Articles of Merger, state by state.
A merger is how two entities become one on the public record: a plan the owners approve, a filing with the state, and one entity left standing afterwards. Every state processes mergers. Which combinations each one recognizes, what it calls the document, and what it wants to see alongside it are set locally. Pick your state for the form and the sequence.
Four things that change with your state.
Merging is the same idea everywhere: two entities go in, one comes out. The document that records it, the combinations a state will accept, and what happens the day after are local questions.
What your state recognizes
States set out the combinations they will process: entities of the same type, entities of different types, entities registered in different states. Which of those yours handles as a merger, and which it treats as something else entirely, decides the route before a single document is drafted.
The plan of merger
The filing is the visible half. Underneath it sits the plan of merger: the agreement the owners approve, setting out the terms of the combination and naming the entity that continues. The state filing refers back to it, which is why the plan is drafted and approved first rather than assembled afterwards.
Where the document goes
Articles of Merger are filed with the office that keeps the entity register, and each state has its own form, its own supporting documents and its own idea of what must be attached. Where two states are involved, both have to be satisfied, and they rarely ask for the same things.
What happens after
One entity survives and one stops existing as a separate registration. The survivor is the record the state maintains from then on, which means its periodic reports, its Registered Agent, its licenses and its accounts are the ones carrying the combined business forward.
One combination, two rulebooks. Start with the state that holds the record.
Pick your state.
Each state page covers the merger types that state recognizes, the document it uses, what the plan of merger has to establish, which entity survives on the register, and the compliance that follows once the filing is accepted.
A clean handoff, in four steps.
Mergers stall on sequence more often than on substance. Approve, then draft, then file, then update everything that still points at the entity which no longer exists. The order holds in every state.
Confirm the route
Establish which entities are combining, which one survives, and whether your state treats that combination as a merger at all. This is where a cross-state merger shows up as two sets of requirements rather than one.
Draft the plan
The plan of merger sets the terms and names the surviving entity. The owners approve it under whatever their governing documents require, before a single page reaches the state.
File the Articles
We prepare the Articles of Merger on your state's form, with the supporting documents it asks for, and file with the office that keeps the register. Where a second state is involved, its filing runs alongside.
Update what follows
The surviving entity inherits the calendar. Periodic reports, Registered Agent, licenses, tax accounts and banking all have to point at the entity that is still on the register.
The merger is a filing. The cleanup is the project.
The rest of Secretary of State directory.
Every one of these is built the same way: a national explainer above its state pages. They are the filings that sit closest to this one.
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All 51 states →The full index lives on Secretary of State directory.
The questions people ask before they file.
What are Articles of Merger?
The document that records a merger with the state that keeps the entity register. It reports that two or more entities have combined under an approved plan and identifies the one that survives. Until it is filed and accepted, the merger has not happened as far as the state is concerned, whatever the owners have already signed between themselves. Names and forms differ by state; the function does not.
When is a merger filing required?
When two entities actually become one and one of them stops existing as a separate registration. That is the event the state needs on the record. Arrangements that leave both entities standing are a different exercise with different paperwork. Your state page sets out which combinations it processes as mergers, because states do not all draw that line in the same place.
What goes into the plan of merger?
The terms the owners agree to: which entities are combining, which one survives, and what becomes of the ownership interests in the entity that does not. The plan is approved under the entities' own governing documents before anything is filed, and the state filing points back to it. States differ on how much of the plan has to be filed and how much simply has to exist.
Which entity survives a merger?
The one named in the plan. It keeps its registration and continues on the state's register; the other comes off it. That choice is not purely administrative. The survivor is the entity whose reports, Registered Agent, licenses and accounts carry the combined business afterwards, so it is worth deciding deliberately rather than by default or by whichever name is older.
Can we merge with an entity from another state?
That is a common shape, and it means two states are involved rather than one. Each has its own requirements for what is filed, in what order, and what has to be shown before it will release or accept an entity. The state pages cover both sides of that, because the sequencing between two offices is where these filings usually lose weeks.
What has to happen after the merger is filed?
Everything that pointed at the entity which no longer exists has to be pointed at the survivor instead. Periodic reports, Registered Agent details, business licenses, tax accounts, banking, contracts and insurance. None of it updates itself when the state accepts the filing, and the survivor's own compliance calendar keeps running on its usual schedule throughout, so the cleanup happens against a clock rather than at leisure.
Keep going, in order.
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