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Forming an LLC takes an afternoon and a filing fee, and that ease is the problem. When formation was hard, the discipline that protected you was built into the process. Now the entity exists the moment the state accepts the paperwork, and the steps that shield your personal assets and set the business up to grow get left for later, which usually means never.

We have written about each of these steps on its own. This article is the one place they sit together, in order, so you can work through them after you form your LLC or check for something you might have missed. The content below applies whether you own a single LLC or several.

Your LLC needs its own federal tax identification number, and you should get it straight from the source. The application lives on IRS.gov, it is free, and in most cases the IRS issues the number the moment you finish. Paid services charge a fee to type your details into the same form you can complete yourself in about ten minutes. Before you begin, confirm the address in your browser reads IRS.gov and not a lookalike built to imitate the agency and collect a charge. The IRS issues one EIN per responsible party per day, so space out your filings if you are forming more than one company.

A business builds credit the way a person does, over time, so the sooner it starts the more it is worth later. Two early steps cost nothing. First, find the NAICS code that classifies what your business does; the official lookup is free at census.gov, and banks and credit applications will ask for it. Then request your free D-U-N-S number from Dun & Bradstreet, the identifier that anchors your business credit file. The free number can take up to thirty business days to arrive, and Dun & Bradstreet will push paid expedited service and credit products the whole way; skip all of it and take the free one. The number by itself builds nothing; what builds a file is activity that reports to the bureaus, which our earlier piece, Like You Mean Business: Your LLC’s Credit Blueprint, walks through.

Every LLC should keep a record of its own decisions, and the first entry is an organizing resolution. It records that you organized the company, adopted the operating agreement, and authorized a bank or credit union account at your chosen institution. That last part is not busywork; your bank will want to see that the account is authorized in the company’s records before it opens one in the LLC’s name. Keep the resolution in a single file, physical or digital, that becomes the home for everything the company formally decides. Our earlier piece, The Initial Resolution You Need After LLC Formation, gives you the language. If you have partners or more than one owner, also start a membership interest ledger in that same file, the record that proves who owns what when someone outside the company needs to rely on it. Your LLC Membership Interest Ledger lays out what it should contain.

This is the step that protects your personal assets, and it is the easiest to neglect. Open a dedicated business bank account with your EIN, your operating agreement, and the resolution, fund it with a real opening deposit, and treat it as a wall. Business income goes in, business expenses come out, and personal money stays on its own side. The liability shield you formed the LLC to get depends on the company being separate from you, and mixing the two is the most common way owners lose it. When you pay a personal bill from the business account, you hand a creditor the argument that you and the company are the same thing, which is how the shield gets pierced.

A single-member LLC needs an operating agreement as much as a multi-owner one does, sometimes more. It is the document that shows the business is a real entity with its own rules, which is part of what keeps the liability shield standing. Several states require one, your bank will likely ask for it, and it is where you set who steps in and what becomes of your interest if you die or become incapacitated. Solo owners skip that last part and regret it later. Our earlier piece, Your LLC Is Missing Its Most Important Document, covers what belongs in it.

If your estate plan includes a revocable living trust, your LLC interest should sit inside it. Held in your name alone, the interest passes through probate when you die, the slow, public process the trust exists to avoid. It can also leave a gap during incapacity, when a successor trustee could otherwise step in without a court. The fix is an assignment of your membership interest to the trustee, prepared with your estate lawyer, who should also confirm your trust is drafted to hold and manage a business interest. If you are the only member, it is straightforward. If you have partners, it takes more care, since your operating agreement may require their consent or give them a right of first refusal, and a transfer made without checking can strain the partnership or breach the agreement. Handle it while the business is running well, not under pressure. For most owners the tax effect is nothing, because the IRS treats a revocable trust as part of you. Our earlier piece, How to Transfer Your LLC Into Your Revocable Trust Without Creating Problems, details the full sequence.

You may have heard that every small business now has to file a beneficial ownership report with FinCEN. As of now, most domestic LLCs do not. A 2025 rule removed that requirement for companies formed in the United States and kept it only for foreign entities registered to do business here. If a service emails you about a deadline and a filing fee, that is usually the sign it is selling you something you do not owe. Washington keeps revisiting this, so confirm the status once a year.

One last thine, and it is not a filing. The LLC keeps a business creditor from reaching your house; it does nothing about the lawsuit or the bill behind the claim. That is what general and professional liability insurance is for.

None of these steps is difficult on its own, and none takes long. Done in the first weeks and in order, they turn a filed LLC into a protected one and give the business a clean foundation to grow on.

Several of these steps come with a document, and Premium subscribers get the templates that go with them: the operating agreement, the initial resolution, the membership ledger, and the assignment that moves your interest into your trust, among over thirty prepared documents that would cost far more from an attorney. You can upgrade to Premium by clicking here.

This Letter is general information, not legal, tax, or financial advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client or any other professional relationship. Requirements vary by state and change over time, and trust transfers in particular depend on your operating agreement and your estate plan, so confirm current rules with the relevant agency and consult a licensed professional in your jurisdiction before you act.

Have an interesting business question and need a free bit of advice? Send your question to [email protected]. No confidential info, please!