How to Form a Texas LLC for Your Houston Business Without Using an Online Service
The actual forms, fees, and local filing requirements — including the Harris County step most guides skip entirely.
The actual forms, fees, and local filing requirements — including the Harris County step most guides skip entirely.
Editor’s note: Filing fees and the Texas franchise tax no-tax-due threshold should be verified at sos.texas.gov and comptroller.texas.gov before relying on any figures for a pending filing. All figures in this article reflect the most current publicly available information at time of writing.
If you’re a Houston-based food truck operator, independent contractor, property investor, or boutique retailer who’s been putting off making your business official, here’s the direct answer to the question you’ve probably already typed into a search engine: you don’t need LegalZoom, IncFile, or an attorney to form a Texas LLC. You need $300, an internet connection, and about two hours of focused time spread across a week.
What follows is a step-by-step walkthrough of the actual process — using the Texas Secretary of State’s SOSDirect portal directly — covering every form and every agency you’ll touch, including the Harris County Clerk step that most online guides don’t mention at all.
What This Costs and What You’re Actually Doing
The primary and only mandatory state cost to form an LLC in Texas is the $300 Certificate of Formation filing fee, paid to the Texas Secretary of State. That’s it. No annual state registration fee sits on top of it.
That $300 buys you something specific: a formal legal separation between you personally and your business. Once your LLC exists, your personal bank account, car, and home are generally shielded from business debts and lawsuits. Operating as a sole proprietor gives you none of that. The LLC also gives your business a formal legal identity — it can enter contracts, open bank accounts, and hold property in its own name.
What forming an LLC does not do is actually a longer list than most people realize. It’s not a tax election — you’ll still report income the same way unless you separately elect S-corp or C-corp treatment with the IRS. It’s not a DBA or trade name registration. It’s not a business license. Houston and Harris County have separate licensing and permit requirements depending on your business type. A food truck permit from the Houston Health Department, for example, is an entirely separate process that happens in parallel to LLC formation. The LLC is the foundation. Everything else still has to be built on top of it.
The three agencies you’ll interact with are straightforward: the Texas Secretary of State (to create the entity), the IRS (to get your Employer Identification Number), and potentially the Harris County Clerk (if you plan to operate under a brand name different from your LLC’s legal name).
Step 1: Check Your LLC Name Before You Pay Anything
The $300 filing fee is non-refundable. Submit your Certificate of Formation with an unavailable or legally defective name and you lose the money. Check your name first — this part costs nothing and takes fifteen minutes.
Go to sosdirect.sos.texas.gov. From the homepage, navigate to Business Organizations, then Search for a Business Entity. You can search by entity name to see whether your desired name is already in use or too similar to an existing entity name on file with the state.
Texas naming rules for LLCs are specific and non-negotiable. Your LLC name must include one of the following designations: “LLC,” “L.L.C.,” or “Limited Liability Company.” No exceptions.
A few things worth knowing about Houston specifically: the energy consulting, real estate, and property management sectors have extremely high name saturation in the SOS database. If you’re forming a real estate holding company and your instinct is to name it after a street, neighborhood, or compass direction — and honestly, whose instinct isn’t — expect to iterate. Names like Midtown Property Group or Westheimer Capital almost certainly exist in some variation already. Keep a list of three or four alternatives ready before you start.
One important caveat: SOS name availability is not trademark clearance. The SOS database tells you whether the name is available to register in Texas as an LLC. It says nothing about whether someone else holds a federal trademark on the same or a confusingly similar name. If your brand identity matters commercially, a trademark search through the USPTO’s federal database is worth your time before you file.
Step 2: Create Your SOSDirect Account and File Form 205
The Texas Secretary of State’s online portal is at sosdirect.sos.texas.gov. Create an account with an email address you actually monitor. SOS correspondence — including your filed Certificate of Formation — will arrive there.
Once logged in, navigate to Business Organizations, then File a New Entity, then Domestic Limited Liability Company. This is Texas Form 205, the Certificate of Formation. Walk through the form fields in sequence.
Your LLC name must include the exact legal name with the required LLC designation, capitalized consistently. This is how it will appear on every official document going forward, so don’t be casual about spelling or punctuation here. The registered agent field requires attention and is covered in detail in the next section, but know now that it’s required and you can’t leave it blank. You’ll need a name and a physical Texas street address — not a P.O. box.
Your principal office address is the main address for the LLC itself — your place of business. A P.O. box isn’t acceptable here either. If you’re a home-based business, this can be your home address, with the understanding that it becomes part of the public record. That’s worth thinking through before you type it in.
Form 205 asks whether your LLC will be member-managed or manager-managed. For a solo operator — the food truck owner, the independent contractor, the single-person consulting shop — member-managed is the right choice in almost every case. It means you, as the member (owner), run the business directly. Manager-managed structures are designed for LLCs where outside managers run operations or where investors are passive. Most single-owner Houston businesses don’t need that complexity, and choosing manager-managed when you don’t have to creates paperwork problems down the road.
