Skip to main content

vState Filings

LLC and Corporation Formation Services in Los Angeles

LLC and Corporation Formation Services in Los Angeles

Los Angeles County is the largest business county in the United States, and California ranks among the top two states in the nation for new business applications filed each year. More companies start here than almost anywhere else.

California also has the most expensive and least forgiving compliance regime of any major state. There is an $800 minimum franchise tax you owe whether or not your business earns a dollar. There is a Statement of Information due 90 days after formation that catches a remarkable number of new owners. And there is a tiered LLC fee stacked on top of the $800 once your California income crosses $250,000.

vState Filings LLC has handled entity formation and corporate compliance filings since 2007 for more than 100,000 clients. We file in California every week, and we tell you the real cost before you pay it. Call (866) 638-3309.

Why Los Angeles Businesses Choose vState Filings LLC

Most national filing sites are built to move you through a checkout page. They quote a low headline price, upsell a package, and leave you to discover the $800 franchise tax and the 90-day Statement of Information on your own.

We work the other way. We tell you what California actually costs across the first 24 months, we identify the right entity type for your license and your industry before anything gets filed, and we stay on file as your agent for service of process so the state and the courts always have a real address that a person monitors.

Since 2007 we have filed formations, foreign qualifications, amendments, conversions, mergers, and dissolutions across all fifty states. California is one of our highest-volume jurisdictions. We know how the Secretary of State’s bizfile system behaves, what gets rejected, and how to fix a rejection quickly.

Why Los Angeles Businesses Choose vState Filings LLC
What Sets Us Apart

What Sets Us Apart

  • Entity-type screening before filing. If you hold a California professional license, we tell you before you pay that an LLC is not available to you. This single conversation prevents the most expensive mistake in California formation.
  • Full-cost disclosure. The $70 Articles of Organization fee is the smallest number in your first year. We show you the $800 minimum franchise tax, the Statement of Information, the LLC fee tiers, and the Los Angeles city and county obligations up front.
  • Registered agent service in California. A real California street address and same-day scanning of service of process, so a lawsuit does not sit in a mailbox in Reseda while a default judgment runs.
  • Compliance calendaring. California’s Statement of Information cycle is unusual: initial filing at 90 days, then biennial for LLCs and annual for corporations, tied to your formation month. We track it.
  • A human on the phone. One number, (866) 638-3309, and a filing specialist who can see your file.
  • Everything downstream. EIN, S-corp election, DBA, foreign qualification, certificates of status, certified copies, apostille, corporate kits and seals, charitable registration, UCC filings, reinstatement, dissolution.

Los Angeles Entity Formation Services Every Business Structure Covered

LLC Formation in Los Angeles, CA

The LLC is the default choice for consultants, e-commerce sellers, real estate holding companies, restaurants, and agencies across Downtown LA, Culver City, and Silicon Beach. Formation is by Articles of Organization (Form LLC-1) filed with the California Secretary of State. The state filing fee is $70. California briefly waived formation fees between July 1, 2022 and June 30, 2023. That waiver has expired. As of 2026 the $70 fee applies again, and anyone quoting you free California filing is quoting an expired program. We prepare and file the LLC-1, confirm name availability, serve as agent for service of process, file the initial Statement of Information, obtain your EIN, and provide an operating agreement. Note that California does not require you to file your operating agreement, but it does require you to have one.

C-Corporation Formation in California

Articles of Incorporation for a general stock corporation (Form ARTS-GS) carry a $100 state filing fee. The C-corp is the structure venture investors expect, and it is the structure that supports multiple stock classes, option pools, and preferred rounds. Many Los Angeles startups incorporate in Delaware and then register in California as a foreign corporation. That is a legitimate strategy, but it means two states of fees and two sets of annual obligations, and California still charges the $800 minimum franchise tax on a Delaware corporation doing business here. We can file either path and will tell you honestly which one your situation justifies.

S-Corporation Election

An S corporation is a tax election, not an entity type. You form an LLC or a corporation with the state, then file IRS Form 2553 to elect S treatment. For an owner-operator taking a reasonable salary, the election can reduce self-employment tax meaningfully. California recognizes the federal election but does not exempt you from state-level tax. California taxes S corporations at 1.5% of California net income, with the same $800 annual minimum. Plan for it. We handle the election and the timing rules that determine which tax year it takes effect.

