Managers/Members | $150 |
| State Business License — LLC | $200 |
| State Business License — corporation | $500 |
| Corp Articles of Incorporation | $75–$35,000 by authorized stock |
| Name reservation (90 days) | $25 |
| Expedite — 24-hour / 2-hour / 1-hour | $125 / $500 / $1,000 |
Annual obligations
Every Nevada entity files an Annual List and renews its State Business License on the last day of its anniversary month. For an LLC that's $150 + $200 = $350 a year; for a corporation it's $150 + $500 = $650. Miss it and a $75 late fee lands on the list plus a $100 penalty on the license — and the status clock starts: Default immediately, Revoked after a year.
Registered agent
Every entity must keep a Nevada registered agent, and the agent's name and address sit on the free public record. Nonprofit corporations under NRS Chapter 82 and Corporations Sole under Chapter 84 are the notable carve-outs from the State Business License requirement — they still file, but owe no license fee.
Common ways developers use Nevada verification
Verify-before-act in AI agents
An AI agent handling vendor research pulls a Nevada LLC name from a CRM field. Before it issues a payment or signs a document, it calls verify_business({ entity_name, jurisdiction: "us-nv" }) through the BizVerify MCP server. A Default or Revoked result routes to a human instead of proceeding on a lapsed entity. The same call runs from Claude Code, Cursor, or LangChain.
Marketplace seller onboarding
Nevada is a common pick for solo operators — no state income tax, fast formation. A marketplace verifying a new seller's stated LLC can confirm it exists and reads Active, not sitting in Default, before enabling payouts. Wire the check into n8n or Zapier so it fires on signup.
Compliance-staircase monitoring for portfolios
Investor tooling and fund admins hold Nevada entities as deal vehicles. A quick check on every reconciliation pass separates Default — a recoverable missed Annual List — from Revoked, where a full year has lapsed and reinstatement gets expensive. The status string tells you how urgent the cleanup is before a capital call goes out.
Counterparty checks before contracts
Nevada is where founders park holding companies and asset-protection LLCs, with the operating company often elsewhere. When a Nevada entity is named as the counterparty on an invoice, a SAFE, or an assignment, a quick check confirms it's real and Active before signature. The KYB pipeline guide covers wiring it into a review flow.
Frequently asked questions
What's the difference between Default, Revoked, and Permanently Revoked?
They're three rungs of the same ladder, separated by time. Default means the entity missed its Annual List or State Business License — recoverable by filing the missing items plus a penalty. Revoked means it stayed in Default for a full year; the charter is gone and reinstatement costs more. Permanently Revoked comes roughly five years later — it can't be reinstated, only revived via a Certificate of Revival. Treat anything past Active as not-in-good-standing, but read the exact string for urgency.
Does a Nevada quick check tell me about the State Business License?
The quick check returns the entity's charter status — Active, Default, Revoked, and so on. Nevada's State Business License status is a second compliance axis the registry tracks on the same record; surfacing it as its own field is part of deep verification on the roadmap. For most verify-before-act flows the charter status is the signal you need, since a lapsed license is what pushes an entity into Default in the first place.
Which Nevada identifier do you return — Entity Number or NV Business ID?
The jurisdiction_id in a Nevada response is the Secretary of State's Entity Number. Nevada also issues an NV Business Identification Number for cross-agency use with the Department of Taxation and local governments — a different value. If you're reconciling against tax or licensing records, don't expect the Entity Number to match; they're distinct identifiers by design.
How current is Nevada entity data?
Status changes propagate as fast as the SilverFlume record updates — there's no nightly snapshot sitting between the source and your response. The trade-off is that p95 latency tracks the registry's own responsiveness, so a slow stretch at the Secretary of State becomes a slow stretch for you.
Do you handle foreign entities registered in Nevada?
Yes. Out-of-state entities qualified to transact business in Nevada appear in the register with the same status vocabulary as domestic entities, and the entity_type field reflects the registered form. A foreign entity that ends its Nevada registration reads Withdrawn — distinct from Dissolved, which means the entity itself was wound down.
Can I verify thousands of Nevada entities at once?
Yes — call /v1/verify in parallel. There's no separate bulk endpoint; concurrency is rate-limited per API key, not per jurisdiction. For large backfills, contact us and we'll raise your concurrency ceiling.
Do I get charged for a Nevada entity that doesn't exist?
A confirmed "no match" still counts as a quick check (1 credit, ~$0.08 on public pricing) — the verification ran and proved the entity isn't on the Nevada register. Hard errors from the registry side (timeouts, 5xx) don't consume credits.