VerifySOS is a 50-state business-verification tool for credit and underwriting in trucking and commercial finance. One search merges Secretary of State registration, FMCSA/USDOT authority, OFAC sanctions, ownership, and county DBA filings into a single PDF packet.

How do I look up a business across all 50 states?

Enter the company name and its 2-letter state code (or a USDOT number) on verifysos.com. It searches the Secretary of State and FMCSA SAFER side by side, screens OFAC, and generates a verification packet PDF.

How much does VerifySOS cost?

There is a free tier and a Pro plan at $14.99/month with unlimited searches.

Does VerifySOS show business ownership and officers?

Yes. Where a state publishes officers, members, or managers in its free public records, VerifySOS pulls them into the packet, separate from the registered agent, which is not the owner.

← All posts July 05, 2026

Kalamazoo County DBA search — how to look up a fictitious business name (MI)

A DBA (doing business as), also called a fictitious business name or assumed name, is a sole proprietor or partnership operating under a name different from the owner’s legal name. In Kalamazoo County, Michigan, these filings are recorded at the county level and are searchable through the county clerk’s office. But a DBA is not a registered business entity. It’s a trade name. That distinction matters hard when you’re underwriting a credit deal, because a DBA search alone tells you nothing about the business’s legal structure, liability setup, or whether the person signing the note actually owns what they say they do.

What a DBA filing contains (and what it doesn’t)

When someone files an assumed name in Kalamazoo County, the county clerk records the trade name, the names and addresses of the owners or partners operating under that name, the nature of the business, and the date the name was first used in trade. You’ll see who’s behind the DBA. You’ll see expiration dates · most Michigan DBAs are active indefinitely unless voluntarily canceled, but the record should show when the filing was made.

What you won’t see: liability insurance, tax ID numbers, credit history, or whether the person filing actually has the legal right to bind the business in a debt transaction. A DBA is a filing, not a structure. A sole proprietor with a DBA is still a sole proprietor. A partnership filing a DBA is still a partnership, with all the joint and several liability that entails. If you need to know who’s personally liable for a note, a DBA search shows you the names, but not the legal exposure or the entity’s formal articles of organization or partnership agreement.

How to search Kalamazoo County DBAs

The Kalamazoo County Clerk’s office maintains records of assumed names filed in the county. You can search these records through the county’s public record system. The search typically lets you look up by business name, owner name, or filing date. Results will show the DBA name, the date filed, the names of all owners listed on the filing, and their addresses.

The search is free and open to the public. If you’re doing this by hand, expect to spend 5 to 10 minutes per search, assuming the name is clear and the filing is recent. Older DBAs or names with common words take longer. And if the business operates under multiple trade names or across county lines in Michigan · for instance, if they also operate in Kent County or Genesee County · you’re running the same search again in each county. That’s not a scalability problem for one deal. It becomes one when you’re underwriting five deals a week across the state.

Why DBA alone is not enough for underwriting

A DBA search confirms that someone filed a trade name. It does not confirm that the business is legally registered as an LLC or corporation. Many underwriters make the mistake of treating a DBA filing as if it were a Secretary of State filing. It’s not. Michigan requires business entities (LLCs, corporations, partnerships) to file with the Michigan Secretary of State. A DBA is a county-level trade name only.

This creates real risk. Suppose an applicant tells you their business is “Smith & Associates Logistics” and you find a DBA filing for that name in Kalamazoo County with John Smith and Mary Doe listed as owners. You’ve confirmed the trade name exists and who’s operating it. But you haven’t confirmed whether Smith & Associates is an LLC, a partnership, or a sole proprietorship. You haven’t pulled their Secretary of State record. You don’t know if the business has been dissolved, is in good standing, or has a lien on file. And you don’t know who the registered agent is or whether the officers and members on file at the state level match the DBA owners.

In credit underwriting, that gap is the difference between a verified business entity and a verified piece of paperwork. One supports a credit decision. The other doesn’t.

The right order for a Michigan business check

Start at the Michigan Secretary of State. Pull the entity record by LLC or corporation name. Confirm the business is active, in good standing, and matches the legal name the applicant gave you. Get the names and addresses of managers, members, or officers. Confirm the registered agent.

Then, if the business operates under a DBA, pull the assumed name filing in the county where the DBA was first filed. Match the owners on the DBA to the members or officers on the Secretary of State record. If they don’t match · if the DBA lists different owners than the formal entity · you have a control question to resolve. Is the DBA owner a manager of the LLC? Is the LLC a subsidiary? Is the DBA owner acting as an agent? These are underwriting questions, not just data questions.

Finally, pull a UCC search in Kalamazoo County. A DBA filing doesn’t show liens or security interests. A UCC search does. And because UCC filings are indexed by debtor name, you’ll want to check both the legal entity name and any DBAs the business uses, since a lender might have filed under either one.

Why this matters for your credit file

Your underwriting memo needs to show that you’ve verified what the applicant claims to own and how it’s legally structured. A DBA search alone doesn’t do that. It confirms a trade name. A Secretary of State search confirms the registered legal entity. Together, they tell you who owns what and how they’ve organized it. Separately, they leave gaps. And gaps in verification become gaps in your credit decision.

The process is manual if you do it county by county and state by state. It’s repetitive. It’s also the work that has to be done. Underwriters who skip it or lean too hard on a single data source end up with incomplete files. And incomplete files become problem loans.

Bottom line

A DBA search in Kalamazoo County shows you a trade name and the people operating under it. It’s a required piece of the verification puzzle, especially if the applicant operates under a name different from their legal business name. But it’s not a substitute for a Secretary of State search, and treating it as one is a common underwriting shortcut that catches up with you later. Pull the state record first. Use the county DBA filing to confirm the trade name and match it to the entity’s managers and members. Then layer in UCC and OFAC. That’s a verified file.