California Professional Corporation

If you hold a license issued under the California Business and Professions Code — physician, dentist, attorney, CPA, architect, engineer, psychologist, marriage and family therapist, clinical social worker, chiropractor, optometrist, pharmacist, physical therapist, veterinarian, nurse, acupuncturist and others — your entity is a professional corporation formed under the Moscone-Knox Professional Corporation Act (California Corporations Code section 13400 and following). A professional corporation has requirements a standard corporation does not: the corporate name must comply with your licensing board's rules, the corporate purpose must be limited to the one profession, shareholders and most officers and directors must be licensed in that profession, and many boards require separate registration of the entity with the board itself after the Secretary of State filing. We handle both halves.

Loan-Out Corporations for Entertainment Professionals

The loan-out corporation is a genuinely Los Angeles entity. An actor, writer, director, producer, editor, showrunner, or below-the-line crew member forms a corporation, becomes its employee, and the corporation "loans out" those services to a studio or production company. The production pays the corporation rather than the individual. Loan-outs are common from Burbank to Studio City to Century City because they can improve deduction treatment, support a retirement plan the individual controls, and give business managers a clean structure for residuals and multiple concurrent engagements. They are usually corporations with an S election, not LLCs, and they carry the same $800 minimum and 1.5% state tax as any other California S corporation. They also require real payroll, real records, and real separation of funds — a loan-out that is run casually invites scrutiny. We form loan-outs and coordinate with your business manager or entertainment CPA on the tax side. Call (866) 638-3309.

Limited Partnership (LP) Formation

The LP is formed by Certificate of Limited Partnership (Form LP-1) at a $70 state fee. It remains the standard vehicle for real estate syndications, film finance funds, and investment partnerships where general partners manage and limited partners contribute capital without management authority. LPs also owe the $800 annual tax.

Limited Liability Partnership (LLP)

California's LLP is deliberately narrow. Registration is by Form LLP-1 at a $70 state fee, and eligibility is limited by statute to attorneys, public accountants, architects, engineers, and land surveyors. Eligibility for architects, engineers, and land surveyors was extended by AB 1862 (2024) and now runs through January 1, 2034. California LLPs must also maintain the security for claims required by statute. Licensed professionals outside those five categories use a professional corporation instead.

Licensed Professionals: Why You Cannot Form a PLLC in California

This is the single most consequential thing on this page.

California does not have a professional limited liability company. The PLLC exists in New York, Texas, Florida, Arizona and many other states. It does not exist here. California Corporations Code section 17701.04(e) provides that nothing in the LLC title permits a limited liability company to render professional services, and services requiring a license under the Business and Professions Code, the Chiropractic Act, or the Osteopathic Act fall squarely within that bar.

The practical consequence: a doctor in Beverly Hills, a dentist in Glendale, a therapist in Santa Monica, a CPA in Pasadena, or an architect in West Hollywood cannot legally practice through an LLC. They must use a professional corporation under the Moscone-Knox Act, or — in the five professions California permits — an LLP.

National filing mills sell California LLCs to licensed professionals constantly, because their intake forms do not ask about licensure. We see the aftermath: entities that must be converted or dissolved and re-formed, licensing board issues, contracts signed by an entity that was never authorized to render the service, and malpractice carriers asking uncomfortable questions.

What a California professional corporation requires:

Your board sets the rules. Medical corporations, dental corporations, law corporations and accountancy corporations each have distinct naming conventions, and the name generally must signal corporate status.

The corporation renders one profession’s services, with limited statutory exceptions permitting related licensed professionals to hold minority interests in certain healthcare configurations.

Shareholders must hold the relevant license. Unlicensed investors cannot own equity, which is why the corporate practice of medicine doctrine matters so much in California healthcare deals.

Several boards require the entity to register separately after formation, with its own fee and renewal.

The entity protects you from the entity’s general obligations and from a colleague’s negligence. It does not protect you from your own.

One exception worth naming: licensed contractors can use an LLC in California, and have been able to since 2012, subject to CSLB bonding and insurance requirements. Occupational licensees who are not “professionals” under the statute generally can as well. The line is specific, and we walk it with you before filing.

The $800 Franchise Tax and the California LLC Fee

Every LLC, corporation, LP, and LLP organized in California or doing business in California owes the Franchise Tax Board a minimum $800 annual tax. This is owed on a business with zero revenue. It is owed on a dormant entity you forgot about. It accrues until you formally cancel or dissolve.

For LLCs, the $800 is due by the 15th day of the 4th month of your taxable year — for a calendar-year LLC, April 15. The first-year exemption that applied to LLCs, LPs, and LLPs registering between January 1, 2021 and December 31, 2023 has expired. An LLC formed in Los Angeles today owes $800 in year one.