The organizer signature line is for the person filing the Certificate of Formation — in most cases, you. The organizer isn’t required to be a member or owner; they’re simply the person authorizing the filing. For a solo operator doing this themselves, the organizer and the sole member are typically the same person. You pay the $300 filing fee by credit or debit card at the point of submission. Once payment clears, SOSDirect generates a confirmation. Your stamped, filed Certificate of Formation arrives via email approximately 2–3 business days later.
Mail filings take significantly longer — 7–10 business days is standard, and that assumes the paperwork arrives clean without errors requiring follow-up. If you have a business launch date, a vendor contract to sign, or a bank appointment on the calendar, file online. There’s no good reason to wait by the mailbox.
Step 3: The Registered Agent Requirement
Having a Houston business address doesn’t eliminate the registered agent requirement. These are two distinct fields on Form 205 with two distinct legal functions. Conflating them is one of the more common errors in DIY filings, and it’s an understandable mistake — the distinction isn’t explained anywhere on the form itself.
A registered agent is a person or entity designated to receive official legal documents on behalf of your LLC: service of process if the business is sued, official notices from the Texas Secretary of State, franchise tax correspondence from the Comptroller’s office. The registered agent must be available at a physical Texas street address (not a P.O. box) during normal business hours on business days.
For a Houston LLC owner who has a physical Texas street address available, you can legally serve as your own registered agent at no cost. This is the practical choice for most small solo operators. The tradeoff is straightforward: the registered agent address is public record. Anyone can look it up. If you’re a home-based business in Montrose, the Heights, or Spring Branch and your home address is your registered agent address, that address is publicly searchable by anyone with a browser. This is the privacy consideration that pushes some home-based Houston business owners toward commercial registered agent services.
Commercial registered agent services — companies like Northwest Registered Agent or Registered Agents Inc. — typically run $49 to $150 per year. You get a commercial address to list as your registered agent address, plus forwarding of any official documents they receive. Whether that privacy is worth $100 a year is a judgment call only you can make. For most small operators with a clear commercial address, self-service makes sense. For home-based operators with any concern about their address being publicly indexed, the commercial option is worth the modest annual cost.
Step 4: Get Your EIN from the IRS — Free, Same Day
Once the SOS has processed your Certificate of Formation and you have the stamped document, go to irs.gov. Navigate to Apply for an Employer Identification Number (EIN) Online. The application is free, takes approximately 15 minutes, and issues the EIN immediately upon completion. Print or save the confirmation page. The IRS only displays the EIN once during the online session — if you close the window without saving it, you’re dealing with a recovery process that’s more annoying than it should be.
Your LLC needs an EIN even if it has no employees. Banks require it to open a business account. The Texas Comptroller uses it for franchise tax reporting. Vendors and clients may request it for 1099 purposes. There’s no reason to pay a third-party service for this. Any site charging $50 or $75 to obtain an EIN is an unnecessary middleman — and there are quite a few of them out there designed to catch people who don’t realize the IRS process is free.
Obtain the EIN before you go to a bank. Banks require it, and showing up without it delays the account opening process by days.
Step 5: Texas Franchise Tax — What Houston’s Small Operators Actually Owe
Here’s the reassurance most Houston small business owners need, stated plainly: the overwhelming majority of single-owner LLCs in this city fall below the franchise tax no-tax-due threshold and owe $0 in franchise tax.
The Texas franchise tax no-tax-due threshold for 2024–2025 was $2.47 million in annualized total revenue. Verify the current 2026 threshold at comptroller.texas.gov before filing, as the Comptroller adjusts this figure periodically. If your LLC’s total revenue falls below that number, you owe nothing to the state.
Here’s the part that actually matters for your compliance — and the part most guides skip entirely. Falling below the threshold doesn’t eliminate the filing obligation. Every Texas LLC must file a No-Tax-Due Report (Form 05-163) with the Comptroller annually, regardless of whether any tax is owed. Missing this filing puts your LLC at risk of forfeiture. The state can strip your right to transact business in Texas, which creates a real mess to unwind.
The due date is May 15 each year. Your first report is due the year after formation, not immediately. So if you form your LLC in October 2025, your first franchise tax report is due May 15, 2026. Set a calendar reminder now — seriously, do it before you close this tab. For a small Houston LLC below the threshold, this is a 10-minute annual online filing through the Comptroller’s Webfile system. It’s not a tax burden. It’s a checkbox. But it’s a checkbox with real consequences if ignored.
Step 6: The Harris County Step Most Houston Guides Skip
If your LLC will operate under any name other than its exact legal LLC name, you need to file an assumed name certificate — commonly called a DBA (doing business as) registration. You’ll do this in two places, and most DIY guides only mention one of them, a pattern our business & professional coverage tracks across many common Houston formation mistakes.
The first filing is at the Texas Secretary of State. A state-level assumed name certificate filed with the SOS covers your LLC’s right to use the trade name statewide. The filing fee is approximately $25 and is done through SOSDirect under the assumed name certificate filing option.
