Updated October 6, 2026 · 8 services tested
We tested 8 registered agent services for Vermont. Northwest Registered Agent is our pick: $125 first year, then $125/yr.
By Jon Morgan · Fact-checked by Jon Tobin, Business Attorney · How we test
Northwest Registered Agent
$125 first year, then $125/yrFree first year with its $39 LLCGet Northwest's agent service (opens in a new tab)
ZenBusiness
$99 first year, then $199/yrHalf price in year one when you switch to ZenBusiness (state fee extra)See ZenBusiness agent plan (opens in a new tab)
Harbor Compliance
$99 first year, then $159/yrFor new customersSee Harbor Compliance agent plan (opens in a new tab)Prices checked October 6, 2026.
We compared registered-agent pricing, documented features, and account observations for Vermont founders. Our tests covered different service steps by provider, including LLC formation and active-agent account access where available.
Northwest Registered Agent remains our top pick. ZenBusiness ranks second at 4.7/5 for its guided platform and stronger public customer-review score, while Harbor Compliance ranks third at 4.6/5 and remains a strong option for multi-state compliance.
Compare providers on the renewal price below, since that is the figure you pay every year after the first. the table lists providers in overall recommendation order and shows their recurring prices, and Vermont's own Annual Report fee stays completely separate from every number in it.
| Service | Agent price | RA bundled with formation | Service features | Score | Compare offers |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| $125 first year, then $125/yrFree first year with its $39 LLC | Yes (free first year with formation) | • Same-day scanning of legal mail • Handles switch-over paperwork for you • Home address kept off public filings | 4.9 | Get agent service (opens in a new tab) |
| $99 first year, then $199/yrHalf price in year one when you switch to ZenBusiness (state fee extra) | No (separately purchased; discounted first year with formation) | • Same-day scanning with an email alert • Address limited to legal and state mail • Never billed without a signup step | 4.7 | See plan (opens in a new tab) |
| $99 first year, then $159/yrFor new customers | No | • Same-day scanning, no per-document charge • Entity Manager tracks multi-state standing • Rate holds steady on a prepaid term | 4.6 | See plan (opens in a new tab) |
 | $124.99 first year, then $124.99/yrOnly with a Plus or Pro membership | No (Plus or Pro membership required; billed separately) | • Digital document delivery • Attorney consultations via membership • Paid Plus or Pro membership required | 4.5 | See plan (opens in a new tab) |
 | $249 first year, then $249/yr | No | • Documents scanned with time-sensitive alerts • Unlimited cloud storage • Not offered during formation checkout | 4.4 | See plan (opens in a new tab) |
 | $149 first year, then $149/yrFree first year with a Bizee LLC | Yes (free first year with formation) | • Dedicated tab for registered-agent mail • Free-year policy stated upfront on-site • Renewal billed apart from other tools | 4.3 | See plan (opens in a new tab) |
 | $596 first year, then $596/yrBilled $149 a quarter | No | • Scan posts within two to three hours • Personalized support representative • No formation purchase required first | 4.2 | See plan (opens in a new tab) |
Vermont Registered Agent Best Local Agent★ 3.9 / 5 | $49 first year, then $49/yrYear one included in its Vermont LLC package | No | • Same-day document delivery • In-state Shelburne, VT office • No hidden fees of any kind | 3.9 | See plan (opens in a new tab) |
Prices checked October 6, 2026.
Each score combines support, price, features, privacy and security, compliance alerts and user ratings.
Refund: 90 days
Northwest Registered Agent filed our test LLC's paperwork under its own address instead of ours, a standing policy the company calls Privacy by Default. That kept a founder's home address off the public filing.
Inside the account, the Registered Agent screen lists the entity's ID, the address on file and the exact renewal date. Legal mail and state notices get scanned with no yearly cap, unlike ordinary business mail.
Northwest Registered Agent also handles the switch-over paperwork for anyone arriving from a different provider, and the yearly price holds steady instead of climbing after the opening term.
Pros
Cons
Refund: 60 days
ZenBusiness never added this service to our formation order by default. The upsell screen asked first, and a second prompt inside the application repeated the choice with guidance based on the entity's own industry.
Skip both prompts and the compliance dashboard keeps an "Appoint ZenBusiness" button ready, so nothing bills by accident. The registered-agent service is purchased separately, with a discounted first year when paired with formation.
After the order went through, Velo AI, ZenBusiness's in-account assistant, posted a status update saying customer support would follow up if anything else was needed.
