A guide in fifty parts
The filing is federal in spirit and local in every detail.
Forming an LLC follows the same broad shape everywhere: name it, give it an address for service, file the articles, keep it in good standing. What changes at every border is who you file with, what they ask for, and what happens next.
Chapters
What a state page has to answer
No state pages are written yet. These are the questions each one will answer, in this order, because the order is the order the work happens in.
Which office takes the filing
Secretary of State in most places, but not all — and a handful route business filings through a separate division or a county step.
What the name has to satisfy
Reservation rules, required designators, and the words a state will not allow without a licence behind them.
The registered agent requirement
Every state requires one with a physical in-state address. What varies is who may serve, and what becomes public when they do.
This is the requirement most often misread as optional. It is not optional anywhere.
What the articles must contain
The minimum the form demands — and the fields that are optional but awkward to change later.
What comes after filing
Publication requirements where they exist, the first annual report, and the point at which the entity is expected to have an EIN.
How it is written
What this guide is, and is not
Requirements, not advice
What a state requires is a matter of record. Whether it suits your situation is a question for someone qualified to look at it.
Sourced to the filing office
Each state page cites the office that publishes the requirement, and carries the date it was read.
Nothing was filed to write this
No claim here rests on having formed an entity. Where something is only knowable by doing it, the page says so rather than implying otherwise.
Affiliate links are disclosed
Some links earn a commission. It never changes what a requirement says, and it is stated wherever it applies.