Start an Arizona LLC — Step-by-Step Guide

Your Arizona LLC name has to be distinguishable from every other business entity already on record with the Arizona Corporation Commission. Distinguishable is a legal standard, not a gut feeling — a name that differs only by punctuation, spacing, or a filler word like "the" or "and" may be rejected as too close to an existing entity.

Search your proposed name on the ACC's business entity search through the Arizona Corporation Commission. Try the exact name and a few close variations. If something already registered reads or sounds nearly the same, the ACC can bounce your Articles, which costs you the processing time you already waited through.

Arizona naming rules

• The name must contain "Limited Liability Company," "Limited Company," or an accepted abbreviation such as "LLC," "L.L.C.," "LC," or "L.C."
• It cannot imply the company is a corporation, a government agency, or a different entity type than it is.
• Restricted words — such as "bank," "trust," "deposit," or terms suggesting a licensed profession — require approval from the relevant Arizona regulator before they can be used.
• It must be distinguishable on the record from all existing Arizona entity names.

Optional: reserve the name

If you are not ready to file but want to hold the name, you can reserve it with the ACC for 120 days for a small state fee. A reservation does not create the LLC — it just parks the name while you finish other pieces.

Trade names (DBAs) are separate

If you plan to operate under a name other than your LLC's legal name, that is a trade name, and in Arizona it is registered with the Secretary of State — not the Corporation Commission. It is an entirely separate filing from your Articles and is optional unless you are actually doing business under a different brand.

Before you file, you need a statutory agent lined up. Arizona calls the role "statutory agent" — it is the same thing other states call a registered agent. The agent must be named in the Articles of Organization and must consent to serving.

Arizona requires every LLC to keep a statutory agent with a physical Arizona street address for the life of the company. This is the person or entity that receives lawsuits, subpoenas, regulatory actions, and official state mail on the LLC's behalf.

Who can serve

• Yourself: If you have a physical Arizona street address (not a P.O. box) and are reliably around during business hours, you can be your own statutory agent. Your address then shows up in the ACC's public database.
• Another individual: Any Arizona resident with an in-state street address — a co-owner, an employee, an Arizona attorney, or another trusted person.
• A commercial statutory agent service: A company authorized to act as a statutory agent in Arizona. The service's address appears publicly instead of yours, someone is always available to accept documents, and you get notified quickly when anything arrives.

The consent form

Whoever you name has to accept the role in writing. Arizona formalizes this with the Statutory Agent Acceptance form, filed alongside the Articles. Skipping or mishandling it is a common cause of rejected filings, so it has to be signed by the agent you named.

The Articles of Organization is the document that actually creates your LLC on Arizona's records. You file it online through the Arizona Business Center, the Corporation Commission's portal at efiling.azcc.gov, which replaced the older eCorp system. The state fee covers the Articles; expedited handling is available for an added fee if you need to move faster than the standard queue.

Standard processing runs roughly two weeks; expedited brings it down to a few business days. Once the ACC approves the filing, your LLC exists and appears in the public entity search.

What goes in the Articles

• LLC name with the required designator (LLC, L.L.C., and so on)
• Known place of business address in Arizona — this can be your statutory agent's address, and it determines your publication county
• Statutory agent name and Arizona street address, with the signed acceptance
• Management structure: member-managed or manager-managed
• Members or managers: Arizona asks you to list the members if member-managed, or the managers (and at least one member) if manager-managed

What you do not include

You do not attach an operating agreement, describe your business activities, or disclose ownership percentages or finances. The Articles are a formation document, not a disclosure filing. Your internal arrangements live in the operating agreement and stay private.

This step is unique enough that it deserves its own place in the checklist, because it is the one most first-time filers miss. It happens after the ACC approves your LLC, not during filing.

Arizona law requires you to publish a Notice of Publication about your new LLC in a newspaper approved for the county of your known place of business — three consecutive times, within 60 days of the approval date. When the publication run is complete, the newspaper issues an Affidavit of Publication, which you keep for your records. (You generally do not file the affidavit with the ACC, but you want it on hand.)

The Maricopa and Pima exemption

If your known place of business is in Maricopa County or Pima County, you are off the hook: the Corporation Commission posts the notice on its own public database automatically, and you do not need to arrange or pay for a newspaper publication. Since Phoenix and Tucson — the state's two largest metros — sit in these counties, a large share of Arizona LLCs never touch this step. For every other county, plan on it, and get it done inside the 60-day window.

The operating agreement is your LLC's internal rulebook. Arizona does not require you to file it and it never enters any public record — but you want it in place before you take on partners, sign leases, or open bank accounts.

What a complete operating agreement covers

• Ownership: who the members are and each member's percentage interest
• Capital contributions: what each member put in and what future contributions are expected
• Profit and loss allocation: how gains and losses are divided — often matching ownership, but it doesn't have to
• Distributions: when and how cash gets paid out, and in what order
• Management: who runs the day-to-day, their authority, and which decisions need a full member vote
• Voting: whether votes weight by ownership, per capita, or another method
• Transfers: what happens when a member wants to sell or exit — approval rights, rights of first refusal
• Dissolution: the conditions for winding down and how remaining assets are split

For a single-member LLC, the agreement reinforces that the company is a real separate entity — something that matters if anyone ever challenges your liability protection. Banks often ask to see it. For a multi-member LLC it is essential: without it, Arizona's statutory defaults govern everything, and those defaults rarely match what the owners actually agreed to.

An Employer Identification Number is a nine-digit federal tax ID from the IRS, issued at no cost. It functions as the business's Social Security number — you use it on tax filings, to open bank accounts, and to hire employees.

When you need one

• Your LLC has more than one member (multi-member LLCs must file a partnership return and need an EIN)
• You plan to hire employees
• You want a business bank account — nearly every bank requires it
• You have elected S corporation or C corporation taxation

A single-member LLC with no employees can technically use the owner's SSN federally, but almost every advisor recommends getting an EIN anyway. It keeps your Social Security number off business paperwork and streamlines banking.

How to apply

Use the IRS EIN Assistant at IRS.gov to apply online. Roughly ten minutes later the number is issued on the spot — save the confirmation and start using the EIN that day. The online application requires a US Social Security number or ITIN. Anyone without one, including non-US applicants, files Form SS-4 by fax or mail.

Keeping business and personal money separate is not optional — it is what preserves the liability shield. If you run personal expenses through the company account or deposit business income into your personal account, a court can disregard the LLC and hold you personally responsible.

What banks usually want

• Your filed Articles of Organization from the ACC
• Your IRS EIN confirmation
• Your operating agreement (many banks require it)
• Government-issued ID for every authorized signer

Ongoing Arizona compliance is light

Here is the payoff: Arizona LLCs file no annual report, so there is no recurring state report to remember. Your maintenance comes down to keeping your statutory agent current (file a Statement of Change if it moves or resigns) and handling taxes. If you sell taxable goods or services, register for Transaction Privilege Tax with the Arizona Department of Revenue and file TPT returns on your assigned schedule; many cities add their own TPT and business registration. Federal filings follow how the LLC is taxed — Schedule C for single-member, Form 1065 for multi-member, Form 1120-S for an S election.