North Carolina Incorporation Services

The North Carolina Secretary of State requires an annual report for corporations and LLCs, which is due 3.5 months after the close of your tax year, usually April 15th. The annual report for corporations will cost $18.00 online and $25.00 on paper. The annual report for LLCs will cost $200.00.

The North Carolina Corporate net income tax rate is 6.9%, with a minimum tax payment of $35.00.

There is a franchise tax on assets in North Carolina of $1.50 for every $1,000.00.

The North Carolina personal net income tax rates are:

The average North Carolina sales tax rate is 8.07%. The State has a 5.75% tax, but the average local tax is 2.32% making a total of 8.07%.

1. You file the articles of incorporation for a corporation or the articles of organization for an LLC with the North Carolina Secretary of State.
2. You obtain a federal tax ID number with the IRS after you have confirmation from North Carolina that the articles are completely filed.
3. You should be able to open a business banking account with these two items.
4. You register with the department of revenue if you're going to have employees or need to withhold sales tax.
5. You obtain a trade license if you actually need one. (Most businesses don't.)
6. You obtain a local City or County general license if you need one.
7. You obtain a local trade license if the City or County you're going to be working in requires it.
8. If you're going to have an office or shop you might need an approval from the City zoning for your type of business in that location.

NOW!! I always give out horrible advice at this point, and please don't take it as legal advice. It would be considered totally wrong and horrible legal advice. BUT… I always tell people, you could spend months worrying about getting your North Carolina business off the ground and registering with every North Carolina State agency you need to. At the end of the day, you need to pull the money in! That means, your idea, or your new service needs to get out there and get the sales, customers, or clients you need to get the money in the bank, and keep your business going. At the end of the day, Money in the bank trumps fines with some North Carolina government agency that you overlooked paying some silly fee to. The government is always going to be broke and always looking for the next way to make us pay a fee or tax. We unfortunately see North Carolina businesses every year that just shut down 6 to 7 months after they hired us to incorporate them, because they never got the idea off the ground. I always say, pull the money in first, deal with a North Carolina State agency second. If you have to pay some late fees or fines, but you landed that first big client that get's your business off of the idea you have on that paper notebook, I say more power to you. Pay the late fee or fine with joy. You've done the REAL first step to starting your business. Get out there and pull the money in! If some North Carolina State agency finds you're in some violation, they will send you a letter, and you can pay whatever they are asking for. It's a never-ending phone call or email I get hearing about all the effort someone's put into their website, into their letterhead, into their marketing, into their planning, and they haven't even figured out how they are realistically going to get and collect their first sale. Don't let over-planning stop your business from getting off the ground. Paying a North Carolina incorporation service like us to do the initial paperwork is a great way to keep your brain moving on the important items like pulling in the money and getting it into your new business bank account.

We pay taxes in North Carolina. We operate a business in North Carolina. We're not an incorporation website. We're an incorporation and registered/resident agent North Carolina business. There's lots of websites out there that are just that. Websites with generic domain names and smart programmers that can make them rank in Google.

Anyone could throw up a website, hire sales people to answer the phones with scripts, and pay a document filer $10.00 an hour to file the paperwork with the State for you. If you've found this page by searching online, most the other sites you'll find don't operate in North Carolina, don't pay taxes in North Carolina, and generally speaking, don't have any idea what it's like in North Carolina. The only people here helping you incorporate in North Carolina are the owner, our in-house, non-practicing attorney, and our paralegal. Would you like to have your business be started by signing up on a monster incorporation website where your filing gets put in a big hopper to have a random filing clerk work on it when they are done filing 15 other incorporations that day, or have the personal attention of a business that actually pays taxes and operates in North Carolina help you start your business off right. This is all we do, and when you hire us and pay us $100.00 to incorporate in North Carolina, the owner pays tax at the end of the year off that $100.00 and the $125.00 North Carolina registered agent incorporation service fees.

The perfect scenario for you incorporating your new North Carolina business is to hire a business like us that specializes in the paperwork, and then consult with a local attorney for specific questions that may arise. This is the ultimate cost effective way to incorporate your new business. We can't offer you legal advice, but an attorney sure can. We have a great and continually growing group of attorneys that hire us to do the filing paperwork to save their clients money anyway as opposed to the Attorney billing their client a couple hundred bucks an hour to worry about State procedures and requirements. A lot of attorneys don't really want to worry about the paperwork anyway. They would prefer to actually counsel you, the client, on more important manners and sub-contract the paperwork part of the actual incorporation.

