$596 a Year Is Almost Three North Carolina Annual Reports

Full disclosure in one line: North Carolina Registered Agent.co produced this page, charges $99 annually for the agent seat, and gains directly if you act on it. The Swyft Filings numbers belong to Swyft, were pulled from published rates during a July 2026 review, and appear here without adjustment.

The Case for Quarterly

Being fair to the structure first. $149 every three months is a smaller demand on a bank balance than one annual charge, and for a young company watching cash week to week, that is not nothing. Some buyers genuinely prefer to pay in pieces. Swyft also states the interval plainly, so nobody is being deceived about how often the card gets charged.

The Case for Multiplying First

Four quarters at $149 annualizes to roughly $596 for one year of registered agent service. That is the number any honest comparison needs, and it is not the number on the order screen, because order screens display the interval you are agreeing to rather than the year you are committing to. No opening discount surfaced in our July 2026 look that would change the total.

North Carolina supplies a useful yardstick. The annual report this state charges LLCs is $200 base, widely regarded as one of the steepest in the country, and owners here complain about it every April. A year of Swyft agent billing runs to almost three of those reports. One filing obligation that everybody grumbles about, times three, for having somebody stand at an address.

Roughly $497 a year of difference between the first row and the third, and the state's toll for capturing it is on the last line.

One Invoice, $99

There is no interval to convert here. You are billed once a year, the amount is $99, and next year's amount is $99. Around that:

• Served documents scanned on the day of delivery and posted to your portal, an email alert riding with them
• Our street address filling the registered office line so your own address stays off the public record
• Reminders ahead of the April 15 report deadline
• $15 per item if you want routine business mail scanned too, which is the only optional charge we have

Details are on the pricing page.

Cheapest in the state is not a claim we are making, least of all on a page about doing arithmetic honestly. BetterLegal publishes $90 a year. Ours is $99, near the bottom of the flat yearly range quoted for North Carolina, and it stays there for as long as you hold the service.

Off the Quarterly Plan: Every Step North Carolina Requires

The form. BE-06, the state's statement of change. It handles a new registered office, a new registered agent, or both changes in one submission.

The fee. $5, stated on the form itself.

Where it goes. The Secretary of State's office, which keeps North Carolina's entity records, by online filing or PDF upload.

Why there is only one form. Article 4 of Chapter 55D holds this state's registered agent law, and it reaches LLCs, corporations, nonprofits, and partnerships in a single sweep. The Model Registered Agents Act was never taken up here, so the shared chapter is a local invention. The practical result is that no entity type gets a special version of the filing.

Who can take the seat. A person who lives in North Carolina, or an authorized business entity whose own office operates out of the exact address being listed as your registered office. Your company cannot appoint itself, though a member who is a North Carolina resident may serve in a personal capacity, accepting that a home address then becomes public and somebody has to be present at it during business hours.

The address. A real street location in North Carolina. A post office box may be added as a mailing address but cannot occupy the registered office line.

The order of operations. This is where quarterly billing sets a trap. The instinct is to time everything to a quarter boundary so no paid period goes to waste, which leads owners to cancel first and file afterward. The state record does not know your billing cycle. Until BE-06 is processed, Swyft Filings is still your agent of record and still where courts and the state send everything. Sign the replacement, file the form, confirm the entity record has changed, and cancel last. That way the appointment is continuously held and nothing is delivered to a company you no longer employ.

Start when the third invoice of the year appears, not after the fourth.

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