Start a Wyoming LLC
Start a Wyoming LLC by filing Articles of Organization with the Wyoming Secretary of State for $100.
You can use our free tool to fill out the paperwork right here yourself. Or hire Northwest to do it for you and we’ll provide one year of registered agent service and a free Business Identity—all for $39.
How to Start an LLC in Wyoming
A Limited Liability Company (LLC) is a permanent public record. Starting one requires sharing personal information with the government, banks, landlords, vendors, and of course, customers. We provide a Free Business Identity to anyone who needs it—that’s a domain name, website, phone line, email address, and Brand Protection on day one. This helps protect your privacy and keep you in control of your intellectual property.
1. Name Your LLC
Naming your LLC is both a legal and a marketing consideration. The main requirement is to make sure the name you want isn’t already taken in your state, online, or as a federal trademark within your industry.
When you name your LLC, make sure your business name:
- Includes an indicator like LLC or Limited Liability Company
- Doesn’t suggest your business is something that it isn’t (like, for example, a corporation)
- Isn’t already trademarked or in use in the state of Wyoming
How can you know if your business name is unique? You can search business names in Wyoming. If your name is taken, don’t try to get around it by adding filler terms like the or misspelling a word. If your name is too close to another name on the rolls, your paperwork will get rejected.
2. Register Your Domain Name
Next up, you’ll want to secure a domain name for your website. Why are these important? Just like you need a street address to help people find you on a map, you need a domain name to help people find you on the web.
For domain names, it’s better to register earlier rather than later. There are two basic reasons why:
- Credibility: When you bother to establish a professional domain name, you’re letting customers know you take your work seriously.
- Consistency: A domain name that connects to your brand name makes it simpler for customers to remember you, which makes them more likely to seek you out.
Northwest is a Business Identity provider, we offer domain names in-house. Just go to our domain search page, type in the name you want, and we’ll let you know which ones are available.
3. Appoint a Wyoming Registered Agent
All LLCs in the state are required to appoint a Wyoming registered agent. A registered agent is an individual or a company (like Northwest) designated to receive legal and state mail on behalf of your business.
Hire Northwest as your registered agent, and get more. You get access to a host of business services all geared toward creating and maintaining your business identity: online and off.
Your Wyoming registered agent must:
- Have a physical address in Wyoming (no P.O. Boxes)
- Be present at that address during regular business hours
- Agree to accept service of process on behalf of your LLC
The registered agent you use is a key part of your business identity. What’s a business identity? It’s the way you present yourself to the world, including potential customers and clients. You start building a business identity as soon as you form a business, and at Northwest, our Registered Agent Service can help strengthen that identity.
4. Submit Wyoming Articles of Organization
The Articles of Organization is the paperwork you fill out to start your LLC. Once you get it in to the Wyoming Secretary of State and they approve it, your LLC is live.
Wyoming is known as a state with strong privacy protections for LLC owners. But you can only take advantage of these protections if you fill out the Wyoming Articles of Organization in a specific way that maximizes privacy. We’ll show you how to do it.
If you’re filing online, you’ll be asked right away if you want to add an additional designation. If you’re forming a regular LLC, you can skip this (most people do). But if you want to form a special kind of LLC, you’ll select that here. Here are some of the options for special LLC types in Wyoming:
- Close LLC—an LLC with super-strict rules on transferring ownership
- Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) LLC—an LLC that uses blockchain technology to make decisions
- L3C—a low-profit LLC with a charitable purpose
- Series LLC—an LLC made up of separate units, called series
Tip: Skip this to form a regular LLC.
If you want your LLC to start immediately, skip this. If you want to delay the date your LLC starts (say, to start in a new tax year), you can add a date up to 90 days in the future here.
Every business in Wyoming is required by law to have a registered agent. Your registered agent must:
- Have a street address in Wyoming
- Be available at that address during business hours to accept legal mail
If you can do that, you can be your own registered agent. But there’s a pretty big caveat!
If you act as your own registered agent, you’ll have to list your name and address on the public record. This undermines any privacy protection you’d otherwise get from forming an LLC.
A professional registered agent will list their name and address here in place of your own. And if they’re good, they’ll let you use their address throughout this form. That’s what we do!
