Make It Official in One Week

What you will learn: the five steps from an informal hustle to a registered business, which are free, which cost a little, and where the money is to pay for it.

This is for the person who has been doing the work for two years already. You are not starting a business. You are registering one that exists.

An Employer Identification Number is a tax ID for a business. Get it directly from the IRS website. It is free and issued immediately.

Do not pay anybody for this. Multiple services charge a fee for a form the IRS provides at no cost, and they rank well in search results.

Why it matters: with an EIN you stop putting your Social Security number on invoices, supplier forms and client paperwork, which is both safer and more professional.

If you trade under anything other than your own legal name, you generally need a fictitious business name registration, commonly called a DBA, filed with the county. There is a modest fee and, in many places, a requirement to publish it in a local newspaper.

Search the name first, at county and state level, and check whether the domain and the social handles are free. Changing a name after signage and packaging is expensive.

A city business licence is required in most places, including for home-based businesses. Fees are usually modest and often scale with revenue.

While you are there, ask about zoning for a home business, any health permit if food is involved, and a seller's permit if you sell goods, which also lets you buy wholesale without paying sales tax twice.

This is the step that changes everything and the one people skip longest.

A separate business account means your personal money and business money stop mixing, which matters legally if you later form an LLC, makes taxes a matter of printing a statement rather than reconstructing a year, and makes you look like a business to anybody who needs to trust you. A credit union is usually the cheapest door, and you will need the EIN and DBA to open it.

General liability is inexpensive and is frequently required before anybody will let you work an event, rent a space or contract with a larger company. Not having it is what disqualifies small operators from the jobs that would have grown them.

An LLC is the common next step and it is not always the first one. It provides liability separation and costs an annual state fee. If you have employees, physical premises or real contract risk, talk to somebody about it. If you are one person selling at a market, get the four steps above done first.

“You do not need a logo. You need an EIN, a licence and a bank account, and you can have all three inside a week.”

This is the part people miss. Los Angeles County's Formalization Grants exist specifically for people running informally who want to make it official: permits, licences, registration, a real bank account. They are grants, not loans. The full route, with phone numbers, is here, and the Compton microgrant is a second, separate pot.

Then make yourself findable, because a registered business nobody can locate is still invisible. The directory is free.