South Carolina Business Search

What the South Carolina business search shows

The South Carolina Business Entities Online finds a company by business name. It finds a company by business name. Use it to confirm a company exists and is active, not to get its federal number.

The South Carolina entity ID

The South Carolina Secretary of State gives every company an entity ID when it is formed. It identifies the company in state records, and it is not the company’s EIN.

Check if a South Carolina LLC is active

Search the company in the South Carolina business search and open its record. The status tells you whether the state counts the company as active. Words such as dissolved, revoked, forfeited, inactive or delinquent mean it is not in good standing, usually because an annual filing or fee was missed, and the company may need to be reinstated before it can do business there.

To prove a company is in good standing to a bank, a lender or another state, order a Certificate of Existence from the South Carolina Secretary of State. Our LLC status check reads the status from public data where a state publishes it.

Good to know in South Carolina

• South Carolina LLCs file no annual report unless they are taxed as a corporation. The Department of Revenue lists an LLC not taxed as a corporation as exempt from both the annual report and the corporate License Fee; an LLC that elects corporate taxation must send the CL-1 Initial Annual Report of Corporations to the Department within 60 days of commencing business in the state.
• In South Carolina the corporate annual report is part of the state income tax return filed with the Department of Revenue, not a separate filing with the Secretary of State. For an S corporation, including an LLC taxed as one, the annual report is Schedule D of the SC1120S.
• The Business License Tax Standardization Act requires every South Carolina city and county that levies a business license tax to issue licenses for the same twelve-month period, May 1 through April 30, and to accept renewals through a single business license tax portal run by the state Revenue and Fiscal Affairs Office, so a business licensed in several jurisdictions can renew them all in one place.
• The Department of Revenue identifies business tax accounts by a file number rather than by the EIN: for sales tax the file number is the Retail License Number, and for withholding it is the Withholding Number. A separate Retail License is required for each business location, and the license does not expire.

Questions

More for South Carolina companies

• South Carolina EIN lookup: where a company’s federal number can be found.
• EIN for a South Carolina business: what South Carolina asks for after the EIN.
• LLC name check and LLC status check.
• Business search in other states.