Forming a new LLC or corporation, or registering an entity you already have so it can legally operate somewhere new. Both are ordinary paperwork — done wrong, both are expensive.
This trips up nearly everyone, including people who have owned companies for a decade. It's worth two minutes.
Creating a legal entity that did not exist before. You pick one jurisdiction — its domestic jurisdiction — and file a charter document there. That filing is the moment the company legally begins to exist.
The entity has exactly one domestic jurisdiction, forever, unless it goes through a formal conversion or domestication later. Everything else it does elsewhere is qualification.
Registering a company that already exists so it may lawfully transact business in an additional jurisdiction. "Foreign" here has nothing to do with other countries — it just means "chartered somewhere else."
You are not creating a second company. It's the same entity, the same tax ID, the same owners, now recognised in a second place. It will need an agent and its own report obligations there.
An entity transacting business where it isn't qualified typically can't bring a lawsuit there until it registers, and often owes back fees and penalties for the whole unregistered period. It's the kind of problem that surfaces at the worst possible moment — mid-financing, mid-sale, or the day you need to sue someone who owes you money.
A formation is not one filing. It's a sequence, and half the damage we see comes from people doing step four before step two.
Before anything is drafted, we check the name against the register and flag anything likely to be rejected for similarity or restricted wording.
Certificate or articles of formation, drafted with the governing structure you actually chose rather than whatever the default template says.
Required at formation. We're already the agent, so the consent is signed in the same session and your first year of agent service starts immediately.
The federal tax identification number, applied for once the entity legally exists — which is the order that matters. Needed for banking, payroll and almost everything else.
An operating agreement template for LLCs, or bylaws and organisational resolutions for corporations. Editable, and yours.
Your first annual or periodic report, franchise tax information report where applicable, and the agent renewal — on the calendar the day you're formed.
Filing offices charge a fee to process a charter document. That fee is set by the government, it varies by jurisdiction and entity type, and it is not our money.
We show you the exact amount before anything is submitted, we charge you exactly that, and we attach the receipt to your file. If a jurisdiction offers expedited handling and you want it, we show you that price too and you decide.
Marking up a government fee is the oldest trick in this industry and it's the reason quoted prices never match invoices. We don't do it, and we'd rather say so plainly than bury it in a footnote.
State fees differ by entity type and are charged at cost; yours is quoted before submission.
Our part is fast. The variable is the filing office, and we'll tell you honestly what theirs looks like before you start.
You give us the details, we clear the name and draft the charter document. Usually inside a few hours.
You review and sign; we submit with the state fee shown at cost. Expedited handling if the jurisdiction offers it.
Entirely out of anyone's hands. Some offices return same-day; some take over a week in busy season.
EIN applied for, governing documents issued, records assembled, calendar loaded. Then you can open a bank account.
Anyone advertising a guaranteed turnaround is guaranteeing something they don't control. What we guarantee is that your document is correct, complete and submitted the next business day — because the single largest cause of a slow formation is a rejection that sends you back to the end of the queue.
A company is a paperwork object. If the paperwork is scattered across three inboxes, you don't really have one — you have a name and some hope.
Everything below lands in one place, indexed to the entity, exportable in full whenever you want it. Your lawyer, your accountant and your bank will each ask for a subset of it, usually urgently.
Start a formationThe certificate or articles as returned by the filing office, with the file number and effective date.
The federal tax ID and the confirmation letter. This is the document banks ask for and nobody can find.
A working template covering ownership, management, transfers and dissolution — a starting point, not legal advice.
Initial consent of the members or directors, officer appointments, and the banking resolution.
A digital minute book with an ownership ledger, ready to hold everything the entity does from here.
Not a PDF listing them. Actual dates on an actual calendar with someone watching them.
Short list. Most people have all of it already and the whole intake takes about ten minutes.
If you're unsure about any of it — particularly management structure or ownership splits — say so and we'll walk you through the trade-offs before anything is filed. Changing it later is an amendment, and amendments cost money.
Both numbers are on the screen before you approve anything. There is no second invoice.
A new LLC or corporation.
An existing entity, registered somewhere new.
Formed, and then kept alive.
We're not a law firm and none of this is legal advice. It is, however, what we'd tell a friend.
Ten minutes of intake. We'll tell you the full cost, including the state's fee, before anything is filed.