Louisiana wants a lot of paper. We put it together for your out-of-state LLC

Louisiana does not let an LLC formed in another state transact business here until it has been granted a certificate of authority by the Secretary of State. The statute sets aside a list of safe activities: meetings, a bank account, orders accepted elsewhere, interstate commerce and one deal wrapped up within thirty days. Anything beyond those, done more than once or as a regular course, usually does. The page on what counts goes through the list and gives common examples.

Louisiana does not take a copy of your articles. What it wants is a certificate of existence or good standing from the home state, bearing an original signature and issued at most 90 days before the filing reaches the office. The application must use the name printed on the certificate, letter for letter. For Texas and Alabama LLCs the form adds a warning: the right paper is the Secretary of State's certificate of existence, and a good standing letter from a tax office is the wrong one. The step-by-step guide shows when to order it.

The form's return address is the Commercial Division, P. O. Box 94125 in Baton Rouge, and the remittance is made out to the Secretary of State. Owners in fourteen named parishes, including Orleans, Jefferson and East Baton Rouge, are told on the form that they must file all available business documents online through geauxBIZ. Everyone else can mail. The form itself warns against writing card numbers on the paper.

Every year by the anniversary of your qualification, a member or manager files an annual report for $35. It restates the Louisiana and home-state addresses and the registered agent. Missing it is a ground for revocation, and a lapsed LLC loses the right to do business with state agencies. The annual report page has the detail.

A foreign corporation or nonprofit applies on a different form, Form 326, and its fee is quoted when you order. The Form 326 page shows what the form asks. Foreign partnerships use a separate partnership registration form that this site does not cover; use the contact page and we will point you to the right one.

Delaware and Wyoming LLCs are the most common applicants. Each home state sells its certificate at a different price and bills its own yearly charge, so the two pages below add the home state to the Louisiana figures: Delaware LLCs and Wyoming LLCs.

Once the office is satisfied that the application is in order, that the business is one a Louisiana LLC could lawfully run and that the fees are paid, it stamps the application with the word filed and the date, keeps one copy and issues the certificate of authority with the other copy attached. That bundle is returned to the LLC or whoever filed for it. Evidence of filing is mailed to the person named at the top of the transmittal page. Keep the whole bundle; a Louisiana court treats the state's certificate as the only legal proof that the LLC was authorized.

Pick the form by the entity, not by the business. An LLC uses Form 972. A corporation, whether it runs a business or a nonprofit, uses Form 326, which has a box for each. A partnership registers on a third form that this site does not cover. If you are not sure how your entity is classed in its home state, the formation documents or the home-state certificate will say.

$199 plus the state fee, including your first year of registered agent service; after that the agent service renews at $149 a year.