Served 123 LLC arranges service in all three Delaware counties, with up to three attempts at each address. For Court of Chancery matters, our Delaware process servers hold the appointment the Court requires: registration with the Register in Chancery under Chancery Rule 4(c)(2), renewed each May 1, so no appointment motion is filed. A Superior Court summons is different: the Court specially appoints a process server case by case under Superior Court Rule 4(d)(1), so we tell you at intake and give you the steps to have our server appointed.
Send the issued papers and the Delaware address at any hour. An upload is not service and does not pause any deadline. A Superior Court summons waits for the appointment order.
A written quote gives the turnaround and cost. No work begins before you approve it.
We prepare the return with the date, manner and person served. Summons returns are sworn before a notary; subpoena returns are certified.
Request a free written quote. Each address starts in Delaware. Serving someone in another state? Change the first address’s State and we take you to that state’s page with your entries kept.
Superior Court Civil Rule 4(j) measures 120 days from the filing of the complaint. Rule 6(a) leaves out the filing day, and a last day on a Saturday, Sunday, legal holiday or day the Prothonotary’s office is closed carries to the next day the office is open. Chancery Rule 4 has no matching count.
Two courts, two sets of service rules.
Service of process shall be made by the sheriff to whom the writ is directed, by a deputy or by some person specially appointed by the Court for that purpose, except that a subpoena may be served as provided in Rule 45.
Rules current as of October 2026, from the official texts listed below. Superior Court Civil Rules 4, 6 and 45; Court of Chancery Rules 4, 6, 41 and 45; the Court of Chancery’s Special Process Server Requirements; 10 Del. C. §§ 365, 366, 3103, 3104, 3111, 3113, 3114, 3927 and 4311; 8 Del. C. §§ 321 and 376; 6 Del. C. § 18-105; 1 Del. C. § 501; and the Delaware courts’ holiday schedule. General information, not legal advice. The official text controls.
Served 123 takes every Delaware route below on a single order: personal and abode delivery by a Chancery-registered server or a Superior Court appointee, corporations and LLCs through an agent, an officer or the Secretary of State, consent service on directors and officers, publication, long-arm service outside the State, and a mode the Court of Chancery orders. Left out: the county sheriff in Superior Court and sequestration of a nonresident’s property.
Every route above, one order.
Get a Free Quote Online →Individuals may also be served personally or through an authorized agent (Superior Court Rule 4(f)(1)(I); Chancery Rule 4(d)(1)(A), (C)); 10 Del. C. § 3103(a) also allows leaving a summons at the usual place of abode in the presence of an adult, 6 days before the return. Managers and liquidating trustees of an LLC are served through its registered agent under 6 Del. C. § 18-109, and partners and liquidating trustees under §§ 15-114 and 17-109 (Chancery Rule 4(e)(1)). Service may follow any statute, rule, agreement or order that provides other means (Chancery Rule 4(h)). Superior Court Rule 4(f)(1) covers infants, incompetent persons, partnerships, associations and governmental bodies, and, for individuals and for corporations, partnerships and associations, permits service in any manner a statute prescribes; in Chancery, a person without capacity is served as the law prescribes (Rule 4(d)(2)). Service on the State or a state agency is complete only on the Attorney General, the State Solicitor or the Chief Deputy Attorney General (10 Del. C. § 3103(c)). A corporation may also be served under 10 Del. C. § 3111, including by publication when its officers reside outside the State, and a qualified foreign corporation under 8 Del. C. § 376. Section 3104 also reaches a resident who leaves Delaware after a motor vehicle accident and stays away 30 days continuously (§ 3113).
Delaware’s rules say what proof of service must carry, and the way it is executed turns on who served and in which court.
For a Superior Court or Chancery summons, the return we prepare is sworn before a notary: Rule 4(g) requires a non-officer’s return to be verified, Chancery Rule 4(i) requires an affidavit, and Delaware’s unsworn-declaration statute, 10 Del. C. § 3927, applies only where a court rule authorizes it. For a subpoena, Rule 45(b) asks for a statement certified by the server.
For Delaware litigators, out-of-state counsel, paralegals and self-represented parties.
Send the issued papers and the Delaware address at any hour. An upload is not service and does not pause any deadline. A Superior Court summons waits for the appointment order.
A written quote gives the turnaround and cost. No work begins before you approve it.
A local server makes up to three attempts at each address and logs the date, time and observations of each one.
We prepare the return with the date, manner and person served. Summons returns are sworn before a notary; subpoena returns are certified.
A Superior Court writ is returnable 20 days after it issues (Rule 4(g)). A summons left at a defendant’s usual place of abode under 10 Del. C. § 3103(a) must be left in the presence of an adult 6 days before the return, and a copy left at a corporation’s or LLC’s registered office, place of business or an officer’s, director’s, manager’s or individual agent’s abode counts only if delivered at least 6 days before the return date (8 Del. C. § 321(a); 6 Del. C. § 18-105(a)). Leave room for the option you choose; a first attempt is not service.
