Formation fee
$110
One-time state fee for the formation certificate.
last verified 2026-08-06
record 10 of 51 · /llc/georgia/
Georgia LLC
A Georgia trade name runs in the newspaper
Georgia sends trade names to the Clerk of Superior Court in the county where the business chiefly operates, and the filing must then run in the county's legal organ newspaper, the publication requirement this sheet flags. The entity itself registers with the Secretary of State and renews inside an early-year window. No recurring entity tax applies, verified against the revenue department.
the rest of this note
Two agent findings arrive as researched refusals here rather than blanks: the company cannot serve as its own registered agent, and a mailbox service address is turned away, each with its citation. Expedited review is priced in named tiers while the office also publishes ordinary completion estimates. The sheet keeps both readings beside their sources.
every claim above is a line below
Annual report
$60
Due Jan 1 - Apr 1, printed as the state writes it.
last verified 2026-08-06
Franchise tax
none
No recurring state-level tax on an LLC here. The absence is verified against the state, not missing data.
verified absent 2026-08-09
Anonymous LLC
no
Member or organizer names reach the public formation record here.
last verified 2026-08-06
no source in the snapshot
Processing time
7 to 10 business days
Filed online, 7 to 10 business days, and 15 business days by mail, as the state states it. Expedited formation starts at $120.
as observed on 2026-08-07
Name designators
Must contain "limited liability company" or "limited company," or the abbreviation "LLC," "L.L.C.," "LC," or "L.C." ("limited" may be abbreviated as "Ltd." and "company" as "Co."). Maximum 80 characters, including spaces and punctuation.
Accepted endings for the legal name.
last verified 2026-07-17
Name reservation
$25
Optional filing that holds the name for 30 days before you form.
last verified 2026-07-17
DBA
trade name
Filed with the county clerk, and each county prices its own filing.
last verified 2026-08-09
An individual as the agent
allowed
Whether a person may hold the seat, so nobody has to be hired. The terms Georgia attaches, and the entity question, sit in the registered agent section.
last verified 2026-08-10
field 05 carries the date it was observed, not a promise: of the two halves beside it, only the expedited tiers are prices the state commits to
What are the Georgia trade name rules?
Georgia calls it the trade name, and handles it at the county level, so the price and the paperwork are set locally rather than by the state.
- Where an LLC files
- How long it lasts
-
No expiration
Trade names are not renewed. A registrant already on the county index is not required to re-register except on a change of ownership, and a change to the name itself is made by filing a new registration with amendments and paying the fee again.
- Newspaper publication
-
required
Notice of the filing runs once a week for two weeks in the county legal organ, the newspaper the sheriff's office uses for legal advertisements. Keep the publisher's affidavit as proof. O.C.G.A. § 10-1-490.
- What the filing protects
-
no exclusive right
Registration is public notice of who owns the business, not a grant of rights in the name. Gwinnett County's own guidance warns against assuming that registration secures exclusive use of the name. A county clerk will, however, refuse a registration for a name already on that county's index: DeKalb tells filers to confirm availability first and does not refund a rejected duplicate. That is an administrative screen within one county's records, not a statewide right in the name.
- Where to search existing names
-
none published
There is no statewide trade name database. Registrations are indexed county by county at each Clerk of Superior Court, so clearing a name in Georgia means checking the counties where conflicts are likely. The Secretary of State's eCorp search does not include trade names. Procedures differ by county: DeKalb accepts trade name applications, amendments and cancellations only through eFileGA, and moved its trade name searches to the Odyssey Portal on 2026-07-24.
one record, verified 2026-08-09 · O.C.G.A. § 10-1-490
What does it take to register an out-of-state LLC in Georgia?
Registering an LLC formed elsewhere is its own filing in Georgia. The registration costs $235. That price belongs to a separate filing event, so it enters no cost total on this site.
- Registration fee
-
$235
Total $235.00 filing cost for the Application for Certificate of Authority (Form CD 241): the $225.00 filing fee plus the $10.00 service charge, on both the online and paper paths; the Secretary of State's how-to guide prices both at $235.00 and the form itself states the $235.00 total.
- The official form
-
Application for Certificate of Authority for a Foreign Limited Liability Company (Form CD 241)
- Filed with
-
Georgia Secretary of State, Corporations Division
- After registration
-
File an annual registration with the Secretary of State between January 1 and April 1 each year and continuously maintain a registered agent located in Georgia.
one record, verified 2026-08-08
The same fee for every other jurisdiction sits on one page: foreign qualification fees for every jurisdiction.
Who may serve as the registered agent in Georgia?
Who may serve as an LLC's registered agent is its own rule in Georgia. Georgia lets a natural person serve, so no commercial agent is required. The LLC itself may not hold the seat, which is a separate question.
- An individual as the agent
-
Allowed
in the state's words The registered agent for a Domestic Limited Liability Company may be: Individual resident of this state;
- The LLC as its own agent
-
Not allowed
- A mailbox service as the address
-
Not accepted
- Address rule
-
The registered agent's address must be a street address in Georgia, and the agent must be located at that address. A post office box or “mail drop” may not be used as the registered agent address.
one record, verified 2026-08-10
The same four answers for every other jurisdiction sit on one page: registered agent rules for every jurisdiction.
Where do these figures come from?
Every figure on this sheet renders from the pinned dataset snapshot, and each card links the page its own figure came from. This list collects those pages in one place, with the duplicates removed and the agency named.
- Formation and annual report figures https://sos.ga.gov/how-to-guide/how-guide-register-domestic-entity
- Recurring state tax https://dor.georgia.gov/taxes/corporate-income-and-net-worth-tax
- Expedited service and processing time https://sos.ga.gov/how-to-guide/filing-fees-and-expedited-processing-document-filings
- Naming statute https://rules.sos.ga.gov/gac/590-7-20
- Name reservation https://sos.ga.gov/how-to-guide/how-guide-how-reserve-name
- Foreign LLC registration https://sos.ga.gov/how-to-guide/how-to-guide-register-foreign-entity
- Who may be the registered agent https://sos.ga.gov/page/business-division-faq
- DBA filing https://georgia.gov/file-dba-doing-business
- Georgia Secretary of State Corporations Division https://sos.ga.gov/corporations-division-georgia-secretary-states-office
- Business entity search https://ecorp.sos.ga.gov/BusinessSearch
The rule behind every figure here, and what a card does when one cannot be verified, sits on how a figure gets verified.