Who pays to lobby the state government.
Michigan's Lobby Registration Act uses its own terms: a "lobbyist" (ID beginning with L) is the organization or person paying for lobbying, the interest group a reader would call the client, and a "lobbyist agent" (ID beginning with A) is the individual or firm paid to lobby. On this page "clients" are Michigan's registered lobbyists and "lobbyists" are its lobbyist agents. Counts are the registrants with a 2026 total-expenses row in the state's MiTN export (downloaded Oct. 18, 2026): 1,869 L registrants and 1,517 A registrants. The export lists every registrant that filed a 2026 report, including 345 L registrants that reported $0. Amounts are reported per registrant, not per client-agent pair: the top list ranks L registrants only, by their own reported year-to-date totals. A few L registrants are lobbying or law firms registered in their own name (for example Kelley Cawthorne), and they appear as the state lists them. The Winter 2026 reports (Aug. 1 to Dec. 31) are due Jan. 31, 2027; until then 2026 figures cover January through July only. Calendar 2025, a complete year, is shown separately and never added to 2026.
registered lobbyists
clients (lobbyist employers)
| KELLEY CAWTHORNE | $858,952.58 |
| AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION | $310,289.34 |
| Michigan Health & Hospital Association | $252,804.63 |
| MICHIGAN CREDIT UNION LEAGUE | $219,696.65 |
| PLANNED PARENTHOOD ADVOCATES OF MICHIGAN | $202,720.00 |
| NATIONAL FEDERATION OF INDEPENDENT BUSINESS | $201,373.00 |
| BLUE CROSS AND BLUE SHIELD OF MICHIGAN | $171,619.45 |
| AIRBNB INC | $130,154.72 |
| UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN BOARD OF REGENTS (U OF M) | $119,871.89 |
| DTE ENERGY COMPANY | $118,715.90 |
| MGM RESORTS INTERNATIONAL | $116,376.63 |
| MICHIGAN MUNICIPAL LEAGUE | $113,181.21 |
| BEDROCK DETROIT LLC | $113,158.52 |
| SMALL BUSINESS ASSOCIATION OF MICHIGAN | $110,262.92 |
| MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY (MSU) | $108,437.69 |
| CONSUMERS ENERGY CO | $104,347.11 |
| SEMCO ENERGY INC | $100,989.14 |
| GOOGLE LLC AND ITS AFFILIATES | $100,025.50 |
| MERCK SHARP AND DOHME LLC | $94,127.48 |
| MARQUETTE COUNTY | $90,000.00 |
| VERTEX PHARMACEUTICALS INCORPORATED | $89,320.00 |
| CENTRIA HEALTHCARE | $88,000.00 |
| MICHIGAN RETAILERS ASSOCIATION | $85,736.27 |
| SEIU OF MICHIGAN | $78,920.00 |
| WAYNE COUNTY | $77,478.87 |
Total lobbying expenditures the registrant reported for the year to date on its financial report: food and beverage for public officials, plus mass mailings and advertising, plus all other lobbying expenditures, which include salaries and payments to lobbyist agents. It is not the registrant's total spending on government affairs, not campaign contributions, and not an amount paid to any one agent. Agents report their own expenditures separately, so client and agent totals overlap and are never added together.
Sources: Michigan Department of State, Lobby disclosure page; MiTN Lobby All Expense Reports, export download page; MiTN export, Total Expenses 2026 (tab-delimited, zipped; last updated Oct. 18, 2026); MiTN export, Total Expenses 2025 (tab-delimited, zipped; last updated Oct. 18, 2026); MiTN export, Itemized Expenses 2026; MiTN export, Association List (employer and employee registrations); Lobby Financial Report Summary form and instructions (LR-305); Michigan Lobby Registration Act, Number of Lobbyists and Lobbyist Agents 1998-2022; Michigan Lobby Registration Act, 1978 PA 472.
What is not here yet
- Counts are registrants that filed a 2026 financial report, not a point-in-time roster of active registrations; MiTN's public search does not offer a downloadable list of currently active registrations.
- The Association List export (who employs which agent) leaves many end dates blank: it shows 5,139 L registrants with at least one open association, far more than the 1,869 that filed 2026 reports, so it was not used for counts. It is saved in raw/ for client-agent lookups.
- Michigan does not report how much each client paid each agent; amounts cannot be split by client-agent pair.
- Winter 2026 reports (Aug. 1 to Dec. 31, 2026) are not yet due (Jan. 31, 2027); 2026 figures cover Jan. 1 to July 31.
- Late or amended 2026 reports filed after Oct. 18, 2026 are not reflected.
- Two names appear twice among 2025 L registrants under different IDs (Construction Association of Michigan, Encore Capital Group); they were not merged. Neither is in the top lists.
- Lobbying of local governments (for example the City of Detroit's own registry) is not in these state records: not yet checked.
Gaps in the lobbying records as of the date checked.