What You Get Back
Kent, New Castle and Sussex: search or pick a county to start a quote.
Answered from the Superior Court and Court of Chancery rules and the Delaware Code. General information, not legal advice.
Because Rule 4(d) requires service by the sheriff to whom the writ is directed, a deputy or a person the Court specially appoints, and under Rule 4(d)(1) no one is specially appointed unless the moving papers affirmatively demonstrate that the Sheriff has made one return non est inventus, that service must be made after 10:00 p.m. on a weekday other than a holiday, that service must be made on a holiday or weekend, or that some other exigent reason shows why the Sheriff cannot or will not serve. The Sheriff is served with notice of each motion and may offer reasons why the Sheriff should not be disqualified. Those limits do not apply under Rule 4(d)(2), which lets the Court freely make special appointments to serve the Secretary of State as the statutes it names require, among them 10 Del. C. § 3114; § 3112, also named there, was repealed in 2008. If your case is in the Superior Court, we tell you at intake and give you the steps to have our server appointed: a Rule 4(d)(1) motion whose moving papers show one of those grounds, with the Sheriff served with notice of it.
Copy LinkChancery Rule 4(c)(2) requires every person except the sheriff who wishes to serve process in person for the Court’s matters to be registered with the Register in Chancery. The Court’s Special Process Server Requirements make the registration renewable each May 1, require the server to carry a copy of the approved Application for Designation of a Special Process Server while serving, and state that motions for appointment of a special process server are no longer accepted. A party may instead file a praecipe to use the local Sheriff. For Chancery process, our Delaware process servers hold the appointment this registration gives, so no motion is needed.
Copy LinkIn the Superior Court, Rule 4(j) allows 120 days after the complaint is filed. If service is not made in that time and the plaintiff cannot show good cause, the action is dismissed as to that defendant without prejudice, either on the Court’s own initiative with notice to the plaintiff or on motion. Under Rule 6(a), the filing day is not counted, and a last day on a Saturday, Sunday, legal holiday or day the Prothonotary’s office is closed runs to the end of the next day the office is open. Rule 6(b) lets the Court, for cause shown and in its discretion, order a period the Rules set enlarged if the request is made before it expires, or, on a motion made after it expires, permit the act where the failure to act was the result of excusable neglect. Separately, each writ is returnable 20 days after it issues (Rule 4(g)). The Court of Chancery’s Rule 4 sets no day count; Chancery Rule 41(e) allows dismissal, after reasonable notice, of a cause in which no action has been taken for 1 year unless good reason is given.
Copy LinkUnder 8 Del. C. § 321(a), a copy is delivered personally in Delaware to an officer, a director or the registered agent, or left at the Delaware abode of an officer, director or individual registered agent, or at the registered office or another Delaware place of business. A corporate registered agent is served through its president, vice-president, secretary, assistant secretary or any director, and process returnable forthwith must be delivered personally. A copy left at an abode, registered office or place of business counts only if delivered at least 6 days before the return date, in the presence of an adult, with the manner of service distinctly stated in the return. 6 Del. C. § 18-105(a) sets the same pattern for an LLC, with a manager in place of an officer or director. If the officer whose duty it is to serve cannot serve by due diligence, process may be served on the Secretary of State; the plaintiff must serve the papers in duplicate, notify the Secretary of State that service is made under that subsection, and pay the fee, and the Secretary of State then sends the entity a letter enclosing the process (§ 321(b); § 18-105(b)). Corporations may also be served under 10 Del. C. § 3111 or any other statute or rule of court (§ 321(c)), and a qualified foreign corporation through its registered agent under 8 Del. C. § 376.
Copy LinkUnder 10 Del. C. § 3114, a nonresident who accepts election or appointment as a director, trustee or member of the governing body, or as an officer as § 3114(b) defines that term, of a Delaware corporation, or who serves in that capacity, and a resident who does so and later moves out of Delaware, is deemed to have consented to service on the corporation’s registered agent (or, if there is none, the Secretary of State) in the actions the statute covers. One copy of the process is served on the registered agent, and within 7 days the prothonotary or the Register in Chancery mails true and attested copies by registered mail, with a statement that service is made under § 3114, to the corporation’s principal place of business and to the residence address on the Secretary of State’s records (or, if none, the last known address). The time to respond runs from that mailing. In the Court of Chancery, Rule 4(e) also requires the plaintiff to file a signed statement giving the addresses the statute requires, the entity’s registered agent and registered address, the date of service on the entity and, for anything unknown, the diligent efforts made, the summons must identify the statute and append a copy of it, and the Register in Chancery mails a copy of the summons within the time the statute requires. LLC managers and liquidating trustees are served the same way through the company’s registered agent under 6 Del. C. § 18-109, and Chancery Rule 4(e) lists them too, along with partners and liquidating trustees under 6 Del. C. §§ 15-114 and 17-109.
