How to register a foreign LLC in Washington
How do I register my out-of-state LLC to do business in Washington?
- Decide whether your work counts as doing business in Washington
- Order a certificate of existence from your home state
- Check your LLC name against Washington records
- Line up a registered agent with a Washington street address
- File the Foreign Registration Statement online for $180 plus the processing charge
- Confirm the UBI number the filing assigns you
- Register with the Department of Revenue and the cities you work in
- Register for the trade licenses your work triggers
- Set a yearly reminder for the annual report
What you are filing, and what it costs
The form is a Foreign Registration Statement, filed with the Washington Secretary of State, and the fee is $180 in addition to an online processing charge.
The filing makes your LLC a registered foreign LLC in Washington. It does not create a new company, and it does not touch the LLC you keep at home. The two registrations run in parallel from the day Washington accepts yours.
The $180 is the flat fee the Secretary of State publishes for an LLC original filing. Everything else on the invoice is optional: $100 buys expedited handling that is generally processed within three working days. If the money matters more than the days, standard processing is the same filing at the same $180.
$180Washington charges $180, in addition to an online processing fee, to file a Foreign Registration Statement for a foreign limited liability company. — Washington Secretary of State, retrieved 2026-09-29
$100Expedited processing for an LLC filing costs an additional $100 per business entity and is generally processed within three working days. — Washington Secretary of State, retrieved 2026-09-29
The certificate from your home state is the pacing item
You must attach a certificate of existence, also called a certificate of good standing, from your home state. Washington requires that it was issued no more than 60 days before the date you submit the registration.
Order it early. Your home state issues its own certificate at its own speed and its own fee, and an old one is refused here. The Secretary of State returns the whole Foreign Registration Statement for correction if the certificate is late-dated, so a document you already had on file may not survive the wait.
Check the 60-day window on the day you order, not the day you file. A certificate issued on the first of the month has about eight weeks of life in a Washington submission.
60 daysA foreign LLC registering in Washington must attach a certificate of existence from its home jurisdiction issued no more than 60 days before submission, and the filing is returned without it. — Washington Secretary of State, retrieved 2026-09-29
RCW 23.95.510RCW 23.95.510 requires a certificate of existence, issued no more than sixty days before submission, to accompany the foreign registration statement. — Washington State Legislature, Revised Code of Washington, retrieved 2026-09-29
Your LLC name, checked against Washington records
Enter the name exactly as it appears on the home-state certificate, then let the filing system look it up in Washington's records. The name must also carry an LLC designation: Limited Liability Company, Limited Liability Co., L.L.C., or LLC, per RCW 23.95.305.
A collision is not a dead end. If the name is taken or the designation does not fit, you adopt a doing-business-as name for use in Washington. The LLC keeps its home name everywhere else, and RCW 23.95.525 sets the rules for the alternate one.
A name reservation costs $30 if you want to hold a Washington name before you are ready to file. Most expanding LLCs skip it, because the certificate of existence is what sets the timing anyway.
RCW 23.95.305Per RCW 23.95.305, a limited liability company name registered in Washington must include the words Limited Liability Company, Limited Liability Co., L.L.C., or LLC. — Washington State Legislature, Revised Code of Washington, retrieved 2026-09-29
$30A Washington LLC name reservation costs $30 under the Secretary of State's fee schedule. — Washington Secretary of State, retrieved 2026-09-29
The registered agent who must consent
Every foreign LLC registering in Washington designates a registered agent, as RCW 23.95.415 requires. The agent needs a physical Washington street address, no post office box, and the filing collects an email address for the agent.
Choose commercial or noncommercial. A commercial agent is one registered with the Secretary of State to receive legal documents for other entities. A noncommercial agent is anyone else who agrees to the job, which can be you or a Washington employee.
The consent is not decoration. An agent appointed without it can file a notarized statement and have the name removed immediately. The mechanics of choosing, and the free change-of-agent filing later, are covered in the registered agent guide.
RCW 23.95.415RCW 23.95.415 requires a registered agent's prior consent in a record, and an agent appointed without consent may be removed immediately by a notarized statement. — Washington State Legislature, Revised Code of Washington, retrieved 2026-09-29
WAC 434-112-045(4)The Foreign Registration Statement requires an email address for the registered agent and principal office, per WAC 434-112-045(4). — Washington Secretary of State, retrieved 2026-09-29
The online filing, screen by screen
File through the Corporations and Charities Filing System. Log in, choose to register a business from a different state, and select Foreign Limited Liability Company as the type, matching how it is registered in your home jurisdiction.