The second filing is mandatory in Harris County. A county-level assumed name certificate must be filed in every Texas county where the LLC conducts business. For most Houston businesses, that’s Harris County. The Harris County Clerk’s filing fee is approximately $18 for the first owner, with a small additional fee per additional owner listed. The Harris County Clerk’s main office is at 201 Caroline St., Downtown Houston. Online filing is also available through the County Clerk’s official portal. If your LLC’s principal place of business is in The Woodlands, file the county-level assumed name certificate with the Montgomery County Clerk instead. Sugar Land means the Fort Bend County Clerk. Harris County’s filing covers Harris County only.
A concrete example clarifies when this applies. A Montrose-based creative agency that incorporates as Salado Design Services LLC but operates under the client-facing brand Studio Salado needs both assumed name filings. A Midtown restaurant concept that forms Oaxaca Restaurant Group LLC but operates under the name La Morada Cocina needs both filings. Skipping either one doesn’t void the business, but it leaves the trade name legally unsecured and can create real complications with banking and contracts — the kind you don’t want to untangle after the fact.
A DBA is a name registration only — a public notice that your LLC operates under a particular trade name. It creates no new legal entity, no second LLC, no new liability shield, and no separate tax identity.
Step 7: Opening a Business Bank Account in Houston
With your stamped Certificate of Formation, your EIN, and the steps above completed, you’re ready to open a business bank account. Here’s the document checklist Houston banks typically require:
- Stamped Certificate of Formation from the Texas Secretary of State (the filed document with the SOS filing mark, not a printout of a draft)
- EIN (your IRS confirmation letter or the printed EIN confirmation page)
- LLC Operating Agreement (a written document establishing ownership, member rights, and operating rules)
- Government-issued ID for all account signatories
- Business address matching your formation documents (a P.O. box won’t satisfy bank address verification)
The Operating Agreement deserves specific attention. Texas law doesn’t require an LLC to have a written Operating Agreement. Banks almost universally do. This is the most common point of failure for DIY filers who completed every SOS step correctly and then showed up to a bank without this document — it’s a frustrating way to waste an afternoon. Use a Texas-specific template that reflects your actual ownership structure.
For relationship-oriented small business accounts, Houston has strong local and regional options. Frost Bank has multiple Houston-area branches and has historically served small and mid-size Texas businesses well, with dedicated business banking staff who tend to know what they’re doing. Amegy Bank is headquartered in Houston and has a strong small business orientation across its Houston-area branch network. Cadence Bank (formerly BancorpSouth) has Houston branches and competes actively for small business relationships.
The national banks — Chase, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America — have extensive branch coverage across the Houston metro, from Katy to Pearland to The Woodlands. They’re accessible options for most operators, though LLC account opening may require an in-person branch visit rather than being completable online. For more flexible minimum opening deposits, the credit union options in Houston include Houston Federal Credit Union and TDECU, both of which serve small business members and may offer lower barriers to entry than traditional commercial banks.
Minimum opening deposits vary by institution and change over time. Call or check online before you make the trip, and confirm whether the branch you’re visiting actually handles business account openings or whether you need to schedule an appointment with a business banking specialist. Showing up at a retail branch without an appointment and expecting to open a business account can eat up a lot of time you didn’t plan to spend there.
Step 8: Timeline, Local Resources, and What Comes Next
For a Houston LLC formed entirely without an attorney or paid service, here’s a realistic end-to-end timeline if you move promptly: name check on day one through SOSDirect name search (same day), SOS filing and approval within approximately 2–3 business days after that, EIN application and same-day issuance immediately after receiving SOS confirmation, Operating Agreement draft using a Texas-specific template within one to two days if you’re thorough, and business bank account opening scheduled and completed on day 7 or 8 with the full document package in hand.
From intent to operational business bank account is approximately one week, assuming no name conflicts and no document gaps. That’s genuinely fast for something with this much legal weight behind it.
The Houston SBA District Office at 8701 S. Gessner Rd. offers free business counseling for new and growing businesses. For ongoing mentoring, SCORE Houston pairs new business owners with experienced volunteer mentors. The relationship can be valuable well beyond the LLC formation phase — worth pursuing even after you’re up and running.
If you’re forming an LLC in October, November, or December and want a clean January 1 tax-year start, file in Q4 and note the formation date on your franchise tax and federal tax tracking. Many Houston operators time their LLC formation to align with the calendar year for accounting simplicity, and it’s a reasonable instinct.
The two ongoing obligations new LLC owners most often let slide matter more than most first-timers realize — until something goes wrong. The annual franchise tax No-Tax-Due Report is due May 15 every year. Missing it starts a delinquency clock that can result in state forfeiture of your LLC. The state treats your entity as if it no longer exists, which creates real problems for contracts, banking, and liability. Also, keep your registered agent address current with the SOS. If you move, change offices, or switch from self-representation to a commercial registered agent, update it through SOSDirect. If official legal notices — including a lawsuit — are sent to an outdated registered agent address and you miss them, you may not learn about it until a default judgment has been entered against your LLC. That’s not a hypothetical. It happens.
Neither of these is a heavy lift. Both matter more than most first-time LLC owners realize until something goes wrong.
CityDesk Houston covers local business, development, and economic news for Houston residents. For questions about your specific situation, the Texas Secretary of State’s office can be reached at 512-463-5555.
