Hello friends, welcome back. We took a little bit of a break from the podcast over the last month or so because I have been moving. My fiance and I had been living in my house that I owned before we met, and we really wanted a place that was ours. My house was great, I loved it, but when I bought it, I kind of went with a worse city, but a nicer house because that's what I could afford. And now we're ready to kind of start thinking about the future and find a town that we actually want to live in long term, you know, better schools, better area. So we've been working on that for literal months. We first had to sell his house, and then we had to find something we liked in the area we liked that we could afford, which was a challenge. The market is absolutely crazy right now. So if you're going through this, I feel for you. But we did it. We sold his house, we sold my house, we bought our new house, we are moved in. I use that term lightly because there are still boxes everywhere, but we're working on it. We're painting, we're making it our own. So that has that has taken up the entirety of my June and July. So as part of this move, I actually have moved from New Hampshire, where I have lived my entire life, to Maine, which is really not a big jump. It's only about 20 minutes away. But it means that my LLC has to move too. So that's what we're gonna talk about today. What happens when you move across state lines? What happens to your business, and what do you need to do about it? So let's do it. Hey, I'm Amy Nestheim, licensed attorney for online business owners and founder of my own business, Artful Contracts. You're listening to Legal Made Easy, the show that makes the legal aspects of online business easy to understand and implement so you can grow your business with confidence knowing you've got it all covered. Let's dive in. Alright, first of all, yes, there are things that you have to do. If you move, if you move across state lines, your business is also moving across state lines because your principal place of business has changed. Assuming that you're just a person who does the majority of your business as a single member LLC, as the sole owner of your business, you are the person operating your business. You don't have like a physical headquarters somewhere. If you move, your business moves. And yes, there are obligations that go with that in terms of telling the states, telling the state you left, telling the state you're moving to, that kind of thing. There are basically three avenues that you can take when you're moving, when your business is moving, to make sure to get your LLC into the new state and make sure that you are complying with that new state's rules. And this is gonna depend on your situation, how established your business is, how temporary or permanent the move is, that kind of thing. So we're gonna walk through all three of those options. So just as a little overview, you can dissolve your LLC in the old state and start completely over, start a new LLC in the new state. You can continue your LLC in the old state and just register in the new state so that you can operate there as a foreign LLC, or you can completely transfer your LLC over so that it is a domestic LLC in the new state and no longer exists in the old state. So we're gonna go through each of those. The first option is to dissolve your LLC and start over. I would only recommend this if you are pretty new in business and haven't really done a whole lot with your LLC because it is exactly what it sounds like. You have to stop and wind up everything. Or if you run an in-person business where the entire operations of the business is going to completely change by moving your location to the new state. So if you had all in-person clients and you had an in-person, like a physical location and all that had to close and end, and then you ended up having to start over in the new state anyway, then maybe a new LLC, a clean break makes sense. But if you have ongoing clients that you're gonna keep, if your business is not location dependent, if you're an online business and you have clients, you have expenses that you're paying for on an ongoing basis, you have contractors or something, and you want to like keep operating all that, you don't you don't want to have to like sign all new contracts with your clients and like get new payment processors, setup accounts, like everything, everything new. If you don't want to do that, it's not a good choice. But if you haven't used your LLC that much yet, maybe you're just getting ramped up and you had to move unexpectedly, then this might be a good option because it gives you that clean starting place. And so you would basically just close your LLC in the old state by filing a dissolution and then start the whole process again in the new state to create a new LLC from scratch in the new state. So for most people, that's not going to be the right option because it's really those those like two situations where that would make sense. So then the next option is to maintain your LLC in your old state and file as a foreign LLC in the new state. So this makes sense if you are moving on a more temporary basis, maybe just for a few months. Maybe you move consistently if you are a military spouse or a military person with a side hustle, or just a digital nomad where you land somewhere for a few months or a year or two at a time. And so if you do this, you'll you have like a home-based state for your LLC. It can exist in the state where you first started it and stay as a domestic LLC, like have its place of residence as that first state. And then you just have to register as a foreign LLC, just letting the new state know, hey, I'm