Starting a business in the United States
There is no national registration - a sole proprietorship just starts, an LLC is a state filing, and the traps are the annual fees and the state-by-state sales tax.
Checked against the sources on 2026-08-30
Before anything else
The US has no federal business register. A sole proprietorship exists the moment you sell something; the state may want a DBA ("doing business as") filing if you trade under a name, and everything else - the LLC, the sales tax permit, the annual report - is state law, fifty flavours of it.
The standing advice against the internet’s favourite myth: form the LLC in your home state. Delaware and Wyoming make sense for venture-backed corporations; for an ordinary business they add a second state’s fees and a registered agent while your home state still makes you register as a "foreign" LLC anyway. The cheap version of this mistake costs a few hundred dollars a year forever.
The legal shell
Sole proprietorship, LLC, or corporation?
Sole proprietorship
Testing an idea with low risk.
$0-100 (a DBA filing where used).
No liability shield at all, in the world’s most litigious market.
LLC
The default serious answer: liability shield, pass-through taxes, minimal ceremony.
State filing $50-500; some states add annual fees (California’s $800 franchise tax is the famous one).
A single-member LLC is ignored for federal tax - the shield is legal, not fiscal. Respect the formalities (separate bank account above all) or a court pierces it.
C-corporation (usually Delaware)
Venture capital, stock options, US investors.
Filing plus registered agent plus franchise tax - hundreds a year before revenue.
Double taxation unless profits stay in; this is the vehicle for equity stories, not for freelance income.
The sequence
File the LLC with your state
Where: The Secretary of State’s websiteCost: $50-500 by stateTakes: Instant to a few days online
Articles of organization, a registered agent (yourself, at a street address, is fine in most states), and the name check. Write or generate an operating agreement even solo - banks ask, and it is the document that proves the LLC is real.
Get the EIN - free, from the IRS only
Where: irs.gov, the online EIN assistantCost: $0Takes: Minutes online for US persons; by fax/mail via form SS-4 for foreigners
The employer identification number is the business’s tax identity, needed for the bank account. Every site charging for one is reselling a free form.
Watch out: Only irs.gov. The paid lookalikes are the most-clicked trap in US founding.
Open the account and separate the money
The liability shield lives or dies on separation. One business account, no commingling, and bookkeeping from month one - the discipline is the legal structure.
Sales tax, state by state
Since Wayfair (2018), states tax remote sellers past economic nexus thresholds (typically $100,000 of in-state sales). Physical presence creates nexus immediately. Selling software or digital goods multi-state means a tax tool (TaxJar, Avalara, Stripe Tax) earlier than intuition suggests.
Remember the two federal rhythms
Quarterly estimated taxes (self-employment tax is 15.3% on top of income tax - the number that shocks every ex-employee), and the annual return with Schedule C or the partnership/corporate equivalent. State annual reports keep the LLC alive; missing them dissolves it quietly.
What it costs to start
| What | Amount |
|---|---|
| LLC filingBy state. | $50-500 |
| EINFrom the IRS, always. | $0 |
| Registered agent serviceFree when you are your own. | $0-150/year |
| Annual report / franchise taxCalifornia at the top. | $0-800/year |
| Self-employment taxOn top of income tax. | 15.3% of net earnings |
The words on the forms
- LLC
- The limited liability company - the small-business default.
- EIN
- The federal tax number, free from the IRS.
- DBA
- The trade-name filing for unregistered names.
- Registered agent
- The service address every state entity must keep.
- Operating agreement
- The internal constitution banks and courts ask for.
- Economic nexus
- The post-Wayfair sales-tax trigger, ~$100k per state.
- Schedule C
- Where sole-proprietor and single-member-LLC profit lands.
- Franchise tax
- The state’s annual fee for existing.
The traps
- Delaware for a business that lives in Ohio.
- Paying for an EIN.
- Commingling funds and losing the shield when it matters.
- Ignoring quarterly estimates until the April bill arrives with penalties.
- Selling into a state past its nexus threshold with no permit.
- Letting the annual report lapse and discovering the LLC was administratively dissolved.
Where to check this yourself
- IRS - EINThe only EIN source.
- SBAThe federal small-business guides.
- Your Secretary of StateLinks to every state filing office.
This is a map, not legal or tax advice - and an honest one about how it was drawn: the Germany guide was written by a person who walked the route; most other countries were drafted with AI against the official sources and have not yet been walked by someone who did it. Laws change. Every guide carries the date it was last checked and the sources to check it yourself - and if you have been through one of these routes, your corrections are exactly what this handbook wants.