
The California Secretary of State now has processing times down to 10 business days. Yippee!!!
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Once upon a time, not long ago in the State of California, the Secretary of State processed Articles of Incorporation within 45 minutes. This meant that you could literally drop them off for an additional $15.00, special handling fee and wait only an hour to pick them up.
Those days are long gone. Don't get me wrong. I love the Great State of California and favor it among all others and I know personally, that the people at the Secretary of State work really hard to get them processed for us on time.
So Why the Delay?
Prior to January 2013, if you walked them into the Secretary of State's Sacramento office, the wait was approximately 2 weeks for pick up in person. In January 2013, the State implemented a new law that required Articles of Incorporation to include the corporation's physical mailing address. This change caused many Articles to be rejected and then resubmitted, thereby increasing the total volume of Articles being processed at one time.
If you walked your Articles into the Los Angeles area Secretary of State office, the average wait time was 5 weeks because they forward them to Sacramento.
What is the Current Wait Time?
Now (in April 2013), the current wait time is approximately 27 days if you drop them off at the Sacramento office. They are working feverishly every day to get this wait time down to 5 days. In November 2013, they will be mandated by law to get the average wait time to 5-10 days.
Of all of the State agencies, the Secretary of State is one of my favorites because the people are really friendly and approachable. They are available to answer your questions and they really want to make sure you get your requests processed efficiently and quickly.
If you are in the same position as many of my clients, waiting for your Articles to get approved, be patient because those processors are working hard on your side to get your work finished as fast as they can.
(and no they aren't paying me to say this;) LOL!!!
If you want to know the current processing time for any document with the Secretary of State, go to: http://www.sos.ca.gov/business/be/processing-times.htm
~ Jamila