Moving Your Business to Texas

Welcome to Texas!

Sole proprietorships and partnerships can move easily. Usually all that is required is to file an assumed name certificate or d/b/a (“doing business as”) in Texas.

Moving an entity, such as a corporation or a limited liability company, is more involved.  There are several options to consider:

1. Register as Foreign Entity. You may decide to continue operations in your existing state and simply register as a foreign entity in Texas.

2. Form a New Entity in Texas. Another option is to terminate your business in your existing state and form a new business in Texas.

3. Conversion.  For continuity reasons, many business owners prefer to convert their existing businesses to Texas businesses. Not all jurisdictions permit conversions. For a cross-jurisdiction conversion to be effective both jurisdictions must permit the transaction and you must comply with the conversion laws in both states. The process is a little tricky and involves coordinating various filings in the existing state and in Texas. Your company will need to adopt a Plan of Conversion, which authorizes moving the business from the current state to Texas, and make several filings, both in your existing state and in Texas.

4. Form a New Entity.  If your current state does not allow for a conversion, another option is to establish a new entity in Texas and merge your existing company into the new entity.

5. Conversion of Foreign Entity. If your business is currently registered as a foreign entity in Texas, you may decide to convert to a Texas entity.   Once the conversion is complete, the foreign entity registration in Texas is automatically withdrawn.

Which option you choose depends on the up-front and on-going costs as well as the legal hassles involved.

Don’t forget!

• Alert clients and suppliers of the move.
• Update your address with all marketing materials including website, business cards, Facebook account and Twitter account.
• Update your online address with various search resources such as Google Places, Yelp, Chamber of Commerce, Bing Places, Yahoo Local and Angie’s List.
• Update your name, address, phone and other pertinent information with the licensing and taxing entities.
• Update any local paid search campaigns to cover the new area you are moving to.
• Tell referral sources that you’ve moved.

For more information, please contact Kathy Tremmel at Tremmel Law, PLLC at (512) 539-0317 or kathy@tremmellaw.com.

Copyright 2016 Tremmel Law, PLLC.  All rights reserved.