How to find out who owns a company in Alabama
Alabama filings pass through the county probate judge before reaching the state, which leaves a second record most people never check.
Short answer: Search the entity on the Secretary of State’s business entity search. Alabama certificates of formation name the organizers and the registered agent, and because filings originate at county level, the county probate office holds a parallel record.
Two records, not one
Alabama has historically routed formation documents through the probate judge of the county where the entity is based, with the state receiving them afterwards. That’s unusual, and it has a practical benefit: when the state record is thin, the county probate office may hold the original document with signatures.
It also means the county of formation is meaningful data rather than an accident of a mailing address. It tells you where the founder physically filed.
How to search
- Open the Secretary of State business entity search.
- Search by entity name or entity ID.
- Open the record for organizers, registered agent and county.
- If the state record is incomplete, contact the probate office in the county listed.
Three economies, not one state
Birmingham, Huntsville and Mobile have almost nothing in common commercially — finance and healthcare, aerospace and defence, and port logistics respectively. County of formation splits them cleanly, which is a better territory key than most states offer.
If you need this at scale
For every new Alabama entity as it files, with county of formation as a structured field, see Alabama formation data.
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