operating here when you are living in that new state. Let's say that you are living in Virginia, you file your LLC in Virginia, that means that you have a domestic LLC in Virginia, and then you decide to move to Florida. So when you get to Florida, you would file as a foreign LLC in Florida. It's just a one piece of paper that you file with the Secretary of State, the Department of State, or like the equivalent agency in the state. They have like differences in the name. You would just file that one piece of paper and that lets the state know that you're operating there. Now, if you were serving as your own registered agent in Virginia in your original state, and you moved, you would have to hire a registered agent in Virginia in your original state, because it is required that you have a registered agent on file with the state who has a physical address where they can receive service of process where you can be served in that state where your LLC exists. Now, the other thing to consider is that you now have two states that you have to file annual reports with and potentially pay annual fees to. So that's why this is a good option if you either move a lot or the move is temporary, because if it's a permanent move, you don't really have a whole lot of incentive to want to file twice with two different states or however many states if you don't actually like live in that first state or operate in that first state anymore. Now you may be tempted if it is a temporary move to just say, Well, I won't be here that long. I'll just skip this part. I really want to encourage you to not do that because not filing as a foreign LLC in a state where you're operating from can carry some pretty big penalties, including monetary fines and in some states all the way up to an actual misdemeanor. So it's just not something you want to mess around with. And just to clarify, you're not forming a like a new or a separate LLC in the new state. You're just letting the new state know, hey, I already exist in my LLC exists in Virginia. I'm just operating, I have my business like running, performing acts of business out of the new state, Florida. And then if you were to, you know, in another year move from Florida to Wyoming, you could then dissolve or withdraw your foreign LLC status in Florida and file as a foreign LLC in Wyoming. And your original domestic LLC would still exist in Virginia, assuming you're filing your annual reports and paying your annual fees. So again, that makes sense if you are more nomadic, if you move a lot, or if your move is temporary, maybe you're moving back to Virginia. And then once you move back, you still have that one home base. You have just that one domestic LLC in Virginia. You can dissolve the one in Florida or Wyoming or whatever. And again, just to clarify, you're not forming new LLCs in these states, you're just letting the new state know, hey, I exist, I'm operating, I'm running a business out of here. And that way they can get their taxes and their fees out of you. Because if they don't get to do that, they get unhappy. All right, the third option is permanently relocating your LLC to the new state so that you no longer exist in the old state and you just exist and you are domestic. Your LLC is a domestic LLC in the new state. It is its residence is the new state, and it no longer exists in the old state. So this process is heavily dependent on the laws of the both the state you're moving from and the state you're moving to. So there's the majority of states, but not all states, I think it's around 30 or 40 states, allow you to either domesticate or do a conversion where your LLC is able to move, transfer its residency, transfer its domestic status from the old state to the new state, it continues to exist. It's the same continuous business in from one place to the other, just like you moving and changing your residency. If one or both states does not allow that process, then you would have to create a new LLC in the new state and merge the old one into it. You would do a merger of the two LLCs, and then the old LLC would merge into the new LLC, and it would end up being foreign in the old state, domestic in the new state, and you would just withdraw your foreign status in the old state, and so it effectively rolls over into the new state. It's just a difference in the effect, the result is the same, but it's a difference in process depending on what your state law allows. If you are doing either of these processes, domestication, conversion, those are the same, they have different names, or a new LLC and a merger. I do recommend you get a lawyer involved because while some of the paperwork is available on the state's websites, there are additional, like additional documents that you should have just in your LLC files. They don't need to be filed anywhere besides your LLC binder that are not forum documents on the website, and that like it's really better if an attorney drafts them up for you. And the reason for that is because we are trying to create continuity from your first original LLC through to the next one and make sure that nothing changes, basically. And if you do that process right, then your liability protection carries with you. If you don't do it right, you run the risk of not being covered. And that's something that you would really only find out in a lawsuit when you would really need it. So again, this process is gonna vary from state to state, but just as a quick rundown of what I'm doing to move from New Hampshire to Maine, New Hampshire and Maine both allow domestication or conversion, which is the same, they just have different names. So in New Hampshire, it's called domestication. In Maine, it's