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if you want to learn how to start an llc in virginia you're in the right place now every state has slightly different roles when it comes to forming an llc virginia is one of the easiest places to form an llc or limited liability company so stick around to learn what the steps are to form your own llc in virginia to get an llc you can either do it yourself or hire someone to do it for you if you're going the diy route there are five steps in total to forming your llc in virginia step number one name your llc do you already have a name for your business you'll need to search through the business name database that's kept on file with the virginia secretary of state to make sure it isn't taken every state has its own rules about what kind of names you're allowed to use in order to form your llc in general you'll want to check that it's not easily confused with another business name on file for example bear claw llc and bear claw llc are not easily distinguishable and you'll need to add either limited liability company llc or llc with periods in between each letter to your business's name there are also certain words that may require additional paperwork such as insurance trust bank and inc lastly though this isn't a requirement of getting an llc you'll probably want to grab the domain name of your business name so that no one gets it first step number two file articles of organization virginia requires you to file articles of organization with the secretary of state either in person online or by mail you just have to fill out form llc-1011 which includes instructions for how to fill out and submit the form and it costs a hundred dollars to file make sure to include the name of your proposed llc the physical address of your virginia office the designated registered agent which we'll talk about in a moment and how your llc will be managed one manager more than one manager or all llc members step number three choose a registered agent having a registered agent is a requirement for forming an llc in virginia it refers to a person or business who sends and accepts all legal papers acting as the point of contact for your llc these documents can include regulatory and tax notices subpoenas correspondence and legal filings depending on your state laws your registered agent can be someone in your company like you or you can hire a professional service to do it for you just as long as your registered agent has a street address in your state and is available during business hours step number four create an operating agreement though virginia doesn't legally require you to file your operating agreement with the secretary of state you could be required to prepare and maintain an operating agreement within the llc an operating agreement records all your llc setups organizational structure daily duties and general rules it defines the roles and responsibilities of all llc members including the percentage of ownership allocated to each member how profits will be distributed and how decisions will be made it's the core document of your business and it can help you prevent future misunderstandings there are six main sections to an operating agreement section one organization describes when and where a company is created who its members are and how ownership is structured section two management and voting just like it sounds it's an outline of how the company is managed and how the members vote section 3 capital contributions which members are financially supporting the llc and how more funds plan to be raised in the future section 4 distributions how the company's profits and losses are distributed among the members section 5 membership changes the process for adding and removing members of the llc or if and when members can transfer their ownership shares and section 6 dissolution the circumstances in which the llc may be dissolved your operating agreement is a living document that should be updated each time there's a change in membership or management of your company step 5 apply for a ein your employer identification number is like a social security number specifically for your business it's a nine-digit number assigned by the irs to identify taxpayers who are required to file business tax returns you should consider getting an ein from the irs if you want to open a business bank account apply for a business loan and pay for your business income taxes eins are free and you can get one from the irs either online or by mail and that's how to form an llc in virginia it's important to know that llcs doing business in virginia don't pay income taxes but the members of the llc do this means that members of your llc will pay taxes on their private income tax reports for the revenue they were paid from the llc and virginia does require llcs to pay an annual registration fee of 50 which you pay through the scc e-file system online each year additionally if you sell products or goods it is the responsibility of your llc or really you to collect the sales tax from your customers at the time of the sale and then pay the associated tax authority those funds to do this you need to register your llc with the department of taxation online or by mail using form r-1 once you've registered you'll receive a certificate of registration form st-4 from the state if forming an llc on your own sounds like too much of a headache you can always go with option two hiring a service to take care of your virginia llc for you though it may cost more money than doing it yourself there are a lot of benefits to hiring a pro like taylor brands our llc service will take care of your formal application get your ein for you create your operating agreement in your terms and act as your registered agent so you can rest easy knowing that the paperwork is taken care of deadlines are met and your privacy is protected if you have any more questions about forming a virginia llc you can check out the link to our blog post in the video description below don't forget to visit the taylor brands website and subscribe to our youtube channel to get more information on how to successfully build your business from scratch we can't wait to see what you create you
Thanks for your comment Evelyn Bazzell, have a nice day.
