Business Incorporation in FL

If you are ready to form an LLC in Florida, the filing itself is the easy part. Business owners come to our Coral Springs office because of what that filing quietly decides: how the company will be taxed for as long as it exists. We handle both halves — the state registration, and the federal election that follows it.

Start from the IRS's own framing. An LLC is "a business structure allowed by state statute": Florida creates the entity, and federal tax law then decides separately how to treat it. Two decisions, made in two different places — and only one of them appears on the state form.

What Florida actually requires

To register, you file Articles of Organization with the Florida Division of Corporations. The published cost is $100 for the Articles plus $25 for the Registered Agent Designation, $125 in total; a certified copy and a certificate of status are optional extras (Florida Division of Corporations, sunbiz.org, consulted July 2026).

The registered agent is not a formality. The state's instruction is one line: "The registered agent must have a physical street address in Florida. (Do not list a P.O. Box address.)" If you live in another state, or another country, this is usually the first requirement that stops you.

You also fix the company name, the principal office address, who manages the company, and the effective date. All of it becomes public record, and every bank, insurer and landlord you deal with afterward will read it.

Choosing the entity is a tax decision

This is the part the national formation services leave out. Federal treatment follows the number of members unless you elect something else:

• One member. For income tax purposes the IRS treats it as "an entity disregarded as separate from its owner", so the profit lands on your personal return and there is no separate income tax return. That is where "disregarded" stops: "A single-member LLC that is classified as a disregarded entity for income tax purposes is treated as a separate entity for purposes of employment tax and certain excise taxes", and once there is a payroll it has to use its own name and EIN to report and pay those (IRS, Single Member Limited Liability Companies). The liability shield comes from state law and is unaffected by the federal classification.
• Two or more members. "A domestic LLC with at least two members is classified as a partnership for federal income tax purposes" — a Form 1065 every year, plus a K-1 for each member.
• Either one, taxed as a corporation. By filing Form 8832, or Form 2553 for S-Corp treatment.

Why the difference shows up in dollars: an owner reporting business profit on a personal return also pays self-employment tax, and that rate is "15.3%... 12.4% for social security... and 2.9% for Medicare" (IRS, Self-Employment Tax). An S-Corp election changes how much of the profit is exposed to it. That is worth working through before you register, not the following April.

The S-Corp election has a deadline — and a door closed to some owners

Form 2553 is filed "no more than 2 months and 15 days after the beginning of the tax year" the election is to take effect (Instructions for Form 2553). Miss it and you generally wait a year, unless late-election relief applies.

There is also a restriction that matters to many of our clients. An S corporation's shareholders "may not be partnerships, corporations or non-resident alien shareholders", and there can be "no more than 100 shareholders" and "only one class of stock" (IRS, S Corporations). If an owner is a nonresident alien, the S-Corp is simply not available, and the answer is a different structure — never a workaround.

Where our work ends and an attorney's begins

Entity choice also has a legal side: liability exposure, what belongs in an operating agreement, how a partner exits, licensing. We are Enrolled Agents and CPAs, not attorneys. We will tell you plainly when a question belongs to a Florida business lawyer, and we are glad to work alongside one.

The Florida Annual Report, and the $400 nobody can waive

Forming the company happens once. Keeping it alive is annual. "The report is due by May 1st of each year", and the LLC fee is $138.75 when filed between January 1st and May 1st. After that date, "a $400 late fee will be imposed on all profit corporations, limited liability companies, limited partnerships, and limited liability limited partnerships which fail to file their annual reports on or before May 1st" — and "there is no provision to abate or waive the $400 late fee."

Left alone long enough, the company stops existing: "Failure to file an annual report by the 3rd Friday of September will result in the administrative dissolution or revocation of the business entity... at the close of business on the 4th Friday of September." (Florida Division of Corporations, sunbiz.org, consulted July 2026.)

What comes after the certificate

Registration starts the sequence; it does not finish it. If the company will have employees, it needs an EIN of its own — the IRS requires the LLC to use "its name and employer identification number (EIN) for reporting and payment of employment taxes" (IRS, Single Member Limited Liability Companies). Opening a business bank account usually calls for one as well, but that is each bank's own policy, not an IRS or Florida requirement. If you will sell taxable goods or services, you also register with the Florida Department of Revenue — the general state rate is "6%", plus any county discretionary sales surtax (Florida Department of Revenue, Florida Sales and Use Tax) — and then file on the schedule the state assigns you, which is where our Sales Tax filing service takes over. From there, monthly bookkeeping keeps the numbers usable all year, and the year closes with corporate tax preparation on whichever return your entity choice selected.

Form your Florida LLC from Coral Springs

Bring what you have: a name, a rough idea of who the owners are, and what the business will sell. We work through the entity choice with you before anything is filed — and we are still here in April, when that choice shows up on a return. We are at 1700 N University Dr STE 210, Coral Springs, we work in English and Spanish, and the first consultation is free.