Patrick,

Typically, any individual or entity residing or having offices in the state can serve as the Registered Agent. That means if you reside in the state where you form your company you can serve as the Registered Agent.

With that being said, even if you reside in the state of formation sometimes you might still want to use a commercial Registered Agent service. Here are some of the reasons why:

1. The purpose of Registered Agent is to be there if the company is being sued and a courier was sent to the Registered Office address to deliver the serving in person. This is why the official requirement for Registered Agent is to be available at the Registered Office address during business hours. Obviously if you are absent (for example you have a job and can’t sit home all day) you would miss the courier and might not receive the serving in time. Commercial Registered Agent is always there to accept the serving and then notify you via mail, fax and email, so you never loose critical time to respond to the law suit.

2. When you move you would have to amend your Registered Address with the state. Depending on the state each amendment could cost money and in general is one more thing to keep on your mind. When you maintain a commercial Registered Agent you don’t need to worry about amendments. You would still need to update your address with the Registered Agent, however it is free, and also the Registered Agent will attempt to reach you via email, fax, phone, and in general will worry about reaching you when your company was served.

As you can see in some cases commercial Registered Agent service might be worth the money.