Why is the status unknown for Delaware and New Jersey registrations, and what can I do?

A status of unknown means the state did not give us a standing we could read. It is not the same as inactive. Two states account for most of these.

Delaware. Delaware does not publish the current status of most of its registrations, so the large majority of Delaware registrations show an unknown status. The registration itself, including the formation date or filing number, is still authoritative and mostly complete.

New Jersey. New Jersey status coverage is newer (Baselayer is one of the first data providers to have an agreement with the NJ SoS) and still growing, so many New Jersey registrations return an unknown status today. This will improve over time as coverage fills in.

There is no on-demand status lookup for either state through the API. What customers do instead:

• Treat unknown as "not confirmed" rather than as a failure. If the name and address match are exact and there are no watchlist hits, many customers approve on those signals.

• Manually request a certificate of good standing directly from the state. Both states issue them for a fee, typically the same or next business day.

• Ask the applicant to provide a recent certificate of good standing.