Pros
Cons
We walked through Harbor Compliance's order wizard instead of completing a purchase. Its order-summary screen listed the registered agent fee as its own yearly line, apart from the formation charge.
Its own team told us every customer also gets same-day scanning, direct Entity Manager access and alerts if a filing lapses. Compliance reminders arrive on their own, with no extra sign-up step.
The company says document storage in the account has no cap. It puts that detail on the page instead of leaving customers to find out from a support call.
Pros
Cons
Refund: 60 days
Rocket Lawyer runs two separate price tracks for this service, and which one a customer pays depends entirely on whether they already carry a Plus or Pro membership.
A company it owns outright, Rocket Lawyer Corporate Services LLC, actually handles this role.
Rocket Lawyer discloses that ownership openly instead of tucking it into fine print. Our own review found responsive phone support, with most issues settled fast.
The membership itself bills on its own separate schedule, apart from whatever the registered agent line costs that year.
Pros
Cons
Refund: 60 days
Our LegalZoom dashboard offered a compliance-filings feature right at checkout, one that files annual reports and amendments automatically. Registered agent service never appeared anywhere in that same flow.
Anyone who wants it has to seek it out and add it later. LegalZoom owns a subsidiary, United States Corporation Agents Inc., that handles the role instead of building it into the checkout.
The site doesn't publish a fixed renewal figure anywhere. Whatever a customer pays that first year simply repeats going forward, at the same purchase rate.
Pros
Cons
Open any card for the complete review, scores and packages.
Refund: Before state payment
The sidebar in Bizee's dashboard lists Registered Agent as its own named section under Company Details instead of folding it into a general settings menu.
First-year cost drops to nothing when this ships as part of an LLC order, and Bizee states that cost upfront instead of tucking it into fine print. Any document sent afterward triggers an email notice.
Standalone pricing and the year-two renewal both kick in once the free opening term ends, on their own separate charge line.
Pros
Cons
Refund: 60 days
No formation purchase is required to buy this service from Swyft Filings, which runs it through its own standalone dashboard with real-time status updates, according to our published review.
The company assigns a personalized support representative to each account rather than routing everyone through a general help desk.
Its own marketing stays narrow about the job itself: receiving documents, forwarding them and flagging compliance deadlines, with no state filings included.
Billing arrives every three months instead of once a year, a rhythm that adds up to a higher total than most single-payment competitors here.
Pros
Cons
A Shelburne office is home base for Vermont Registered Agent, which prices this service as a flat annual charge with no separate introductory rate that jumps later.
The company's own site states it enrolls customers in filing-deadline reminders and monitors compliance year-round, on top of forwarding service of process the moment it arrives. It serves as its own named agent on the filings it handles.
Its published terms rule out upsells or hidden fees of any kind, a promise stated directly on the pricing page rather than buried in a footnote.
Pros
Cons
Our testing methodology combines provider research with account observations where access was available.
The ZenBusiness test purchased LLC formation only, without activating its paid registered-agent service; the Harbor Compliance assessment covered direct Q&A and a pricing and signup-wizard walkthrough without a paid order.
We average six numeric categories equally to calculate each overall score, rounding the result to one decimal place. The separate Vermont Fit subsection adds context and is not a seventh numeric score.
ZenBusiness's six scores average 4.700/5; Harbor Compliance's average 4.633/5, giving displayed overall scores of 4.7 and 4.6, respectively.
This category shows the widest spread on the registry, with real distance between the top and bottom of the roster.
Northwest Registered Agent leads the group outright, with ZenBusiness and Harbor Compliance close behind on the next tier.
Renewal price matters more than the signup discount when comparing recurring costs. Harbor Compliance renews at $159 per year, compared with ZenBusiness at $199 per year, so Harbor earns the higher Price score: 4.7 versus 4.6.
Their current introductory rates both start at $99. Compare the final checkout total and any formation or multi-year conditions before deciding how much the first year will cost.
Northwest Registered Agent has the highest Features score at 4.8, while ZenBusiness and Harbor Compliance each score 4.7. Northwest's forms library and handling of agent-change paperwork add practical value beyond receiving documents.
Harbor Compliance's Entity Manager stands out for tracking registrations in multiple states, while ZenBusiness provides guided account tools through Velo. Those different strengths may matter more to an individual owner than the small numerical gap.
Northwest Registered Agent and Harbor Compliance share the highest Privacy and Security score at 4.9, while ZenBusiness scores 4.7.
We considered documented address-use policies and secure document handling alongside the account observations available to us.
An agent's address can replace a personal address in the registered-agent field, but it does not remove information required elsewhere on state filings.
