Tennessee LLC

Limited liability company annual reports are due April 1st, or on the first day of the 4th month after the close of your accounting year. The filing fee for LLCs is a $300.00 minimum, but could be more if there are more than 6 members. It costs $50.00 per member, up to a $3,000.00 maximum.

All Corporations, Limited Liability Companies, and Partnerships, regardless of their tax status with the IRS are subject to the Tennessee franchise tax and Tennessee Excise tax.

The franchise tax has a minimum payment of $100.00. Franchise tax is figured at .25% of the net worth of corporation or the tangible property.

The excise tax is 6.5% of the net taxable income made in Tennessee.

The Tennessee personal net income tax rate is 6%.

The average Tennessee sales tax rate is 9.41%. The State has a 7% tax, but the average local tax is 2.41%, making a total of 9.41%.

To form a Tennessee LLC, you file Tennessee articles of organization. The Tennessee articles of organization cost $300.00 minimum, up to $3,000.00 maximum, with the Tennessee Department of State. These can be basic or complicated. We custom draft your Tennessee articles of organization when you hire Northwest to form your Tennessee Company. The basic requirements are:

• The business name must have a LLC ending or variation of it.
• The Tennessee company name must be different than already registered Tennessee companies.
• The Tennessee registered agent name and physical address.
• Management type – manager(s)/member(s).
• Number of members at time of filing.
• Effective date of the Tennessee LLC, not to exceed 90 days.
• Address of the principal business in Tennessee.
• The duration of the Tennessee Limited Liability Company.
• Optional provisions.
• The Tennessee organizer must sign and date.

Tennessee requires original inked signatures on filings. The original will come back to the Tennessee LLC agent or the business address on the form.

1. You file the articles of organization for a Tennessee LLC with the Tennessee Department of State.
2. You obtain a federal tax ID number with the IRS after you have confirmation from Tennessee that the articles are completely filed.
3. You should be able to open a business banking account with these two items.
4. You register your Tennessee Company with the Department of Revenue or Labor 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 Tennessee business off the ground and registering with every Tennessee State agency that a Tennessee LLC could find. The bottom line is that 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 LLC in Tennessee going. At the end of the day, Money in the bank trumps fines with some Tennessee 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 Tennessee LLCs every year that just shut down 6 to 7 months after they hired us to form the LLC for them in Tennessee, because they never got the idea off the ground. I always say, pull the money in first, deal with a Tennessee State agency second. If you have to pay some late fees or fines, but you landed that first big client that gets 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 Tennessee business. Get out there and pull the money in! If some Tennessee 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 Tennessee LLC formation 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 Tennessee. We operate a business in Tennessee. We're not an incorporation website. We're a Tennessee incorporation and registered agent business. There are lots of websites out there that are just 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 Tennessee articles of organization with the State for you to form an LLC in Tennessee. If you've found this page by searching online, most the other sites you'll find don't operate in Tennessee, don't pay taxes in Tennessee, and generally speaking, don't have any idea what it's like in Tennessee. The only people here helping you form a Tennessee LLC are the owner, our in-house, non-practicing attorney, and our paralegal. This is all we do, and when you hire us and pay us $100.00 to form a Tennessee LLC, the owner pays Tennessee tax at the end of the year off that $100.00, and the $125.00 Tennessee registered agent service fees.

When we form a Tennessee LLC, we'll be your Tennessee LLC agent. That means our Tennessee office is in Nashville, Tennessee, and we have a physical presence in Tennessee, so we have to pay income tax off the money we derive from doing business in Tennessee. It's called "Nexus." If you're shopping around for a Tennessee LLC formation service, we would challenge you to call one of the other LLC filing services and ask the person that answers the phone if they have nexus in Tennessee. 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 Little Rock, Arkansas, to sell your home in Knoxville, Tennessee. Just doesn't sound right does it? If they do have nexus in Tennessee, then that's Great… At least you're then comparing us with another company that should know what they are doing, and you've ultimately 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 Tennessee registered 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 Tennessee LLC 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 person or Tennessee company as your 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 Tennessee registered agent service is $125.00 a year, has no hidden weird fees, and the first year is included in our Tennessee LLC service.

• 1 year of service from the time of hire.
• Annual report reminders for your LLC in Tennessee.
• Annual report calendar in your online account to track your due dates in Tennessee.
• Online account for contact info, corporate documents, documents we receive on your behalf, annual report dates, calendar, and end of service dates.
• Any lawsuits 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 lawsuit instantly.
• Added privacy and identity protection.
• All junk mail is shredded.
• Same day complete scan of received documents. (Other registered agents forward items received locally to their National headquarters by mail, and then scan them. You get everything the same day from 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 or Sheriff) to walk in and hand deliver a document or notification to you. 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 LLC forming websites, so the odds are that if you pay one of the thousands of LLC formation 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 person 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. It is worse yet is if you are continually being billed from a national LLC formation 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 all complete documents instantly, from our local location to your account.

We will form a Tennessee LLC for you right away. No weird expedite packages. No weird tables with checkmarks showing what's included and what you're missing. We don't mark up the State filing fees for an LLC. 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 Tennessee Company formed right away. We'll be listed as your Tennessee 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 Tennessee, year after year. Not off weird misleading one time package fees and up-sells.

Shouldn't you trust a Tennessee business that actually operates and pays taxes in Tennessee 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 form a Tennessee Limited Liability Company yourself, you can just hire us as your Tennessee registered agent, and you'll instantly have the Tennessee forms to file and filing instructions on the quickest, cheapest, and most efficient way to file a Tennessee LLC. 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, compliance reminders and the support of a professional Tennessee LLC Agent service.