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How to Form an LLC in Arizona

Arizona is one of the cheapest states in this guide to form and to keep: $50 to file, no annual report, and no annual fee. Its one unusual step is publication. Most founders in Maricopa and Pima counties never touch a newspaper, because the Commission posts the filing itself.

By the LLCForming research teamFees checked Nov 8, 2026

The Arizona filing steps

1. Check your name on the state's own search

   Search the business records in the Arizona Business Center, the Corporation Commission's official filing portal, before you file. The name must be distinguishable in the records of the Commission or the Secretary of State from other entity names and from reserved or registered names. It must contain "limited liability company" or "limited company," or the abbreviation "L.L.C.", "LLC", "L.C." or "LC". It may not contain "association," "corporation" or "incorporated" or an abbreviation of those words, and words such as "bank," "deposit," "credit union," "trust" and "trust company" are restricted. If you are not ready to file, a name reservation costs $10, or $45 expedited.

2. Choose your registered agent

   Arizona calls the role a statutory agent, and every LLC must designate and maintain one. The agent can be an individual resident of Arizona, a domestic corporation, a domestic LLC, or a foreign corporation or LLC authorized to transact business in Arizona, with a place of business or residence in the state. Under the Commission's instructions, an individual agent must be a permanent, full-time Arizona resident with a permanent physical street address, not a mailbox or virtual address. The appointment is not effective until the agent accepts it, using the Statutory Agent Acceptance, Form M002, signed by the agent and submitted with the filing, unless the agent signed the document making the appointment. An LLC cannot be its own statutory agent, though it may appoint one of its own members or managers to serve as an individual. The agent's statutory job is to forward process, notices and demands to the company and to keep the agent information current. Going without a statutory agent is a ground for administrative dissolution.

3. File the Articles of Organization with the Corporation Commission

   File the Articles of Organization, Form L010, with the Corporation Commission through the Arizona Business Center and pay the $50 regular fee. The Business Center launched on January 12, 2026 and replaced the old eCorp system, so any guide still sending you to eCorp is out of date. Use of the Commission's form is not mandatory; the Commission accepts conforming documents of your own drafting. The fee schedule lists one regular fee of $50 and one expedited fee of $85 with no online or paper distinction, and expedited processing adds $35. If you need real speed, accelerated tiers add $100 for next day, $200 for same day, or $400 for 2-hour handling on top of the filing fee. Do not start publication until the Commission has approved the articles for filing.

4. Get an EIN from the IRS

   Free, online, and takes minutes once your Arizona filing is approved. Never pay a service for this. See EIN for an LLC for the walkthrough and the one IRS rule (a real person as responsible party) that surprises people.

5. Write your operating agreement

   Arizona's 2019 LLC Act treats the operating agreement as the governing contract. It controls relations among the members, the rights and duties of managers, and the company's activities, and in a conflict it governs over the Act itself, except for a long statutory list of rules that cannot be overridden, including statutory agent duties, Commission filing requirements, the obligation of good faith and fair dealing, and the judicial dissolution grounds. The Commission does not require one and has no form for one. If there is no operating agreement, the Act's default rules govern, so write the agreement at formation while everyone still agrees.

6. Open the business bank account and handle licenses

   Bring your approved formation document and EIN letter. Then check your city and county for a general business license and your industry for state permits. Arizona does not issue or require a statewide general business license, and no blanket state license opts you out of local ones. Most city and town offices issue their own business licenses. The state item most businesses actually meet is the Transaction Privilege Tax license from the Department of Revenue: TPT is Arizona's tax on the vendor for the privilege of doing business, commonly called a sales tax, and a business selling a product or a service subject to TPT must be licensed with the Department at $12 per location and generally also needs a city TPT or business license for each city where it operates. The Arizona Business One Stop portal is the state's guidance hub for sorting out which local and regulatory licenses your activity needs.

Filing details that trip people up

• The $50 fee has no online surcharge in the official schedule. The Commission's fee schedule lists one regular fee ($50) and one expedited fee ($85) with no online or paper distinction. Claims elsewhere that online filings are automatically charged the expedited rate were not confirmed on any Commission page; the $35 difference is a choice about speed, not a channel tax.
• Publication is real, but most Arizona LLCs are exempt in practice. Within 60 days after the Commission files your articles, a notice must run for three consecutive publications in a newspaper of general circulation in the county of the statutory agent's street address. If that address is in a county with a population of more than 800,000 persons, the Commission instead inputs the approval information into its public database, which satisfies the rule. Maricopa County and Pima County are the counties over that threshold. An affidavit of publication may be filed with the Commission but is not required to be filed.
• Foreign LLCs pay $150 in Arizona, not $50. Registering an out-of-state LLC takes the Foreign Registration Statement, Form L025, at $150 regular or $185 expedited, plus a certificate of existence or good standing from the home jurisdiction and a Statutory Agent Acceptance, Form M002. An unregistered foreign LLC may not maintain an action or proceeding in Arizona courts, though its contracts stay valid and it can still defend an action.
• Arizona has no annual report, so beware anyone selling you one. No annual, biennial or periodic LLC fee appears in the Commission's fee schedule at all. What Arizona requires instead is updating your record within 30 days when the facts in it change, covered on the report page.
• Trading under a different name is a separate, optional state filing. Trade names are registered with the Arizona Secretary of State, not the Commission: $10 for the initial registration, $10 to renew, and the registration lasts 5 years. Registration is not legally required and grants no exclusive rights to the name. Our DBA guide covers when it is worth doing.

After your Arizona LLC is approved

Get the EIN, open the bank account, and handle the publication step within the 60-day window if your statutory agent's address is outside Maricopa or Pima County. Then Arizona mostly leaves you alone. There is no yearly filing to calendar. What you calendar instead is change itself: a new statutory agent, a new principal address, and membership or manager changes each start a 30-day clock to amend or file a statement of change. If you sell taxable goods or services, set up the TPT license and your city licenses before the first sale, not after.

The full recurring picture for Arizona, with fees and due dates, is on the Arizona annual report and compliance page, and the money view is on the Arizona LLC cost page.

Arizona LLC questions