The screens then collect what RCW 23.95.510 requires: jurisdiction of formation, the principal office address, the date of formation and period of duration, the date you first did or intend to do business in Washington, and, if you submit the initial report with it, your governors and the nature of the business.
Two choices inside the form are worth slowing down for. The effective date can be the filing date or a future date up to 90 days out. And if your business has already registered with a Washington agency, you enter its existing nine-digit UBI number; if not, the filing assigns one.
90 daysA foreign LLC's online Foreign Registration Statement may take effect on the filing date or a future effective date up to 90 days from the filing date. — Washington Secretary of State, retrieved 2026-09-29
RCW 23.95.510RCW 23.95.510 lists what a foreign registration statement must state, from the name and entity type to the date it first did or intends to do business in Washington. — Washington State Legislature, Revised Code of Washington, retrieved 2026-09-29
What the registration does not do for you
A registered foreign LLC is authorized to do business in Washington. That authorization reaches the corporate side only. It does not register you with the tax agencies, it does not buy a city business license, and it does not touch any trade license your work requires.
A Washington-registered LLC from another state still registers with the Department of Revenue for the business license and its endorsements, and the city you operate in can layer its own. The B&O tax page covers the tax registration, because it can apply before the doing-business question is even answered.
For licensed trades the stack is taller. An out-of-state electrical contracting LLC, for example, cannot lawfully advertise or take electrical work in Washington on the strength of the Foreign Registration Statement alone, as the electricians page spells out.
RCW 23.95.500 states that a registered foreign entity is subject to the same duties, restrictions, penalties, and liabilities as a domestic entity of the same type. — Washington State Legislature, Revised Code of Washington, retrieved 2026-09-29
The annual report calendar starts immediately
Your first annual report window is not far off. The report is due by the last day of the month in which the business originally registered, every year, and you can file it up to 180 days early.
The fee is $70, or $95 with the delinquency charge if the date passes. Miss it and the LLC goes delinquent, and delinquency can end in administrative dissolution of the registration.
Set the reminder now, in the month you register, because the Secretary of State's notice is a courtesy and the obligation stands whether or not the letter arrives. The annual report guide carries the full calendar and what a missed one costs to repair.
$70Washington LLC annual reports are due by the last day of the month in which the business registered, filed up to 180 days early, at $70, or $95 delinquent. — Washington Secretary of State, retrieved 2026-09-29
If a second company is the better shape
Registering the existing LLC is not the only legal way into Washington. You can form a fresh Washington LLC instead: a Certificate of Formation also costs $180 plus the online processing charge, and it creates a separate Washington company rather than extending the home one.
Two companies mean two annual reports, two sets of books, and two registered agents. One registered foreign LLC means the home state's rules still govern the entity while Washington's reach the work. Which shape fits is a business call, and the cost side of both routes is laid out in the cost breakdown.
If you decide the fresh-Washington-company route is the one for the work you have lined up, Tailor Brands publishes LLC formation plans starting at $0 plus state fees, and the plans and pricing are on its own page. The registration either way still ends at the same Secretary of State system.
$180A Washington Certificate of Formation for a new domestic LLC carries a filing fee of $180 in addition to an online processing fee, the same fee as the foreign registration. — Washington Secretary of State, retrieved 2026-09-29
$0 + state feesTailor Brands publishes LLC formation plans starting at $0 plus state fees, with paid tiers above the base plan. — Tailor Brands plans and pricing page, retrieved 2026-09-29
Questions
How long does the Secretary of State take to process a foreign LLC registration?
Standard processing is not published as a fixed number for this filing, but the office's fee schedule describes expedited service as generally processed within three working days for the additional $100, and same-day service is available in person at Tumwater or Cheney for a $150 same-day fee per business entity.
Can I file the Foreign Registration Statement on paper instead of online?
The online instructions describe the filing through the Corporations and Charities Filing System. The fee schedule lists the same LLC fees for standard document processing, and expedited mail service is available by including an additional $100 per business entity and marking the envelope EXPEDITE.
Does the certificate of existence need to come from my home state specifically?
Yes. It is issued by the Secretary of State or other official having custody of the entity's records in the LLC's jurisdiction of formation, the state whose law the LLC was organized under, and it must be dated within 60 days of your Washington submission.
Do I have to list my members or governors to register?
The online instructions make the governors section optional if you submit without the initial report. RCW 23.95.510 requires the names and addresses of the entity's governors in the registration statement, so have them ready in case the filing path asks for them.
What if my LLC's name is already taken in Washington?
You adopt a doing-business-as name for use in Washington. RCW 23.95.525 governs the alternate name, and after registering under it you do business here under that name, or under your entity name with your jurisdiction of formation clearly identified.