LLC Startup Checklist

A free checklist of everything an LLC has to do to be formed properly and stay protected, in the order it actually happens. Name clearance including the USPTO database, registered agent, Articles of Organization, operating agreement, EIN, licenses, insurance, and the first-year deadlines nobody calendars.

What it covers

• Name clearance — including the USPTO trademark database, because a state entity search tells you almost nothing about whether you can actually use the name.
• Registered agent — who can serve, and what happens if the role lapses.
• Articles of Organization — what the state needs and what it does not.
• Operating agreement — ownership, capital, management authority, transfer restrictions, and what happens when a member leaves. This is the document that matters most and gets skipped most.
• EIN, bank account, and keeping the separation that makes the liability shield work.
• Licences, permits, and insurance appropriate to what you actually do.
• First-year deadlines, including the annual report that quietly dissolves companies that forget it.

The liability shield is not automatic

Forming an LLC creates the structure. Keeping it means respecting it — separate accounts, proper records, and not treating the business account as a personal one. The checklist covers the housekeeping that keeps the protection intact.

What it does not do

It is a checklist, not a formation service and not legal advice. If you would rather an attorney prepared and filed it, our flat fee is $699 plus state filing fees, with the operating agreement included.

Where the liability shield actually fails

• Forming the company creates the separation. Losing it is a matter of behaviour rather than paperwork, and it usually happens gradually.
• Mixing funds is the main route. Paying personal expenses from the business account, or the reverse, is the fact pattern most often cited when a court disregards the entity.
• Undercapitalisation matters. A company with no meaningful assets, formed to hold risk and nothing else, is a weaker structure than one that genuinely operates.
• Failing to observe formalities — no operating agreement, no records, no evidence the company makes decisions as a company — undermines the argument that it is separate from you.
• Signing in your own name rather than as a member or manager of the company is a small habit with real consequences.
• Letting the entity lapse by missing the annual report is the quietest failure of all, and it is entirely administrative.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need an operating agreement for a single-member LLC?

It is not always legally required, but it is strongly advisable. It is a significant part of what demonstrates the company is genuinely separate from you.

Does forming an LLC protect my business name?

Only against another entity registering a confusingly similar name in that state. It gives you no trademark rights.