Corporations are treated differently: a newly incorporated corporation is exempt from the minimum franchise tax for its first taxable year, but still owes tax measured by its income, and S corporations still owe the 1.5% on first-year net income.

Then there is the separate California LLC fee, assessed on total California income, not profit:

Under $250,000

no fee

$250,000 to $499,999

$900

$500,000 to $999,999

$2,500

$1,000,000 to $4,999,999

$6,000

$5,000,000 and above

$11,790

The estimated fee is paid on FTB Form 3536, due by the 15th day of the 6th month of the taxable year. Underestimating triggers a penalty. Because the tiers key off gross California income rather than net, a high-volume, thin-margin LLC in Long Beach can owe $6,000 in LLC fee plus $800 in franchise tax on a year that produced modest profit. This is one of the strongest arguments for running the entity-type analysis before you file, not after.

The Statement of Information the Deadline That Catches Everyone

California requires an initial Statement of Information within 90 days of filing your Articles of Organization or Articles of Incorporation. Not one year. Ninety days. New owners routinely miss it because nothing in the formation confirmation shouts about it.

After the initial filing, the cycle diverges: LLCs file biennially (Form LLC-12, $20) and corporations file annually (Form SI-550, $25), each due in the six-month window ending on the last day of the entity’s formation anniversary month.

Miss it and the Franchise Tax Board assesses a $250 penalty on behalf of the Secretary of State. Keep missing it and the entity is suspended or forfeited. A suspended California entity cannot enforce its contracts in court, cannot defend a lawsuit, loses the exclusive right to its own name, and cannot close a sale or a financing until it is revived — which requires clearing every outstanding filing, fee, tax, and penalty.

vState files your initial Statement of Information as part of formation and calendars every subsequent cycle. Our compliance subscription tracks the biennial or annual date, the franchise tax date, and the Form 3536 date together, so nothing depends on you remembering your formation month two years from now.

Fictitious Business Names in Los Angeles County

Fictitious Business Names in Los Angeles County

If you operate under a name different from your legal entity name — “Sunset Media Group” when the entity is Sunset Holdings LLC — California requires a fictitious business name filing. Unlike most states, this is a county filing, handled by the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk.

What LA County requires:

  • Filing fee of $26 for one business name and one registrant, plus $5 for each additional name or registrant on the same statement
  • A notarized Affidavit of Identity with the original, renewal, or amended statement
  • Proof of current standing from the California Secretary of State when the registrant is a corporation, LLC, or partnership
  • Publication once a week for four consecutive weeks in a newspaper of general circulation in Los Angeles County, with publication beginning within 45 days of filing
  • An affidavit of publication filed with the county after the run completes
  • Renewal every five years

The publication requirement is the part people skip, and it has teeth: a business that has not properly filed and published cannot maintain an action in California court on a contract made under that unregistered name until it cures. We handle the county filing, coordinate publication with an LA County newspaper of general circulation, and file the affidavit back with the county.

Separately, businesses operating inside the City of Los Angeles must register with the LA Office of Finance for a Business Tax Registration Certificate. City registration and county FBN are different obligations; you may need both.

Beyond Formation Ongoing California Business Compliance

Every California entity must designate an agent for service of process with a physical California street address. No P.O. boxes, no mail drops. The address becomes public record, which is why home-based owners in Sherman Oaks or Playa Vista should not use their residence. vState serves as your agent statewide and scans documents the day they arrive.

Required for corporations, multi-member LLCs, any entity with employees, and effectively every business bank account in Los Angeles. We obtain it as part of formation.

The Corporate Transparency Act reporting landscape changed materially this year. Under FinCEN’s final rule effective August 11, 2026, U.S.-formed companies and U.S. persons are no longer required to report beneficial ownership information; the requirement now reaches foreign reporting companies and their foreign beneficial owners, and FinCEN has stated it will remove previously submitted information for newly exempted U.S. persons. If you formed an entity in 2024 or 2025 and filed a BOI report, you are not looking at a renewal obligation. If any part of your ownership chain is foreign, call us and we will assess it.

An out-of-state entity doing business in Los Angeles must register with the California Secretary of State — $70 for a foreign LLC, $100 for a foreign corporation — and then owes the same $800 minimum and the same Statement of Information cycle as a domestic entity.

 Name changes, member and officer changes, converting an LLC to a corporation ahead of a raise, merging entities, and formally dissolving so the $800 clock stops.

If your entity is suspended or forfeited, we work the backlog: delinquent Statements of Information, FTB clearance, penalties, and revivor.