Copy Link10 Del. C. § 3104(c) lists the acts that let a Delaware court exercise personal jurisdiction over a nonresident, and § 3104(d) says service outside the State, when reasonably calculated to give actual notice, may be made by personal delivery as within Delaware, in the manner the law of the place of service provides, by any form of mail addressed to the person and requiring a signed receipt, or as a court directs. Service may be made by anyone allowed to serve under Delaware law or the law of the place of service, or designated by a Delaware court (§ 3104(f)). Proof may be the server’s affidavit, and proof of mail service must include a receipt signed by the addressee or other evidence of personal delivery satisfactory to the court (§ 3104(e)). In the Superior Court, Rule 4(h) requires the return receipt and the affidavit of nonresidence and of sending the complaint and notice to be filed as an amendment to the complaint within 10 days of receiving the receipt. Section 3104 extends, and does not limit, the other rights to serve nonresidents (§ 3104(i)), and 10 Del. C. § 3113 applies it to a resident motor vehicle owner or operator who leaves the State after an accident and stays away for 30 days continuously. The Court of Chancery added Rule 4(h) to clarify that service may be made by any authorized means, in particular § 3104(d).
Copy LinkUnder 10 Del. C. § 365, if a defendant named in Chancery process does not appear in obedience to it, the Court may, on affidavit that the defendant is out of the State, or cannot be found to be served with process, and that there is just ground to believe the defendant intentionally avoids service, order the defendant to appear on a certain day and publish the order as it directs, not less than once a week for 3 consecutive weeks. Chancery Rule 4(f) sets the steps: the plaintiff files an affidavit stating those two points, obtains a Court order for the defendant to appear by a specific date and for publication as the Court directs, at least once per week for three consecutive weeks, and service is accomplished upon compliance with the order. For a nonresident defendant under § 366, the order is served by mail or otherwise, if practicable, and published the same way; under Rule 4(g), the plaintiff’s affidavit states, among other things, that the defendant is a nonresident, and the order appoints a sequestrator, among other terms. Separately, 10 Del. C. § 3111(b) allows service in any action against a corporation whose officers reside out of the State by publishing the substance of the process in a newspaper of this State, and of the state where the head officer resides, 20 days before the return.
Copy LinkIn the Superior Court, Rule 4(g) requires a return by anyone other than an officer or deputy to be verified, and process that cannot be served by the return day is returned with the reasons service could not be had. For service on a corporation or LLC by a copy left at an abode, registered office or place of business, the return must distinctly state the manner of service (8 Del. C. § 321(a); 6 Del. C. § 18-105(a)). In the Court of Chancery, Rule 4(i) requires proof by affidavit, except for service by the sheriff. Proof of service of a subpoena is a statement of the date and manner of service and the names of the persons served, certified by the person who served it (Superior Court Rule 45(b)(2); Chancery Rule 45(b)). Under 10 Del. C. § 3927, an unsworn declaration under penalty of perjury replaces a sworn one only to the extent a court rule authorizes it; Chancery Rule 178B authorizes it for civil miscellaneous matters. Served 123’s summons returns for these courts are sworn before a notary.
Copy LinkOn legal holidays, yes. 1 Del. C. § 502 says nothing in the legal holiday statute prevents or invalidates the service of any writ, summons or other legal process on those holidays, and Saturdays are on the § 501(a) list of legal holidays. In the Superior Court, the need to serve after 10:00 p.m. on a weekday other than a holiday, or on a holiday or weekend, is one of the Rule 4(d)(1) grounds the moving papers may show for appointing a special process server instead of the Sheriff.
Copy LinkUnder the Delaware Uniform Interstate Depositions and Discovery Act, 10 Del. C. § 4311, a party submits the foreign subpoena to the prothonotary in the county where discovery is sought; the request is not an appearance in Delaware’s courts. The prothonotary promptly issues a subpoena that incorporates the foreign subpoena’s terms and contains or is accompanied by the names, addresses and telephone numbers of all counsel of record and of any unrepresented party. It is served under Title 10 and the Superior Court Rules for service of subpoena: under Rule 45(b), by the Sheriff or any non-party at least 18, by delivering a copy to the person named, with prior notice of any commanded production or inspection served on each party under Rule 5(b). An application for a protective order or to enforce, quash or modify it goes to the Superior Court in the county where discovery is to be conducted (§ 4311(f)).
Copy LinkSend the issued papers and the address. A written quote comes before any work begins.
