how much is it to get a llc in texas [No Fluff]

Last updated : Aug 15, 2022

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hi guys welcome to the simplify llc channel in this video we will talk about how much an llc costs in texas if you are new here don't forget to subscribe and press the bell icon to be notified when a new video appears let's dive right in so you're either starting a new business or currently running a growing business and you're wondering how much it costs to form an llc in texas we have the answers you need incorporating your company is a legal procedure and as with most legal procedures there is a fee attached the simple answer to the cost to form an llc in texas is 300 for a domestic business but the fees can be higher thanks to other expenses like certified copies of documents registering trade names and other things your company may require for example this particular business starts with the articles of formation for three hundred dollars or seven hundred and fifty dollars the registered agent service for 150 certified copies as needed for roughly 30 trade name registration for 25 name reservation for 40 expedited processing for 25 and 20 for specific licenses and permits that are needed your business may not require all of these fees so we will break down the fees involved with filing an llc in texas we'll start with the most significant cost the texas llc formation fee in texas the secretary of state charges 300 for filing the certificate of formation form 205 for domestic llcs if a foreign llc needs to be registered the fee is 750 for filing form 304 the secretary of state can take up to five weeks to review an application so if you need expedited services you'll pay the 25 dollars per document to file your certificate of formation you may do so in person by mail fax or online when filing online you will be paying five dollars for convenience to complete your filing you will also need to appoint your registered agent create an llc operating agreement and registered to pay texas state taxes the cost to appoint a professional registered agent service ranges from 80 to 125 the registered agent will be responsible for receiving service of processed documents for your company but you don't have to hire a service you can appoint yourself an employee your business partner or someone else you trust to receive important documents for your business if you choose to do this there are no other fees due to the state this is already included in your llc formation fee if you should need to change the registered agent you have on file you will need to file a form and pay 15 if you want to use an assumed name like a dba you must register a trade name you'll do this with form 503 which must be submitted to the secretary of state and your local county clerk the fee for filing a registered trade name is 25 dollars next is the llc name registration fee of 40 when you reserve your name it is held for your use for up to 120 days if you need it longer you will have to pay and file again you will only need to do this if you are still getting your documentation together to form your llc another cost to consider is the fee to get certified copies of your formation documents the typical rate is one dollar per page and 15 per certificate but some documents may cost more your business may require specific permits or licenses to operate in texas accounting services wineries and legal services are some examples the cost of these permits will vary if your business has to collect and remit sales tax in texas you must apply for the free sales tax permit with your local comptroller while texas doesn't have an annual llc fee if you have a change in structure you will have to pay to make those changes but you must file an annual public information report to the texas comptroller of public accounts as an llc you don't have to pay a business income tax but you will have to file annual franchise tax reports and pay franchises taxes most llcs won't pay franchise tax as they fall below the annual taxing threshold of one million one hundred and eighty thousand dollars revenue is no longer tax free after that amount companies that earn more than this amount will pay franchise taxes at a tax rate ranging from 0.331 percent to 0.75 well that's it thanks for watching if you want to know more about business formation and starting your business in texas visit our website at simplifyllc.com also don't forget to like and subscribe feel free to write in comments if you have any further questions and we will see you next time

Thanks for your comment Sherril Priolo, have a nice day.
- Ali Drinen, Staff Member