- Otelia Buford, Staff Member
hey my name is eric in today's video we're talking about how to form or create an llc in virginia so in this video what i'm going to do is i'm going to walk you through three different ways that you can do this the first way is actually using the virginia state website and it's kind of like a diy route but going through that official website the second method is you can use an attorney but i'm going to show you how you can vet some attorneys and also be able to filter it down so that you can get attorneys that focus on llcs but also offer free consultations on top of it and then the third route i'm gonna show you some pre-online tools that you can also use as well some of the key takeaways for this video is we will be discussing what an llc actually does because sometimes there's some misinformation on that and some really important things about an llc is understanding what piercing the corporate veil means if you're not familiar with that term you've never heard that term before you're definitely going to want to stay on this video because we're going to talk about how that relates to your business finances and also if you have a registered agent set up i'm going to explain what all this means for you as we get into this video the very first thing i want to do though is i want to share a resource with you which just comes from inkfile which is an online tool that you can register an llc through but they have a learning center here with a ton of helpful resources and one of the things that i find really helpful is the business checklist so you'll find it right here start a business checklist i know from starting my own business that it's very overwhelming you have so many things that you're thinking about there's so many things to overlook well this is a great resource and that it'll walk you through with really simple drop down boxes like this that kind of give you a blurb on each section and each step that you need to consider as you're going through your journey now this is a good opportunity to mention that every resource mentioned in this video is going to be in the description of this video if you're on mobile you may have to click a little down arrow to see it but if you're on desktop you'll just have to click the show more button so that you can see all the resources mentioned from this video so let's start off with the irs website so they have some resources on limited liability companies this is important because if you are running a business there's a good chance that you're going to need an ein numbered an employee identification number this article here will let you know if you do need one and the reason i mention this now is that a lot of services are going to do this for you but they're going to do it at an upcharge this is something that you can do yourself it is a little bit of a pain in the butt because you're going through the irs but you're going to need an ein number most likely so i wanted to give you this resource and again it'll be in the description below now the first method for setting up an llc in virginia is to go directly through the state website so what we're looking at right here is virginia limited liability companies and this is showing us all of the possible forms that you could possibly have along with what the fee is for filing that form so what you're going to be looking at is the articles of organization of a virginia limited liability company and it's a hundred dollar fee for filing that with the state you'll find that about a hundred bucks is really in the middle um every state in the u.s for the most part charges the fee for filing there is no way to get around this so if you go directly through the state you're gonna pay a hundred dollars if you go through an attorney there's gonna be a hundred dollar filing fee and if you go online through an online tool there's gonna be a hundred dollar filing fee so let's start off with the virginia website so scc.virginia.gov and what you can see here is new business resources there's a lot of different places you can go on here one of the first i want to show you is all the forms and fees and again i'll have this link in the description below so as you open this up what you do is you go to virginia limited liability companies and here you'll be able to find the forms that you're looking for and specifically articles of organization of a virginia limited liability company now you should know that it's a hundred dollars to file these you're not going to get around that fee in any way possible if you go directly through the virginia website you're gonna pay a hundred dollar filing fee if you go through an attorney there's gonna be a hundred dollar filing fee that they may lump inside of their fee uh and then also if you use a free online tool hundred dollar filing fee so if you are creating a new business what you can do is you can click here and then what that'll do is it gives you a few different options on how you can create the new business uh probably the easiest way is to register an account by clicking this green button and then you can go through their online registration process now a lot of times these state websites the thing that i don't like is they don't do a great job of explaining all of the aspects of what you're signing up for and what's important so for example this is actually the form that i mentioned earlier for your articles of organization like i said there's a hundred dollar filing fee now if you go down to article two registered agent it starts to talk about what a registered agent is where the registered office is but it doesn't really get into the details so this time i think it would be a good time to explain exactly what an llc does because i want to get into piercing the corporate bail and registered agents so some people think that they're going to set up an llc for some sort of tax advantage or tax purpose that's not why you set it up it is for limiting your liability and specifically what it does is it creates a division between your business assets and your personal assets so in the unfortunate case if you were to get sued by somebody what would happen is if you have a legit llc and there's no cracks in your llc they're only going to be able to go after your business assets and not your personal home your personal car your personal bank accounts but where there's an issue with analysis is if it's not set up correctly or not maintained properly what it's called is piercing the corporate veil that's what the attorney suing you is going to try to do they're going to try to find a crack in your llc and pierce the corporate veil and one of the common ways that this is done is through the registered agent so what a registered agent is is it's a third party that is always required when you're setting up an llc and what they do is they accept important legal documents from the state and federal level they make sure that you're processing any notices especially if you're being sued by somebody they do official federal government correspondence information notifications tax forms and requests for payment and request to complete p
Thanks Roscoe your participation is very much appreciated
- Otelia Buford
About the author
I've studied simulation at Notre Dame College in Cleveland and I am an expert in information broker. I usually feel high. My previous job was marine and aquatic biologist I held this position for 23 years, I love talking about dowsing and virtual reality. Huge fan of Fifth Harmony I practice shooting and collect seashells.
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