How to find out who owns a company in Washington
Washington calls them governors, requires them within 120 days, and gives every entity a number that ties it to tax and employment records.
Short answer: Search the entity on the Secretary of State’s Corporations and Charities Filing System. Washington requires an initial report within 120 days of formation naming the governors — the people who run the entity.
“Governors” is the word to look for
Washington doesn’t use member or manager on the face of its filings. It uses governor, which covers members, managers and directors depending on entity type. If you’re searching for a members section and finding nothing, that’s why.
How to search
- Open the Corporations and Charities Filing System.
- Search by business name or UBI number.
- Open the record and check for the initial report or most recent annual report.
- Read the governors section for names and addresses.
The UBI number is quietly the best feature
Washington issues a Unified Business Identifier shared across the Secretary of State, Department of Revenue and Employment Security. One number ties the entity to its tax registration and its employment records, which makes Washington entities unusually easy to match against data you already hold — and easy to confirm as actually trading rather than dormant.
When the initial report hasn’t landed
A company formed in the last four months may have no governors on file yet. In that window you have the registered agent, the incorporator, and the business licence application through the Department of Revenue, which is public and often names owners.
If you need this at scale
For every new Washington entity as it files, with governors tracked as the initial report lands and the UBI carried through, see Washington formation data.
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