When we help you incorporate in North Carolina, we'll be your North Carolina incorporation agent. That means our North Carolina office is in Raleigh, North Carolina, and we have a physical presence in North Carolina, so we have to pay income tax off the money we derive from doing business in North Carolina. It's called "Nexus." If you're shopping around for an incorporation service, we would challenge you to call one of our competitors and ask the person that answers the phone if they have nexus in North Carolina. If they don't, or don't have any idea what that word even means, that would be kind of like hiring a real estate agent in Atlanta, Georgia, to sell your home in Asheville, North Carolina. Just doesn't sound right does it? If they do have nexus in North Carolina, then that's Great… At least you're then comparing us with another company that should know what they are doing, and you've done yourself a favor. While you're on the phone comparing apples to apples, you should ask the company what the name and address will be of the North Carolina registered/resident agent, and how much the renewal bill will be. If they can't tell you the name, the town the office will be in, and if it's not their own name, it means you're ultimately signing up with someone you don't know.

We've seen other sites with packages that include North Carolina Incorporation agent service, or offer it free for 6 months or a year, or it's just built into a "Package." But you're paying a website, and they then list another company as your registered/resident agent. Then you get a bill at the end of the 6 months or year from some random company you've never heard of for a lot of money. Our North Carolina incorporation registered agent service is $125.00 a year, has no hidden weird fees, and the first year is included in our North Carolina incorporation service.

• 1 year of service from the time of hire.
• Annual report reminders
• Annual report calendar in your online account to track your due dates.
• Online account for contact info, corporate documents, documents we receive on your behalf, annual report dates, calendar, and end of service dates.
• Any law suits or service of process are uploaded to your account immediately, in full, for your viewing. We can notify your attorney at the same time if you would like. We can notify up to 5 different people and your attorney of your law suit instantly.
• Added privacy and identity protection.
• All junk mail is shredded
• Same day complete scan of received documents. (Other statutory agents forward items received locally to their National headquarters by mail, and then scan them. You get everything the same day with us.)
• No cancellation fees
• No forwarding fees
• We don't keep your credit card on file and automatically charge you for anything

The requirements of a registered agent are being open during normal business hours for someone (A process server, Sheriff, or anyone) to walk in and hand deliver a document or notification to you. Failure to have the person listed at that address there during business hours can get your company dissolved with the State or have default judgments awarded without you even knowing you were being sued. Assigning someone, or a website you don't know to this role means that if you get a notification by mail or someone delivers a letter or a lawsuit to that person or business, its legal proof that you've been notified, regardless of if it actually gets to you. There are only 5 national registered agents, and there's thousands of incorporation websites, so the odds are that if you pay one of the thousands of incorporation websites, they've got a discounted referral fee plan to dump you on one of the national agents to collect a referral fee, and you'll be taking a big chance that the agent they list will get the documents they receive for you to the incorporation website, and then the incorporation website you hire will get it to you. Worse yet is if you're continually being billed from an incorporation website you signed up with and they aren't the actual business or person that is listed as your registered agent. With us, you know who you're counting on from day one. As far as we know we are the only service that uploads complete documents instantly, from our local location to your account.

We will incorporate in North Carolina for you right away. No weird expedite packages. No weird tables with checkmarks showing what's included and what you're missing. Our sign up form is one page. After filling it out, our owner, our non-practicing attorney, or our paralegal will call you right away, go over everything with you, and we'll get your new North Carolina business incorporated right away. We'll be listed as your North Carolina registered agent, not some random company you don't know. Most States have a change of agent fee, so not only could you be connected with a company you don't really know, it will cost you to get rid of them after you get a crazy renewal bill you weren't expecting. We make our living by keeping your business in compliance with North Carolina, year after year. Not off weird misleading one time package fees and up-sells.

Shouldn't you trust a North Carolina business that actually operates and pays taxes in North Carolina instead of a website with a 500 filing backlog that you have to upgrade a package with to get some quick attention?

If you want to incorporate in North Carolina yourself, you can just hire us as your North Carolina Incorporation registered agent, and you'll instantly have the North Carolina forms to file and filing instructions on the quickest, cheapest, and most efficient way for your business to incorporate in North Carolina. We also will look over your filing for free if you would like us to. You'll get the ongoing support of our online tools, reminders and the support of a professional North Carolina Incorporation service.