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 with the free Name Availability Search in the Arizona Business Center, the Corporation Commission's online portal. 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" or "limited company," or the abbreviation "L.L.C.," "L.C.," "LLC," or "LC."
• It may not contain the words "association," "corporation," or "incorporated," or an abbreviation of them.
• Words such as "bank," "credit union," or "trust" need prior approval from the Arizona Department of Financial Institutions.
• 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 $10. The reservation lasts 120 days and can't be renewed, and you don't need one to form. 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 an Arizona street address for the life of the company; the agent's mailing address can be a P.O. box. This is the person or entity that receives lawsuits, subpoenas, regulatory actions, and official state mail on the LLC's behalf. If a business fails to maintain one, the ACC says it will be administratively dissolved.

Who can serve

• Yourself: If you live in Arizona and are at least 18, you can serve as an individual, even as a member or manager of the LLC. Your street address then shows up in the ACC's public database. The LLC itself can't be its own statutory agent.
• Another individual: Any Arizona resident aged 18 or older, such as a co-owner, an employee, an Arizona attorney, or another trusted person.
• A company: An Arizona corporation or LLC, or an out-of-state one authorized in Arizona. Commercial statutory agent services fit here; the service's address appears publicly instead of yours, and you get notified when anything arrives.

The acceptance

Whoever you name has to accept the role in writing. When you file online, the agent receives an email and must accept within 3 days (72 hours), or the Commission automatically rejects the filing. On paper, the signed Statutory Agent Acceptance (form M002) goes in with the Articles.

The Articles of Organization is the document that actually creates your LLC on Arizona's records. You file it (form L010) online through the Arizona Business Center, the Corporation Commission's portal that replaced eCorp on January 12, 2026; new users verify a government ID when they register. The state fee is $50, or $85 with expedited handling, and a card payment adds a 2.2% processing fee with a $2 minimum, which makes the regular filing $52 by card.

As of October 1, 2026, the Business Center's processing table showed 12 days for regular LLC filings and 6 days expedited, with next-day ($100 extra) and same-day ($200 extra) service at 1 day. 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)
• Principal address, which does not have to be in Arizona
• Statutory agent name with the agent's Arizona street address and mailing address, plus the agent's acceptance. The street address decides whether you publish in a newspaper
• Management structure: member-managed or manager-managed, on a Member or Manager Structure Attachment (the Articles are rejected without it)
• Members or managers: the members if member-managed, or the managers plus any member owning 20% or more if manager-managed
• Organizer signature, with an optional delayed effective date of up to 90 days

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.

A.R.S. § 29-3201 requires a notice of the filing to run three consecutive times, within 60 days after the Commission files the Articles, in a newspaper of general circulation in the county of your statutory agent's street address. The ACC's instructions put it bluntly: do not publish until the Commission approves the Articles. When the run is complete, the newspaper issues an affidavit of publication. Filing it with the ACC isn't required, but keep it on hand.

The Maricopa and Pima exemption

If your statutory agent's street address is in Maricopa County or Pima County, you are off the hook: the statute exempts counties of more than 800,000 people, and the Commission posts the notice on its own website automatically, so there is no newspaper to arrange or pay for. Where your office is doesn't change this. An LLC with a Tucson office but an agent in Flagstaff still publishes. Your approval letter tells you which rule applies, and newspaper prices are set by the papers themselves.

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, since 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. There is no IRS fee either way, and if Mainstay Filing forms your LLC, we apply for the EIN for you.

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 (a $5 Statement of Change if it moves or resigns) and handling taxes. If you sell products or services subject to Transaction Privilege Tax, get a TPT license from the Arizona Department of Revenue ($12 per location), file TPT returns on your assigned schedule, and pick up any city license you need. The Commission has also announced a coming Attestation of Existence, a yearly electronic check-in for LLCs that have filed nothing with the ACC in two years; its start date is still to be set. 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.