Trade Names

A Certificate of Trade Name is required by law to be recorded in our office by anyone who wishes to start a sole proprietorship or partnership in Morris County. If you intend to conduct business under your own name, registration is not necessary.

Prospective business owners are responsible for verifying that the chosen trade name is not currently in use in the county or as a corporation or LLC in the State of New Jersey.

Register your new business trade name, amend an existing trade name certificate or cancel an existing business name:

Filing a Trade Name Certificate

Download the Trade Name Certificate form(PDF, 157KB)

Please note: Form must be printed on legal sized paper.

  • Before sending in the Trade Name Certificate to be recorded, you must first search our Online Records Search Application to see that name is not already registered. Once you arrive at the search screen, enter the name of the business you wish to register under Party Name, and hit the Search button. If there are no search results under the document type TN, that means the name is available for you to register. If there is an existing TN under that name, you will need to change either the wording or spelling of your business name, and search again until you find an available name.
  • The business address you enter on line #3 needs to be a physical street address. PO boxes are not allowed on this line.
  • Whoever is listed on line #4 will need to have their full name and home address listed. PO Boxes are allowed on this line. Even if the home and business addresses are the same, they will still need to be listed separately on lines #3 and #4.
  • Every person who is listed on line #4 will have to sign the document in the presence of a Notary Public.
  • When the document is completely filled out, with all signatures notarized, it can be submitted either by mail or at our office, in person. Our address is listed at the top of the document. The cost of recording the document is $52.00.
  • We accept cash, business checks, certified checks or money orders. We can no longer accept personal checks and do not accept credit cards. If paying by business check, certified check or money order, please make it payable to "Morris County Clerk".

Amending an Existing Trade Name Certificate

Download the Amended Trade Name Certificate form(PDF, 159KB)

Please note: Form must be printed on legal sized paper.

  • This form is to be used either when adding a partner, or changing an address or phone number.
  • This form is NOT for changing the business name or removing partners. If you wish to do this, please use the Cancellation of Trade Name form, and follow those instructions.
  • The business address you enter on line #3 needs to be a physical street address. PO boxes are not allowed on this line.
  • Whoever is listed on line #4 will need to have their full name and home address listed. PO Boxes are allowed on this line. Even if the home and business addresses are the same, they will still need to be listed separately on lines #3 and #4.
  • Every person who is listed on line #4 will have to sign the document in the presence of a Notary Public.
  • When the document is completely filled out, with all signatures notarized, it can be submitted either by mail or at our office, in person. Our address is listed at the top of the document. The cost of recording the document is $57.00.
  • We accept cash, business checks, certified checks or money orders. We can no longer accept personal checks and do not accept credit cards. If paying by business check, certified check or money order, please make it payable to "Morris County Clerk".

Cancellation of an Existing Trade Name

Download the Trade Name Cancellation form(PDF, 192KB)

Please note: Form must be printed on legal sized paper.

  • This form is to be used when closing a business name, removing partners, or when changing the business name.
  • If you are selling the name to another party, you would have to cancel the name under the current owner, and then file a new Certificate of Trade Name under the new owners.
  • If you are changing the business name, you have two ways you could go about doing this:
    1. Cancel the old name (with this form) and open up the new name with a new Certificate of Trade Name form. In this scenario, the old name would then be available for another person to register.
    2. Retain the old name (no further paperwork required) and open up the new name using a Certificate of Trade Name. Under this scenario, you would own both the old and new names.
  • Every person who is on the original Trade Name Certificate being cancelled will have to sign the document in the presence of a Notary Public.
  • When the document is completely filled out, with all signatures notarized, it can be submitted either by mail or at our office, in person. Our address is listed at the top of the document. The cost of recording the document is $27.00.
  • We accept cash, business checks, certified checks or money orders. We can no longer accept personal checks and do not accept credit cards. If paying by business check, certified check or money order, please make it payable to "Morris County Clerk".
  • The document asks for the recording date of the original Trade Name Certificate. If you do not know this information, you can use our Online Document Search Application to look up your recording information.

County level business name searches may be conducted in our Records Vault or by using our online document search.

Searches of corporation and LLC names at the state level can be performed by visiting the New Jersey Business Records Service website. Please note that corporation and LLC names will not show up in a Morris County document search.

Please visit the New Jersey Business Portal for more information on all aspects of starting a new business including performing a statewide corporation and LLC name search and obtaining a tax ID number.

If you have additional questions, feel free to call our Records Vault at 973-285-6747 or send us an email.