How we compile virtual-mailbox & Form-1583 rules
We build one honest table per state from the USPS federal baseline (PS Form 1583, Domestic Mail Manual 508, 39 CFR) and each state's own notary/RON statute — then we tell you exactly where a figure still needs confirming and always point you back to your state's own page. We assert no provider names or addresses. This is informational reference, not legal advice.
Who’s behind this site
Mailbox by City is an independent publisher operated by VentureCorp, Inc. We are not the USPS, a government agency, a virtual-mailbox provider, or a law firm, and we do not accept payment to change a rule or a citation. The site answers a few questions accurately: for a given state, can you notarize Form 1583 online, can a virtual mailbox be your LLC's business address (vs. its registered agent), and where do you confirm it?
Where our data comes from
| Data | Source | Used for |
|---|---|---|
| Federal baseline (Form 1583, witnessing, two-ID, PMB designator) | USPS PS Form 1583 + Domestic Mail Manual 508 / 39 CFR Part 111 + the 2024 CMRA Clarification final rule (cited, public record) | Every per-state page (the uniform, strongest fact) |
| Per-state online-notarization (RON-for-1583) eligibility | Each state's Secretary of State / notary authority page (cited per row as source_url), cross-checked against the MBA RON adoption map and National Notary Association tracking | The RON tier on every per-state page and the by-tier comparison |
| Metro spine (population, rank, geography) | US Census Gazetteer + Population Estimates (Vintage 2024 CBSA totals) — US Government public-domain works | The per-city pages and the data study |
The rule facts are public-record federal postal regulation and state notary law (not copyrightable, Feist), each cited to its official source. Where a state's exact RON statute section could not be pinned it is flagged medium-confidence and the online-notarization detail is hedged — we did not guess. We hold no provider location data: the dataset's provider array is empty by design, so we never assert that a specific virtual-mailbox provider operates at a given address — that is added only from an authorized affiliate feed.
How we calculate
Each jurisdiction is enumerated (50 states + DC). For each, we record the RON-for-1583 eligibility tier (online RON / out-of-state RON / remote-ink), the uniform registered-agent rule (no), the general business-address rule (generally yes — verify), the PMB designator, and the governing statute/USPS citation — each cited to its source. The 387-metro spine joins the Census population onto each metro's state rule; no per-metro provider presence is asserted.
What we deliberately leave out. We give no legal advice and assert no provider names, addresses, or prices — those are added only from an authorized affiliate feed, never scraped from a store-locator or invented. We do not claim a hard per-state 'yes' for using a CMRA as a business address; it is framed 'generally yes — verify'. California is noted as the only no-in-state-RON state (until 2030); Connecticut as remote-ink only.
Independence & how we make money
Some links on this site may be affiliate links to approved virtual-mailbox or LLC-formation partners; if you act on one we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Partners never see or influence which rules we publish, and no placement is for sale. Provider availability for a given address, when shown, comes from an authorized partner feed and is labelled as such.
Keeping it current
RON law is still moving (California's own RON starts in 2030; platform and credential rules keep being refined), so we re-run the official-source review on a semiannual cadence and re-check the USPS DMM 508 revision date on publish. Each page carries its verification date; current verification: June 2026.
Corrections
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