Three options:
- Use Your Own Address: This is easy, but if you work from home, it compromises privacy and security.
- Use a P.O. Box: Safe and secure, but you can’t use a P.O. Box in places where a physical street address is required.
- Use an Address Service: Our Wyoming Virtual Office and Mail Forwarding services are affordable and boast a physical street address in Sheridan you can use as your primary business address and for all your business purposes. You’ll get a suite number in our commercial Sheridan office plus unlimited mail forwarding. It’s the best deal in the industry.
A good registered agent can handle the bulk of your state mail, but you’ll need a more permanent, long-term solution for other mail that finds its way to you.
Another address for the public record. Hire a registered agent and you can keep yours private, sparing yourself heaps of junk mail.
This is where the state will contact you if there’s a problem with your filing. It’s also the address where the state will send annual report reminders. You can list your own phone number and email here, or hire us to form your company and get a business line and professional email address to use.
This is the person signing and submitting your Articles of Organization to the Wyoming Secretary of State. Sounds official, but anyone can do it, and they’ll have no control over your company. If you hire us, we’ll do it!
How to File Your Wyoming LLC Articles of Organization
Filing Articles of Organization just means submitting your paperwork and paying the correct fee to the Wyoming Secretary of State. You can file either online or by mail.
- If you file online ($100 + $4 credit card fee), your paperwork will be processed immediately.
- If you file by mail ($100), you’ll have to wait 15 days from the date the state receives your documents for your LLC to be officially registered.
File by mail or in person:
Wyoming Secretary of State
Herschler Building East, Suite 101
122 W 25th Street
Cheyenne, WY 82002-0020
File online:
Wyoming Business Center
Note: Certain business names require you to file by mail.
You’ll need to file your paperwork by mail if your business name does any of the following:
- starts with an a followed by a space (for example, A Little Bakery LLC)
- uses the words the or an (for example, The Little Bakery LLC)
- uses a special character (for example, Bunny & Sugar Bakery LLC)
The Wyoming Secretary of State is not messing around when it comes to your business name’s uniqueness. Using a different designator (like L.L.C. instead of LLC), making a word plural, or adding a special character to a name that’s taken won’t cut it. The filing fee is non-refundable, so make sure you have a name that works.
5. Create an Operating Agreement
An operating agreement is a document that outlines how your Wyoming LLC will do things like vote, divvy up profits, and transfer ownership. Operating agreements are internal documents, but they’re super important—without one, legal disputes will be decided by Wyoming’s default LLC statutes. Those might not be the best fit for your business. Plus, you’ll need an operating agreement to open a bank account.
Tip: Only lawyers write their own operating agreements—everyone else uses templates, and the internet is full of ‘em. We had our attorney write a Wyoming operating agreement you can trust, specifically for use in the Cowboy State.
6. Get an EIN
An EIN, or an Employer Identification Number, is like a Social Security number for your business. It’s a nine-digit number, assigned to your business by the IRS for tax identification purposes. You’ll need it to get a business bank account, apply for loans and licenses, and, of course, pay taxes. You can apply for one online with the IRS or hire us to take care of it for you.
7. Open a Business Bank Account
You need a separate bank account for your LLC. If you don’t get one, and you let your personal finances mix with your business money, you’re at risk of piercing the corporate veil. This is a dramatic-sounding metaphor that just means a court could find your LLC isn’t actually a separate entity from you, the owner. To open a bank account, you’ll need an operating agreement, EIN, and an LLC Resolution to Start a Bank Account.
8. File Your Annual Report
Every year, you’ll need to file a Wyoming Annual Report with the Wyoming Secretary of State.
The purpose of the report is to keep the state up-to-date on your LLC’s information. The filing fee is determined by the total value of your LLC’s assets. If your LLC’s assets are less than $300,000, you’ll pay the minimum $60 fee. If they’re over, you’ll pay $0.0002 for every dollar. So if your assets total $400,000, then you’ll pay $80 ($400,000 multiplied by .0002). You can file online, by mail, or hire us to take care of it for you.
Let’s Set Up Your Wyoming LLC!
