Businesses are increasingly registering in Wyoming. Tens of thousands are coming every year.
Whitney Ward tracks these registrations for Registered Agents Inc., based in Sheridan. She spoke with Wyoming Public Radio’s Hanna Merzbach about what she’s seeing on the ground.
Editor’s Note: This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.
Hanna Merzbach: To start, tell me: What is a registered agent?
Whitney Ward: A registered agent is a point of contact for any business in order to legally do business in any state in the U.S. That means that at any given time during regular business hours all year long, someone has to be available at that location to accept legal documents, service of process, court summons, subpoenas, lawsuits, that type of thing. [This is ] so that the person who is selling Etsy jewelry at home doesn't have to be at home 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. every single day, just in case some legal document needs to be served.
HM: So you're not allowed to just put your own address and accept your own mail?
WW: You absolutely are. You can serve as your own registered agent. However, that puts you at great risk of having your personal information permanently on public records.
People have come to realize that even if you want to be in business for yourself, that doesn't necessarily mean that you want to put your personal property, your family [or] yourself at risk, either for online scams and financial losses, credit reporting or just having people show up at your house that you're not expecting.
HM: Your company tracks business formations nationwide, and so far, we've been having a record-breaking year in Wyoming and around the country. Tell me, what are we specifically seeing in the Cowboy State?
WW: For this most recent month, which was May, there were at least 23,224 formations.
That's so far for Wyoming, which is definitely the home to the most LLC formations when we're talking about per capita. It has just seen exponential growth.
I think a lot of it, in recent years, has to do with the end of COVID. Across the board, across the nation, we saw just an explosion of small business formations after March of 2023. People started to realize the benefits of maybe not having a 9-to-5 small business of your own, but maybe something on the side that could supplement whatever it was that you were trying to do.
We've seen a lot of changes since then as well. Big companies are doing layoffs. They're investing in AI. People, again, are realizing the necessity of having something that can give them flexibility and financial independence that isn't reliant on some other company or some other person.
HM: That's interesting that uncertainties in the job market and high costs of living can actually lead to potentially more businesses.
WW: Absolutely. There's no question that a connection exists. When the job market tightens, entrepreneurship absolutely soars, and people just realize that maybe that's one of their only options. Trying to find a job is really difficult, but maybe starting a business isn't quite as difficult.
HM: What kind of businesses are we talking about here?
WW: It can run the gamut. I think for a lot of people, they may not be located necessarily in the state of Wyoming, but they recognize the small business benefits. They realize that if they are just at home creating a product that they can sell online and they don't have [to have] an actual office somewhere, that this allows them to build a brand and build a business that they can rely on.
HM: In order to register as a business in Wyoming, you don't actually have to have a brick-and-mortar facility or office here. If you register with your company through a registered agent, you have that Wyoming address, you pay the fees and that's all that's required, right?
WW: That's correct. You do still have to renew your registration every year. There's a fee, and that's how Wyoming continues to generate revenue for the state, by all the businesses that not only file for the first time but that continue to stay in business year after year.
HM: Tell me about some more of the reasons why these LLCs specifically are coming to Wyoming. I wrote about Wyoming having this business court, a chancery court. It helps businesses resolve conflicts quickly. But I know there are a lot of other reasons that businesses would decide to come here.
WW: The fact that in Wyoming, there's no state income tax. That's huge. There's no personal or corporate state income tax, which means that you get to keep more of the money that you made.
Also, Wyoming has made a conscious decision to make it very easy for people to start a business and not require a ton of additional personal information.
Then, of course, just the startup costs alone, $100 to start a business in Wyoming, are hugely attractive.
HM: Looking at your organization's report, it's on business formations from May 2026. You have the state leaderboard for most business formations. Wyoming ranks number six. It's behind Florida, Texas, California, Delaware, New York, and this is not per capita. This is just total new business formations. What does that say that such a small state like Wyoming can be so high towards the top of the list?
WW: It says that state lawmakers have enacted very successful, very business-friendly policies, and that it's working, and that people are hearing the message that Wyoming is open for business.
It's also very telling when you consider that Wyoming has the smallest population of any state in the U.S., and it's up there competing with places like Florida and Texas, which are the biggest.
HM: At least when you look at it on a per capita basis, Wyoming has really overtaken Delaware. Are we the next Delaware?
WW: I think in a lot of ways, Wyoming already is. I think that in Delaware, which was home to so many corporations, and it still is, it's a much more complicated process to have a corporation than it is to have an LLC. Big, huge companies are headquartered in Delaware. [For] regular people who just want to have a small business of their own, Wyoming makes it much more accessible.
HM: How does this impact or help Wyoming?
WW: I think that what's important to understand is that Wyoming benefits every single day. Business formations in general, like last year, for example, in 2025, generated just under $60 million for the state just from filing fees. So it's a huge steady stream of revenue for the state.
That's the money that comes straight into the General Fund, which then in turn supports things like schools, public infrastructure, high-speed internet, bridges [and] tax relief for Wyoming homeowners. It funds things like Medicaid, rural hospitals, any number of public programs. That's what this money helps support.
