Forming a Tennessee LLC is a filing, not a ceremony. Here is the actual process — what gets submitted to the Tennessee Division of Business Services, how long approval takes, and what arrives in your inbox when it's done.
A Tennessee LLC is created when the Tennessee Secretary of State, Division of Business Services accepts your Articles of Organization and issues a certificate. Everything else — the EIN, the operating agreement, the bank account — happens around that central act. Our $299 flat service walks through all of it; you pay the Tennessee filing fee of $300 separately, directly to the state.
Most founders forming a single-member Tennessee LLC are done in 5–10 business days of standard processing time. Multi-member filings take about the same; the additional complexity lives in the operating agreement, not at the state.
Tennessee's annual report fee is calculated by member count: $300 minimum for six or fewer members, plus $50 for each additional member, capped at $3,000. The annual report is due on the first day of the fourth month after fiscal year end (April 1 for calendar-year filers). Tennessee also levies a 6.5% franchise and excise tax on LLCs taxed as corporations.
We check your chosen LLC name against the Tennessee Division of Business Services database before anything is submitted. If the first choice is taken, we call before filing — we do not submit a filing you did not authorize.
A formation specialist prepares the Articles to Tennessee's exact format, with your members, registered agent, principal office address, and effective date.
Filed through the Tennessee Division of Business Services's online system. Your Tennessee registered agent of record is our Nashville office for the first year.
Approval typically arrives in 5–10 business days. We watch the queue daily and forward the stamped certificate the moment it clears.
Once the LLC is approved, we file SS-4 with the IRS to get your Employer Identification Number — the federal tax ID you need to open a business bank account.
Stamped certificate, EIN letter, custom operating agreement drafted to your ownership structure, and your registered agent confirmation. You sign the operating agreement and open the account.
Before we file, we need a handful of decisions from you. None of them are heavy, but we have to confirm each one on the reservation call:
The $299 is a flat service fee for everything on our side. Tennessee's state filing fee of $300 is paid directly to the Tennessee Division of Business Services and is the same whether you file with us or on your own. There are no upsells — no basic, plus, or premium tiers. One price, four things.
Reservation takes three minutes. A formation specialist in Nashville handles the rest.