Nonprofits and 501(c)(3). California nonprofit public benefit corporation formation, IRS Form 1023 or 1023-EZ, and registration with the California Attorney General’s Registry of Charities and Fundraisers, including the initial CT-1 and the annual RRF-1 that a great many LA nonprofits let lapse.

Certificates of status ($5), certified copies, and apostille for entertainment, import/export, and international clients who need California documents authenticated for use abroad.

UCC-1 filings and searches, plus corporate kits, seals, stock certificates, and membership ledgers.

Serving Los Angeles County and Southern California

We file for clients across Downtown LA, Century City, Culver City, Santa Monica, Burbank, Studio City, West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Pasadena, Glendale, Long Beach, Playa Vista and Silicon Beach, and throughout the San Fernando Valley — plus Orange County, the Inland Empire, San Diego, and the Bay Area.

Because California filing is centralized with the Secretary of State in Sacramento and our agent service covers the entire state, your location within Los Angeles County affects your county FBN and your city tax registration, not your ability to work with us. Everything runs by phone, email, and secure document exchange.

Serving Los Angeles County and Southern California​

Ready to Form Your Los Angeles Business? Let's Get Started.

Tell us what you do, whether you hold a professional license, where your revenue will come from, and who else will own equity. We will tell you which entity California actually permits, what the first 24 months cost, and what the calendar looks like. Then we file it correctly the first time.

Call (866) 638-3309 or start online at vstatefilings.com. Founded 2007. More than 100,000 clients served.

Frequently Asked Questions About Business Formation in Los Angeles, CA

How much does it cost to form an LLC in Los Angeles?

The California Secretary of State charges $70 for Articles of Organization (Form LLC-1). Add the $20 initial Statement of Information due within 90 days, the $800 minimum annual franchise tax, and — if you use a trade name — the $26 LA County fictitious business name filing plus newspaper publication costs. The honest first-year figure for most single-member LLCs in Los Angeles is roughly $900 to $1,100 in state and county obligations before service fees.

No. California has no professional limited liability company. Corporations Code section 17701.04(e) bars LLCs from rendering licensed professional services. Licensed professionals must generally form a professional corporation under the Moscone-Knox Professional Corporation Act, or — if they are attorneys, accountants, architects, engineers, or land surveyors — register a California LLP. If another filing service formed a California LLC for your practice, call us at (866) 638-3309 and we will assess what it takes to correct it.

Yes. The $800 minimum franchise tax applies to LLCs, corporations, LPs, and LLPs organized in or doing business in California regardless of income or activity, and it continues until the entity is formally cancelled or dissolved. The one meaningful exception is that a newly incorporated corporation is exempt from the minimum for its first taxable year. The comparable first-year exemption for LLCs applied only to registrations between January 1, 2021 and December 31, 2023 and has expired.

Within 90 days of the date the Secretary of State filed your formation document. After that, LLCs file every two years for $20 and corporations file every year for $25, due in the six-month window ending the last day of your formation anniversary month. Missing it triggers a $250 FTB penalty and, if it continues, suspension of the entity.

A suspended entity loses the right to conduct business in California, cannot bring or defend a lawsuit, cannot enforce its contracts, and loses exclusive rights to its name — another party can claim it. Revivor requires filing every delinquent Statement of Information, paying all outstanding franchise taxes, fees, and penalties, and obtaining FTB clearance. We handle reinstatements regularly; the earlier you call, the smaller the bill.

If you are raising institutional venture capital, Delaware is what investors expect. For everyone else, Delaware usually adds cost without benefit: you pay Delaware fees, then register in California as a foreign entity anyway, and you still owe California’s $800 minimum and its Statement of Information cycle. A restaurant in Long Beach or an agency in Culver City with local customers is normally better off forming in California.

Only if you operate under a name different from your registered entity name. If Sunset Holdings LLC does business as “Sunset Media Group,” you need a Los Angeles County fictitious business name filing, publication once a week for four consecutive weeks in an LA County newspaper of general circulation beginning within 45 days of filing, and an affidavit of publication filed back with the county. Renewal is every five years.

Under FinCEN’s final rule effective August 11, 2026, U.S.-formed companies and U.S. persons are no longer subject to beneficial ownership reporting under the Corporate Transparency Act, and FinCEN has stated it will remove previously reported information for newly exempted U.S. persons. Foreign reporting companies remain within scope for their foreign beneficial owners. If your ownership includes non-U.S. persons or a foreign parent, call (866) 638-3309 and we will review your position.