How to Start a Business in New York

If you are forming a New York corporation (i.e. incorporating), the Business Corporation Law § 301 lays out specifically what names are acceptable. You must include in your name one of the following: Corporation, Incorporated or Limited (or an abbreviation of one of these terms).

If you are forming an LLC, the LLC Law § 204 requires you include: Limited Liability Company, LLC, or L.L.C.

There are numerous restricted or prohibited words and phrases. You should check this list before applying for a specific name for your business, as use of any of these words without authorization will get your filing rejected.

If you want to check for name availability, you can do a NY Business Name Search. This is worth doing, because your formation filing will be rejected if you try to register a name that already exists in New York.

We’re registered agents, so of course we would suggest that you hire a New York registered agent service. But there truly are numerous benefits to appointing an agent in New York.

First, if you are starting an LLC, we can save you over $1000 on your LLC Publication Requirements. Our county is the cheapest when it comes to publication fees, and we even give you a simple, easy template to fill out and submit to two newspapers in Albany county.

In addition, we are professional agents dedicated to our clients. Do you really want the Secretary of State in charge of accepting your service of process? With the millions of businesses in New York, you can imagine how swamped the SOS is every day. For $49 a year, you can have real peace of mind when it comes to your legal compliance.

When you start a New York business, you need to write a governing document. For a New York corporation, this is called your corporate bylaws. For LLCs, this is called your operating agreement.

A governing document lays out who owns your business and how management is conducted. This is where you should detail specifically the ownership shares, what rights each member/shareholder possesses, as well as which duties each owner is obligated to fulfill.

You can file a New York business formation online. This online formation system is for domestic corporations and LLCs only. This is the fastest and easiest way to form a New York corporation or NY LLC.

You can also mail your Articles of Organization or Certificate of Incorporation to the Division of Corporations. If you are doing so, you must include the appropriate fee. Please do not send cash. Make checks payable to: Department of State.

Send to:

Department of State
Division of Corporations, State Records and UCC
One Commerce Plaza
99 Washington Ave.
Albany, NY 12231-0001

If you are forming a New York LLC, you need to be aware of the NY LLC Publication Requirement. This law demands that all LLCs publish a notice of their formation in at least two newspapers. These notices must run for at least six weeks.

Where you publish these notices matters because newspapers in different counties charge very different fees. According to the law, you are supposed to publish your notices in newspapers that are published within the same county as your principal business office.

If you form a New York LLC using our service, we can save you over $1000. We will list our own registered office address on your formation documents, which is perfectly legal, and this will allow you to publish notices in Albany county. We even supply you with two publication templates that you can use to keep your fee as low as possible (as well as our suggestion for which two papers to submit to).

Publishing in many other counties will cost you over $1000 more than in Albany county.

Whether you’re forming a corporation or an LLC in New York, chances are you’ll need to file a Beneficial Ownership Information (BOI) report. This requires you to submit the following information about your company’s beneficial owners and company applicants:

• Full legal name
• Date of birth
• Residential address
• Copy of an accepted form of photo ID

This filing is free, and the information submitted will NOT be made public.

A beneficial owner is someone with substantial control over your company and/or at least 25% ownership. A company applicant is the person who filed the documents to create your company, as well as the person who ordered the filing to be made (if this was a different person). Your BOI report must be submitted to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) within 30 days of formation. (Or, if you form your company in 2024, within 90 days of formation.)

This law goes into effect January 1, 2024 — any company formed before then has until January 1, 2025 to file their BOI report.

(Psst! We can file your BOI report for you for just $25.)

After you form a business in New York, the Department of Taxation and Finance will send you a questionnaire requesting specific information about your company. You must fill this form out and return it to the Department of Taxation.

The Request for Information will ask for:

• Business Address (Including Telephone Number)
• Tax Election
• Federal Employer Identification Number (FEIN)
• NAICS Code (Business Description Number)
• Names, Home Addresses and SSNs of Members/Owners/Partners/Officers

The Request for Information must be completed and returned within 15 days.

You can mail the document to:

NYS Tax Department
PSSB/Document Processing
W A Harriman Campus
Albany, NY 12227-0825

Or you can fax it to: (518)-435-8414.

Every other year, LLCs and corporations in New York must file a Biennial Statement. Biennial Statements can be filed online, or they can be completed and faxed or mailed to the Department of State. The fee for both corporations and LLCs is $9.

Biennial Statements are due in the same month that your business was formed. If you incorporated on October 15th, then your Statement must be filed by October 31st every other year.

Corporations, and LLCs taxed as C-Corporations, must file an Annual Franchise Tax Report.