What the 50 states publish: every record system, mapped.

Why map the states

Much of what a deal team needs to know about a private company in the United States is kept by a state, not by Washington: whether the company exists and who formed it, who has lent against its assets, whether it has been sued, what land it owns and which licenses it holds. Each state keeps these records its own way, in its own offices, on its own systems. A search that works in one state can miss the record entirely in the next.

So we mapped them: 719 state record systems across all 50 states, between 11 and 20 for each state, each with the agency that runs it, the records it holds and whether it could be reached when last checked¹. Of the 719, 587 were confirmed live, 73 are documented but not yet verified, 42 are restricted and 17 need an account or key¹. For the two records almost every search starts with, the company register and the UCC lien index, we also read each state's own site again on October 28, 2026; the table links the page we read for each one.

Company registers: all 50, not always the Secretary of State

Every state publishes a register of the companies formed or registered there. In 41 states it is kept by the Secretary of State's office or its equivalent: the Secretary of the State in Connecticut, the Secretary of the Commonwealth in Massachusetts, and the departments of state in Delaware, Florida, New York and Pennsylvania. In the other 9 it is somewhere else: the Arizona Corporation Commission, the State Corporation Commission in Virginia, the commerce departments of Alaska and Utah, Hawaii's Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, Maryland's Department of Assessments and Taxation, Michigan's Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs, New Jersey's Division of Revenue and Enterprise Services, and Wisconsin's Department of Financial Institutions.

Liens: one rule, kept in different places

A lender that takes a company's equipment, receivables or inventory as collateral can give public notice of its claim by filing a UCC financing statement, and each state's version of the Uniform Commercial Code names the office where the filing goes. In 38 states that office is the Secretary of State's or its equivalent. In the other 12 it is not, and a few of them are worth knowing by name.

In Georgia, a filing goes to any county clerk of superior court, who has 24 hours to send it to the state's clerks' cooperative authority, which then has 24 hours to add it to the statewide index². In Oklahoma, most filings for the whole state go to one county office: the Oklahoma County Clerk, which describes itself as the centralized and exclusive filing location for the state³. In Louisiana, most financing statements are filed with the clerk of court of any parish (titled vehicles and some vessels go to other offices)⁴, a certified search is requested from one of the Clerk of Court offices, and the Secretary of State offers the statewide database by subscription⁵. Florida's filings sit in the Florida Secured Transaction Registry, set up under chapter 679 of the Florida Statutes⁶. Alaska keeps its UCC index in the Recorder's Office of the Department of Natural Resources, Hawaii in its Bureau of Conveyances, and Washington in its Department of Licensing.

In 9 states the company register and the UCC filing office are different offices: Alaska, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Louisiana, Michigan, Oklahoma and Washington. A team that confirms a company where it was formed and assumes the liens sit in the same office will look in the wrong place in each of them.

Federal tax liens turn on the same state choice. The Internal Revenue Code has a notice of lien on a business's personal property filed in the one office within the state (or a county or other subdivision) that state law designates, and treats a corporation or partnership as located where its principal executive office is⁷. Where that office is the UCC filing office, federal tax liens are filed there too, though they may sit in a separate index. Our map holds tax or judgment lien records for 8 states. In 6 of them (Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, New York, North Dakota and Virginia) the state's UCC filing office also offers a search of tax liens, federal or state, beside its UCC records, each linked in the table. In Florida, judgment liens and federal lien registrations sit with the Division of Corporations, apart from the UCC registry, and in New Jersey, judgment liens are in the courts' case search.

Courts, property and licenses

Courts: in 38 states our map holds a statewide case search run by the judiciary. In 11 it holds only part of the picture, an appellate docket or the courts of some counties. In Texas it holds the judiciary's court statistics but no case search.

Property: Hawaii stands apart. Its Bureau of Conveyances runs a single statewide recording system, one of two in the nation by its own account, and records over 344,000 documents and maps a year⁸. In 28 states our map holds a statewide parcel map or parcel data service published by a state office. A parcel map is a map, not the deed record, so ownership and liens still have to be checked in the recorded documents.

Licenses and the rest: every state has at least one license lookup in our map, for professions, contractors or permits. The map holds the state securities regulator's public records or pages in 49 states and campaign finance filings in 45.

How to read the table

Each row is one state. The company register and UCC columns name the office that keeps each record, each linked to the state page we read on October 28, 2026. The next columns show what else our map holds for the state: "Statewide" or "Yes" where it holds a state system, "Partial" where it holds only some courts, "With UCC" where tax liens are searched with the UCC filings, "Separate" where lien records sit in another office, and "Not mapped" where it holds none yet. Not mapped is a gap in our map, not proof that the state publishes nothing. The last column counts the systems the map holds for the state.

The table shows where each record lives, not how to query it. Search pages move, fees change and some systems ask for an account, so the office is the part that lasts. For how each number here is kept checkable, see how a long report stays auditable; for reading the investors behind a company, see is this an investor?.