how to start an llc in texas hi my name is eric and in this video i'm going to show you three methods to start an llc in texas why you might want to choose one method over another but also some things to be aware of when setting up your llc if you're not familiar with the term piercing the corporate veil you'll definitely want to watch this video and towards the end of this video i'll actually talk about ways that you can potentially save on taxes with your business so first method that you can do is going directly through your state website with texas state.tx.us and this is the link right here you can find that in the description of this video and any kind of question you have about setting up an entity in texas is going to be on this page the one downside of going through your state website is a lot of times they're not the easiest tools to navigate you know from a user experience it can be kind of difficult and they'll just throw so much information at you so you're like where do i even go well the first thing you may be interested in is the fee schedule so if you look at this again a lot of information but what we want to look at is this row here this is the cost for you to set up an llc in texas the filing fee is 300 so no matter what route you go you're not going to get around this 300 filing fee with the state of texas just know that up front but now if we go back why don't we take a look and scroll down here it says can i file a certificate of formation online so if you do the diy route you're just using the state website it says sos direct and this is going to take you through where you can enter the site if you do go this route it is one dollar to get set up it's just kind of like to help them with their operations again though some of the difficulty of going these routes is these sites through a state website can be pretty hard to navigate and it's like you need adobe acrobat and winzip and it's just going to throw a lot of information at you that can be kind of complicated now in your situation if you do have a complicated situation you have a business that's making money you're doing sales out of state you're not sure where to get set up and what you're supposed to be doing sometimes with a complicated situation you may want to consult with an attorney one resource i'm not affiliated with them in any way but i just like them they're called avo and what you can do there is you can put an llc in texas so this would be kind of your second method that you can take if you're setting up an llc in texas and what i would recommend is skip past the ads right and then go down to the people that are just organically listed here what you'll find is you'll see reviews and you'll also see their avo rating so you know based on those reviews you get somebody with a good review a good rating and then let's say you click on them you can also see all right llcs represent 12 of his uh total business and he also focuses on business and estate planning so you want somebody that that's what they do they're in the state of texas and they can consult with you some of these people you'll find on here also do offer a free consultation kind of depends from attorney to attorney but if you click around you may find that some of them offer a free consultation now this route though if you go with hiring an attorney to set up your llc you could be looking anywhere from a thousand to three thousand dollars once you actually go through the process but it's highly recommended if you have a complex situation i'm not an attorney or cpa i did consult with several different ones for setting up my own llc and what i can tell you is if you have a complex situation consult with an attorney all right so a third potential method that you can go is through a service like ink file if you're not familiar ink file is very much like legalzoom or zen business or rocket lawyer if you're familiar with all these services the one way the ink file kind of deviates from those services is the fact that they charge you zero dollars in the first year literally if you get set up with the service they will make no money off of you for the first year and they have a very clean interface and it's very easy to follow on how to set up your business so in this particular case let's say you're setting up the llc and your state of formation is texas what you'll see here is in their silver package is that you pay that state fee it's 300 but your package fee is zero that's if you stay with the silver package but what i want to highlight here is the free registered agent service for a year this is really important so going back to the cost of what it is for setting up an llc in texas what i have highlighted here is that 300 state filing fee ongoing llc fees are zero if you're curious this link will take you to a website called nolo that explains that in further detail why you don't have any kind of fees going forward um but uh you'll also see that there is a registered agent fee of 119 now if you go back to the ink file page here you can see that it's a free registered agent service for a year but year two year three it's 119 now you might be wondering like what is a registered agent fee this ink file service tons of great resources in here and they have about registered agents a lot of information you can absorb here if you scroll down to this section right here you'll see that this is where it's 119 after your first year is free but really what a registered agent is doing for your llc is it's making it a legit entity because it is required that you have a registered agent on file and typically that registered agent is a third party that accepts legal documents also lets you know if you need to renew with the state if there's any important updates or anything that you need to do that's very important for your business now in the unfortunate situation if you were sued by an outside party what would happen is that attorney would actually send the document to your registered agent which would then give you that legal document letting you know that you're being sued and what you need to do next and that's why it's very important to have a registered agent set up in fact if you do not have a registered agent for your llc it could be found that your llc is not legit now why is that important at the beginning of this video i talked about piercing the corporate veil now some people get llc's a little bit confused they think they may be setting it up for tax reasons really when you're setting up an llc you're just doing it to limit your liability now what the llc does is it helps create a divide between your personal assets and your business assets so then in the unfortunate situation where you are sued in your business they can't go after your personal assets such as your home your car and your personal bank account now the important thing to understand is that if you're sued the attorney that is doing the suing is going to look for cracks in your llc what they're going to do is try to pierce the corporate veil one way they may do that is to see if you actually have a registered agent on file is

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- Ali Drinen

About the author

Ali Drinen

I've studied supramolecular chemistry at Marshall B. Ketchum University in Fullerton and I am an expert in aerobiology. I usually feel dirty. My previous job was animal scientist I held this position for 31 years, I love talking about winemaking and line dancing. Huge fan of James Harden I practice equestrian: eventing and collect police memorabilia.