Foreign qualification for out-of-state LLCs in Washington
What does my out-of-state LLC have to file to do business in Washington?
The one filing that matters is $180 and one document from home
Washington calls it a Foreign Registration Statement. An LLC formed in another state files it with the Secretary of State to become a registered foreign LLC, and the fee is $180 plus an online processing charge.
You attach one document from home: a certificate of existence, or good standing, dated within 60 days of your submission. The registration guide walks the whole filing, and the cost breakdown puts every fee in one table.
Whether you must file is a facts question, not a feeling
The Secretary of State will not tell you whether your work counts as doing business. The office points you to the statute that lists what does not count, and RCW 23.95.520 is that list.
What counts as doing business takes the list apart: the isolated 30-day job, the remote worker, the interstate route. It also covers what an unregistered LLC loses in a Washington courtroom.
Three obligations survive the filing
Registering is the start of a maintenance calendar, not the end of it.
A registered agent in Washington must be on the filing and must consent. The annual report is due on the last day of the month you first registered, every year. Washington's business and occupation tax can reach an LLC that never once trips the doing-business list.
The same line crossing lands differently per trade
A painter's LLC and a cleaner's LLC file the same Foreign Registration Statement. What differs is what Washington stacks on top of it, and that depends on the work.
Electricians pick up an electrical contractor license and a master electrician or administrator. Salon owners pick up a shop license and a $100,000 insurance policy. Movers answer to a different regulator entirely. Food trucks and house cleaners show how the line-crossing question lands when the regulator is a county or nobody.
Who can do the typing
You can file the registration yourself for the $180 fee, or hand the paperwork to a service that files foreign qualifications for a published price.
The services page sets each service's own published numbers beside the file-it-yourself route, with no scoring and no ranking. If the expansion is big enough that a fresh Washington company looks better than registering the existing one, that trade-off is on the same page.
Where to start today
Read your trade's page first if you hold a license, because the trade registration drives the schedule around it.
Then work the expansion checklist front to back. It orders the certificate from your home state, the name check, the agent, the filing, and the tax registrations into one sequence you can hold in one hand.
When Washington wants you registered
- What counts as doing business in Washington — The statute that decides when an out-of-state LLC must register in Washington: RCW 23.95.520's list, the 30-day carve-out, and the remote worker.
- How to register a foreign LLC in Washington — Filing the Washington Foreign Registration Statement: the $180 fee, the certificate of existence, the agent consent, and the online steps.
- Choosing a registered agent in Washington — The registered agent a foreign LLC must have in Washington: commercial versus noncommercial, the consent rule, and which changes cost nothing.
Costs and yearly obligations
- What registering a foreign LLC in Washington costs — Every published Washington fee around a foreign LLC registration: the $180 filing, the $70 annual report, the free changes, and the $140 repair.
- Filing the annual report for a foreign LLC in Washington — The annual report a registered foreign LLC owes Washington each year: the last-day-of-the-month deadline, the 180-day window, the $70 fee, and delinquency.
- Washington B&O tax and out-of-state LLCs — How Washington's B&O tax reaches an out-of-state LLC: the $100,000 gross-receipts nexus, the slightest-presence rule, and the 1.5 percent rate.
How crossing the line lands by trade
- Electricians expanding into Washington — An out-of-state electrical contractor LLC in Washington: the foreign registration, the electrical license, the master electrician, and the bonds.
- Food truck owners crossing into Washington — An out-of-state food truck LLC crossing into Washington: the $10 food worker card, the county permits, and the 30-day carve-out a schedule defeats.
- Salon owners opening a Washington location — An out-of-state salon LLC in Washington: the salon or shop license, the $100,000 insurance the statute requires, and the lease that settles doing business.
- House cleaners taking jobs in Washington — An out-of-state house cleaning LLC in Washington: no trade license, the repeated-jobs trigger, the slightest-presence tax rule, and the city license.
- Movers running routes into Washington — An out-of-state moving company LLC running Washington loads: when the UTC permit applies, and when only the foreign registration does.
Who can do the filing
- Services that file your Washington foreign registration — Services that file the Washington Foreign Registration Statement, each one's own published prices, and the $180 file-it-yourself route.
Before the first job
- A Washington expansion checklist for an out-of-state LLC — The out-of-state LLC's Washington expansion in order: certificate, name, agent, the $180 filing, the tax registrations, and the yearly calendar.
Questions
Is registering my out-of-state LLC in Washington called foreign qualification here?
Other states call the filing a certificate of authority. Washington calls the form you file a Foreign Registration Statement, and the LLC that files it a registered foreign LLC. The effect is the same, that the out-of-state company is is authorized to do business in Washington.
Does this site cover corporations and nonprofits too?
The fees and deadlines here are the LLC schedule. Washington files foreign profit corporations and professional service corporations through the same online system, but the pages do not cover corporation-specific steps, such as the revenue clearance certificate a foreign corporation files with its statement of withdrawal.
Why is every page about Washington only?
The doing-business statute, the fee schedule, the tax threshold, and the trade registrations all come from Washington agencies and the Revised Code of Washington. None of it carries to another state, so every figure here is verified against Washington sources only.
Does this site recommend a filing service?
The services page lists what each service publishes about its own prices beside the file-it-yourself route at the Secretary of State. It does not score, rank, or pick one.
What if my trade is not one of the five with its own page?
Read what counts as doing business first, then the registration guide. The five trade pages show how the pattern lands; the general filings are the same for every trade, and the trade-specific registrations come from each regulator's own pages.