West Virginia Says an LLC May Keep an Agent. LegalZoom Asks $249.

Disclosure belongs ahead of the argument. This page is published by West Virginia Registered Agent.co, which sells registered agent service in this state for $99 annually and stands to gain from any switch it persuades. The LegalZoom amounts are that company's own published prices, recorded during a July 2026 review.

What the LegalZoom Name Provides

Recognition, and recognition has value. LegalZoom is the most widely known brand in consumer legal services, familiar to bankers, accountants, and business partners in a way no competitor on this page can match. An owner who would rather not explain who their agent is has bought something with that fee, and the purchase is not irrational. Nothing below disputes it.

$249 Annually, Renewing Without Prompting

That is the published rate, it renews automatically, and the July 2026 review found no introductory reduction anywhere in their materials. One point in their favor: the amount in the opening year is the amount in the sixth, which several cheaper-looking providers cannot claim. The objections are the size of the figure and the automatic nature of the renewal, which together mean the largest agent charge in this comparison recurs without requiring a decision from the person paying it.

The Statute Is Permissive

West Virginia drafted its provision with a verb most states did not use. Section 31B-1-108 provides that a limited liability company may keep both a designated in-state office and an agent authorized to accept service. Not shall. Where no agent is kept, the Secretary of State stands as statutory attorney-in-fact for the company and receives process in its place.

Two conclusions follow, and only one of them helps us. The first is that no honest page can tell a West Virginia owner the law compels this purchase, and this one will not. The second is that the fallback is a real arrangement with real friction. Service filed against a company with no listed agent enters an administrative queue, is recorded there, and then travels onward to whichever address the state holds, at a pace set by no one's response deadline and on a record any member of the public can search. A private appointment replaces that route with direct delivery, same-day scanning, and a commercial address in place of the owner's own.

Which makes $249 a year the price of one particular version of that arrangement. It is not the price of compliance, because West Virginia never billed for compliance in the first place.

Our Terms

Ninety-nine dollars per year, with the renewal figure identical to the first. The rate covers a West Virginia street address occupying the public filing, same-day scanning and email delivery of every document received, continuous dashboard access to the full correspondence history, and compliance alerts timed to the state's filing calendar. One product appears at checkout. Nothing is tiered and nothing escalates.

A qualification is owed here. BetterLegal publishes $90 per year, beneath our figure by nine dollars, so the fair characterization of $99 is among the lowest flat annual rates available in this state. Full detail sits on the pricing page.

Ending the LegalZoom Appointment in West Virginia

A single instrument accomplishes it: Form AAO, the state's combined change application, filed at the Business & Licensing Division for $15, carrying the incoming agent's signed consent on the face of the document. Our change of agent page sets out the fields, the entity-type selection, and the online option.

One ordering rule applies. Engage the replacement before filing, because the successor's details form part of the same document that removes LegalZoom, and cancel the LegalZoom account only after the state has posted the update. A lapse does not leave a West Virginia company without a lawful recipient for process, given the statutory fallback described above. It leaves the company's documents arriving somewhere the owner no longer monitors, which is the outcome the fee was meant to prevent.

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