Registered agent reform bill killed in House committee
SHERIDAN — A bill to enhance Wyoming’s registered agent requirements was killed in a House committee earlier this week.
Businesses from around the world have access to Wyoming’s tax structure by using registered agents who operate in the state. Currently, a registered agent must only have contact information for the business.
Senate File 82, “Duties of registered agents-amendments,” sought to require registered agents to retain more information. It would have required them to retain the names and addresses of each entity’s owners, unless the entity has more than 100 owners or maintains a fixed, physical business location in the state.
The bill took aim at criminal activity around the state, and specifically in Sheridan County.
Every year, the Sheridan Police Department, Sheridan County Chamber of Commerce and The Sheridan Press all receive many calls with concerns of fraud or scams by businesses registered at 30 N. Gould St., a 4,125 square foot office building in downtown Sheridan. Hundreds of thousands of businesses use registered agents housed there for limited liability corporations. Other locations in Sheridan County and Wyoming operate similarly.
The House Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivisions Committee voted Monday to table the bill, sponsored by Sen. Barry Crago, R-Buffalo, until the interim, which kills it for the session. While Crago would have liked for the bill to become law this year, it ultimately achieved its broader goal.
“I’m not terribly disappointed, because the bill really did what it was supposed to do, which is open some eyes and some ears and get people talking and thinking,” Crago told The Sheridan Press.
Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray previously testified that the state had more than 830,000 business filings in Fiscal Year 2025, which generated about $59.6 million. By Gray’s estimates, though, Wyoming’s business filings could decrease by 35-40% if the bill becomes law.
David Pope, a Cheyenne Certified Public Accountant and a Wyoming registered agent, told the committee and The Sheridan Press the decrease would likely have come from legitimate business entities with a need or desire for privacy.
“You wouldn’t lose the fraudulent ones, because that bill wouldn’t have done anything to catch that,” Pope said.
Working through fraud related to Wyoming’s registered agents in the interim between the Legislature’s 2026 budget session and 2027 general session will allow the Joint Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivisions to solicit more input from stakeholders and work more diligently to find broader, more effective solutions than SF82’s requirements to retain additional information.
Among the solutions could be implementing technology similar to programs used by Nevada and Delaware, two states also home to many LLCs through registered agents.
Media contacts for the Delaware and Nevada secretaries of state did not respond to questions about the technologies the states use and the requirements for registered agents in the states by press time.
Nevada launched “Project Orion” in 2023, an overhaul of the state’s business licensing portal. Pope said the system helps identify patterns among managers and registered agents.
“That helped them to really prevent fraud up front in a very big way,” he told The Sheridan Press.
In an email to The Sheridan Press, Gray said his 2024 budget request included an upgrade to the state’s existing business filing system, though that request was denied. The upgrades, Gray wrote, would have given his office tools similar to those of other states “to better address fraudulent filings,” and improve service for the state’s legitimate business filers.
He did not answer a question asking what he knows about the software used in Delaware and Nevada, nor about the dollar amount of his 2024 budget request.
Before the House corporations committee voted to table the bill, Pope proposed seven amendments to SF82 to strengthen the bill and combat fraud. Among them was purchasing software similar to Nevada’s “Orion Project” and creating an enforcement division in the Secretary of State’s office, as well as various updates to the state’s registered agent statutes.
Committees are set to finalize their interim topics ahead of the final day of the session, currently scheduled for March 11.
House Corporations Committee Chair Rep. Tony Locke, R-Casper, and Senate Corporations Committee Chair Sen. Cale Case, R-Lander, both expressed a desire to study registered agent issues during the interim.
This story was published on Feb. 25, 2026.