ZenBusiness explicitly limits its agent address to legal and state mail, rather than general business correspondence.
Northwest Registered Agent and Harbor Compliance each score 4.9 for Compliance Alerts, while ZenBusiness scores 4.6. We considered the clarity and availability of deadline reminders; managed filing services, when offered, may carry a separate charge.
Public customer reviews are one input in our comparison, alongside service features and account observations. ZenBusiness earns a 4.8 User Ratings score; Harbor Compliance earns 3.9.
These are editorial category scores derived from the review snapshot checked on October 2, 2026, rather than ratings of a state-specific office.
ZenBusiness's score combines Trustpilot's 4.8/5 from 32,767 reviews and BBB's 4.04/5 from 817 customer reviews, weighted by review count. The result is 4.78/5, rounded to 4.8.
Harbor Compliance's score uses Trustpilot's 3.1/5 from 53 reviews, BBB's 1.0/5 from 8 customer reviews, and Birdeye's 4.2/5 from 245 Google reviews. The same weighting gives 3.93/5, rounded to 3.9.
Review counts and invitation practices differ across platforms, so these samples are not directly comparable measures of service quality.
BBB customer-review averages are separate from its business letter grades; Harbor's own site also reports a separate Google sample of 4.3/5 from 212 reviews.
The real local wrinkle here isn't the registered agent rule itself, since Vermont's statute largely mirrors what several other states require.
It's that Vermont skips the commercial-versus-noncommercial registered agent split entirely, a distinction plenty of other states build directly into their statute.
Every agent here, whether a national company or the in-state Vermont Registered Agent, follows one uniform rule.
Vermont's own Annual Report stays a separate cost from any registered agent's renewal price, filed within three months of the LLC's fiscal year end and due nowhere close to the provider's own billing date.
Small businesses make up 99 percent of Vermont's businesses and well over 62 percent of its employees [4]. Most readers here run exactly that kind of business.
Standalone annual rates among these providers start at $49 and reach about $249 per year, excluding quarterly billing, prepaid discounts and paid membership requirements.
ZenBusiness starts at $99 and renews at $199; Harbor Compliance starts at $99 and renews at $159.
Rocket Lawyer's $124.99 annual (the same in the first year and every year after) agent add-on requires a separately paid Plus or Pro membership, so its agent fee is not the whole recurring bill.
Swyft Filings bills $149 or more per quarter, which totals at least $596 across twelve months.
None of those numbers touch Vermont's own $45 Annual Report fee, owed to the Secretary of State's Business Services Division on a completely separate yearly schedule.
Skipping every provider on this page costs nothing at all, as long as an eligible Vermont resident takes on the role personally.
Anyone comparing full LLC formation services instead should check our Vermont LLC services guide, built from the same hands-on testing.
Vermont law names exactly who can serve in this role and what address rules apply. Here's the full list.
Yes. Vermont law requires every LLC and registered foreign LLC to designate and continuously maintain a registered agent with a Vermont street address.
A Vermont registered agent receives service of process and official state notices at a Vermont street address, then forwards them to the business.
Yes, if you are an individual Vermont resident with a qualifying street address. You can list yourself as the agent on the LLC's own filing.
Standalone annual rates on this list start at $49 and reach about $249, excluding prepaid discounts, with first-year promotions starting at $99.
Swyft Filings costs at least $596 first year, then $596/yr (billed $149 a quarter) when its quarterly bills are added together. Rocket Lawyer requires a paid membership in addition to the agent fee.
Filing a Statement of Change and paying the $25 fee switches your registered agent, done online or by mail through the Secretary of State.
Yes. LLCs file an Annual Report for $45 within three months after the fiscal year ends, a fee that's separate from any registered agent charge.
Every provider on this page keeps a customer's own address off the public Vermont filing. Yearly cost and how fast each one handles incoming documents actually separated them.
Northwest Registered Agent is the pick for a Vermont-only business that wants the simplest yearly math, with no multi-state complexity to plan around. Harbor Compliance is the strongest alternative for anyone running entities in more than one state.
If price is the only thing that matters, Vermont Registered Agent's flat $49 rate ($49 first year, then $49/yr) beats every other name on this page, as long as an in-state office is all you need.
ZenBusiness is our second overall choice at 4.7/5, combining guided account tools with the stronger public customer-review score.
Harbor Compliance ranks third at 4.6/5 and is still the specialist pick for owners tracking compliance across multiple states.
References
Our verdict
$125 first year, then $125/yr. 90-day money-back guarantee.
Prices checked October 6, 2026.