called conversion. So I have to file a statement of conversion with the Secretary of State of Maine and attach a new LLC formation document to it. So I kind of have to refile my LLC certificate of formation in the state of Maine, but attach it to the statement of conversion. So that lets them know hey, I want an LC in this state. It already existed in New Hampshire, I just want to roll it over. In some states, you have to file as a foreign LLC first and then domesticate, but in the case of Maine, you just go straight to the domestication or conversion. The next step is that I also have to inform New Hampshire that I'm doing this. So I have to file articles of charter surrender with the state of New Hampshire. Sometimes this is called a certificate of surrender, a certificate of transfer, a withdrawal of registration, a dissolution, or something similar. You just want to make sure that you are following the process for your state and not just dissolving. You are dissolving in a the so you're dissolving in the old state, but in a way that lets them know that you're just moving. You're not just entirely shutting down your LLC. So the document is going to be different. So that's all the paperwork that has to be filed with the state. It's those three documents: a statement of conversion, sometimes called a statement of domestication, articles of conversion, articles of domestication, something like that, a new certificate of formation, new new formation documents with the new state, and then a withdrawal, withdrawal or surrender with the old state. So it's just those three documents, and those are gonna vary state by state, the name of them, the form of them. But in addition to that, I also have to write a plan of domestication and a consent of members. So these are the internal documents that I was talking about, where I'm the only one who sees them. They just stay on file with my LLC binder in my LLC folder on my desktop. Nobody sees them unless somebody questions me later, unless somebody sues me and they say, Well, you didn't do your transfer right, so you're not covered. So you need these documents, but sometimes it's you have to like read the statute to find that out. So that's why I say get a lawyer involved. And so what those are is the plan of domestication is basically like here's the rules for how things transfer. I, as the owner, get to keep 100% ownership interest, all of my liability protection stays the same, all of my debts, obligations, contracts, ownership of anything that I own, my personal property, anything that my LLC owned in New Hampshire, I now continue to own any debts that I had in New Hampshire, I continue to have in Maine, all of that kind of stuff. Basically, just a statement that nothing has changed. And then the consent of members is what it sounds like. I, as a sole member, consent to the domestication. The it's permission from the owner for the LLC to go through this process. All right, so once all those documents are created and the right ones are filed, of course, there's gonna be filing fees with that for both states. But once that's done, then my LLC will no longer exist in New Hampshire and it will only exist in Maine. So going forward, I just have annual requirements in Maine, not both states. And the benefit is that I get to keep operating. I don't have to change my bank accounts, I don't have to change my EIN, I don't have to enter new contracts with any of my customers or clients. Everything on the operation side gets to stay the same. That's also true if you do a merger. If you create a new LLC in the new state and then merge it with the other LLC, that all of the continuity benefits are there as well. And really, you only want to do that merger process if conversion or domestication are not available under the state laws of either the state you're moving from or the state you're moving to. All right, so there you have it. That is moving your LLC. There are a lot more steps in terms of just like the practical moving your business, um, changing your business address, getting a new PO box, filing, letting the IRS know that your address has changed, changing your address on all of your info, like uh the footer of your emails, on all of your website policies, everywhere you can hear it. I'm dreading that. It's just a lot of little details. And then beyond just the address, you also are gonna have to check into what are the licensing and permitting requirements in my new state because that stuff is so town, city, state, county specific. Like, I'm gonna have to let the like board of selectmen in my new town know that I'm operating a business here, which I did not have to do in my the city I lived in before. So just doing that whole process of making sure that you have all of the licenses, you file with the state tax authority, all of that kind of stuff. So wish me luck going through all of that. I have most of it done at this point, but it's gonna be a lot to like just update that my PO box everywhere. If you've moved your LLC, I would love to hear about your experience with it. I would love to say that there are online services available for this, but they're really, really aren't. They're pretty limited because the rules and the processes vary so much state to state. So if you need help, find a local attorney in your new state, and they may need to enlist the help of somebody in your old state, but they have the resources to do that. And if you have any topics that you would like to hear about on the podcast in the future, feel free to send me a DM at Artful Contracts over on Instagram. I want to make sure this is super helpful for you. So let me know what you need. All right, I'll see you next time.