Wyoming Limited Liability Companies
Is protecting your privacy as important to you as protecting your assets? Start an LLC in Wyoming. LLCs automatically separate your personal assets from the business and Wyoming doesn’t require member/manager information.
You can use our free business tool to start your LLC paperwork. Or, if you want even more privacy, hire us to form your LLC so it’s our name listed as your organizer. Just $39 + state fees.
How to Start an LLC in Wyoming
Wyoming LLCs provide exceptionally strong asset and privacy protections, if they’re properly formed and maintained. Starting an LLC in Wyoming will cost you $100 (+ $4 credit card fee if you file online), with a yearly minimum fee of $60 to keep it going.
To start a Wyoming LLC, you’ll submit paperwork—called Wyoming Articles of Organization—to the Wyoming Secretary of State, online or by mail. You’ll also have to take care of a new federal filing called the Beneficial Ownership Information Report. Our guide will show you how to start a Wyoming LLC with the strongest privacy and asset protections available.
1. Name Your LLC
Before you can do much else, you’ll need a business name that complies with Wyoming’s state statutes (WY Stat § 17-29-108 (2022)). Wyoming is pretty strict about their naming rules, so don’t try to skirt them. The most important thing to know is that your business name must be unique in the state of Wyoming.
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? By conducting a Wyoming business name search. If your name is taken, don’t try to get around it with shenanigans like adding “the” or misspelling a word. If your name is too close to another name on the rolls, your paperwork will get rejected.
2. Register a Domain Name
A domain name is the address of your website. For example, ours is northwestregisteredagent.com. Even if you’re not ready to build a business website, it’s still smart to register your domain name around the same time you’re figuring out your LLC’s name. Here’s why.
- It’s a bummer to find out later that your business name isn’t available as a domain name.
- Once you have a domain name, you can get a professional email address connected to your domain (like [email protected]).
- The longer your business has an online presence, the more it will show up in online searches.
Tip: When you hire Northwest to form your LLC, we throw in a domain name free for a year. If the one you want is taken, we’ll help you come up with alternatives.
3. Submit Wyoming Articles of Organization
Articles of Organization is the paperwork you fill out to start your Wyoming 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 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
- LC3—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.
Your Wyoming registered agent is the person or company who acts as the legal point of contact for your business. If your business is ever sued, the process server will show up at your registered agent’s office and deliver the paperwork in person. Once that happens, you’re legally considered “served.”
Every business in Wyoming is required by law to have a registered agent. Your registered agent must:
- have a street address in Wyoming and
- 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 a Wyoming 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!
This address also goes on the public record. You can list yours, or hire us as your registered agent and use ours.
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 and to send you 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 Wyoming LLC will be processed immediately.
- If you file by mail ($100), you’ll have to wait 15 days for your LLC to be official—add a few days for snail mail time.
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.
4. Adopt 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.
5. Get an EIN
An EIN 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.
6. 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.
7. 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.
8. File BOI Report
Lastly, you’ll need to take care of the Beneficial Ownership Information Report. This is a new federal filing, mandated by the Corporate Transparency Act, that requires you to disclose who owns your LLC to FinCEN. This information is only available to certain federal agencies—it doesn’t become part of the public record. You can file it online or hire us to take care of the BOI Report for you.
Let’s Set Up Your Wyoming LLC!
