Registered agents; directing the Secretary of State to collect and disburse registration fee. Effective date.
SB 580 revises Oklahoma’s filing-fee statute for corporations and related business entities, with a particular focus on the annual fee associated with acting as a registered agent. The bill amends 18 O.S. 2021, Section 1142, to state that the Secretary of State will collect and enforce the registered agent fee, rather than the Oklahoma Tax Commission, and that the fee is due annually on July 1. If the fee is not paid by September 1, the delinquent corporation is subject to suspension and forfeiture under the existing procedures referenced in Title 68. The bill also directs that money collected under this paragraph be deposited in the General Revenue Fund.
Beyond the registered-agent change, SB 580 largely restates and organizes the existing schedule of filing and service fees for corporate filings, including incorporation, amendments, mergers, foreign qualification, withdrawals, address changes, and information requests. It preserves the existing fee structure for domestic and foreign corporations, nonprofit corporations, and certain bulk filings, while also maintaining provisions for payment methods and convenience fees for electronic or telephonic transactions. The bill’s effective date is November 1, 2025.
The bill would shift administrative responsibility for collecting, auditing, and enforcing the registered agent fee from the Oklahoma Tax Commission to the Secretary of State, aligning that fee with other corporate filing functions handled by the Secretary of State. It would also confirm that registered-agent fee revenue is deposited into the General Revenue Fund. In practical terms, the measure affects corporations doing business in Oklahoma, registered agents, and the state agencies that administer corporate compliance and fee collection, while leaving most of the underlying filing-fee amounts unchanged.
The available legislative history shows no recorded committee debate or votes, so there is no documented opposition or support in the provided materials. Based on the bill’s content and caption, the measure appears administrative and technical in nature, suggesting a generally routine or neutral posture rather than a highly controversial policy change. The referral to Revenue and Taxation indicates the bill was treated as a revenue-administration matter.
The main point of potential contention is the transfer of collection and enforcement authority from the Oklahoma Tax Commission to the Secretary of State, which could raise questions about agency workload, administrative coordination, and enforcement responsibility. Another possible issue is the bill’s continuation of the suspension-and-forfeiture consequence for nonpayment of the registered agent fee, which may be viewed as a strong compliance mechanism by some and as burdensome by others. No specific stakeholder objections or amendments are reflected in the provided record.