How to File Articles of Organization for LLC in Georgia: Guide

Whatever entrepreneurial idea you have on your mind, a limited liability company will make an apt legal foundation for it. Whether you start a small private firm or launch an enterprise with a solid potential for future growth, an LLC will match all your business endeavors and ambitions.

Keeping your personal funds and property away from business liabilities and ensuring flexible tax opportunities, an LLC is by far the most popular legal structure today among startuppers and experienced entrepreneurs alike.

One more LLC benefit is a quite easy formation. To create an LLC in Georgia, you just need to register the Articles of Organization with the statutory regulator. That sounds like nothing special, right? However, there are certain requirements to observe. Besides, LLC rules are state-specific, so you’d better accurately check the filing procedure valid in your prospective formation state.

In an overview below, we’ll provide detailed info on what is an LLC formation document and how to file Articles of Organization in Georgia. With this article at hand, you’ll be able to register the Articles of Organization with the Georgia Secretary of State on your own without a hassle.

What Are the Articles of Organization?

Before we delve into the filing process and preparation of your Articles of Organization in Georgia, let’s figure out what this document is for you to get a better understanding of how it works and why you need it.

The document is also called a Certificate of Formation or Certificate of Organization. Proving the act of your LLC formation, it functions as a “certificate of birth” for your company and becomes valid once it is approved by the state office. Enlisting basic LLC information, this formation document is required by the state regulator to enter your enterprise data into public registries. As such, the Articles of Organization will verify your company's existence to your customers, suppliers, vendors, sponsors, and investors.

Apart from bringing an enterprise to life, this formation document also formalizes the ownership relations between LLC members as well as ensures an LLC's status as that of an independent entity legally separate from its owners, with its own powers and commitments. This very status enables the so-called corporate veil protection shielding the owners’ personal assets from being used against company debts and other liabilities.

Besides, the Articles of Organization stipulate the purpose of your LLC, thus, outlining a common direction for your future entrepreneurial activities and operations.

Filing the Articles of Organization for an LLC in Georgia: Step-by-Step Guidelines

At a glance, the filing process is not complicated and it’s pretty much the same across the US. You just need to submit your formation document to the Secretary of State and get it approved.

However, filing rules and the document content might slightly vary by state. To save you the effort of monitoring the filing rules valid in Georgia, we’ve already made all the legwork for you and created detailed instructions that will take you through the procedure of registering the Articles of Organization for your Georgia LLC.

1. Get Your Articles of Organization Forms

An essential aspect of an LLC, the Articles of Organization is a generic document standard by form. There are numerous templates available online that you can download and simply enter your future firm data. You can also find ready-made Georgia Articles of Organization examples to consider and check for any nuances. 

However, the best and safest way is to use a free document form you can find on the official website of the regulatory office in your jurisdiction. As a result, you’ll get an appropriate paper perfectly matching the rules of your formation state and avoid any errors that might cause your application to be rejected by the state.

The Articles of Organization template for your Georgia LLC is available on the Georgia regulator’s website. You can upload the document here along with accurate explanations and instructions from the regulator.
If you plan to file your foundation instruments with the state of Georgia in a paper form, you will also need a Transmittal Information Form to include in your application.

2. Complete Your Georgia Formation Documents

As you download the document templates, you’ll have to fill them out with your future LLC data. So make sure you’ve duly prepared and have all the necessary info at hand.

To make the Georgia Certificate of Organization form complete, the following data are needed:

• Your LLC name: A name under which your company will be registered with the state will further appear in public records, state registries, and databases as well as in all your official documents. Hence, you should take it seriously when naming your businesses. More than that, there are certain state naming requirements your LLC moniker should comply with to be accepted by the state office. Your company name should be different from any existing business name in the state. The length of your moniker is limited by 80 characters. And should you want to use any words related to the insurance, financial, or educational sphere such as “indemnity”, “bank”, or “college”, you should get permission for that from corresponding regulatory authorities in Georgia;
• Your LLC address: A rule of thumb here is that you cannot use the P.O. box address for the company registration. Only a physical Georgia address with a street number is allowed. You can use your home, office, or representative agent’s address for that purpose or pick a virtual office with a valid postal address;
• Your Georgia registered agent info: Being a law requirement, a registered agent is a must for an LLC. The function of this role is to receive and send your service of process, thus, ensuring you won’t miss any important letters or crucial deadlines and duly catch up with your filing schedule. As such, an agent is a vital element that will help your entity stay in good standing with the state. In the meantime, the rules for a Georgia mail handling rep are not strict. Any adult person or a legal entity with a Georgia registered address (not a P.O. box again) could perform this function. You can even serve as your own agent. An optimal choice, though, is to hire a dedicated service that will handle this job professionally;
• Your LLC organizer’s data: An LLC organizer is a person who files your formation documents with the state. You can do it by yourself or delegate the task to another LLC member, your attorney, accountant, or a registered agent. Though it’s not a necessity, you can also enter the names of your company managers and directors as well as specify if your LLC is a manager-managed or a member-managed entity;
• Your enterprise purpose: Unless you form a Professional LLC in Georgia, you can state in brief that your activity won’t violate the law and will fully comply with the state regulations. In fact, an LLC is allowed for any type of activity, hence the popularity of this legal structure. Professional LLCs require describing the purpose more accurately and in more detail;
• Other info: Optionally, you can mention the duration period for your Georgia LLC. By default, LLCs are perpetual, yet, you can define the dissolution date if you plan to transact business for a certain period of time only for some reason.

3. File Your Organizational Documents

To officially register your LLC, you should send your organizational instruments to the Secretary of State. In Georgia, you can file the Articles of Organization either online or by mail.

Online filings are more convenient and faster. You can complete the process from wherever you are, and normally, it takes the state office from 5 to 7 days to review and approve online applications.

If you choose to file by mail, you’ll have to post hard copies of your Articles of Organization along with a Transmittal Information form to the following address:

Corporations Division 2
Martin Luther King Jr. Dr.
SE, Suite 313 West Tower
Atlanta, GA 30334

And get ready to wait for up to 15 business days until your documents will be processed by the state.

Notably, state filings are not free of charge. Each state has a specific registration rate you’ll have to pay the Secretary of State to consider your docs and enter your company info in the state business database.

The LLC registration fee in Georgia is $100. When applying online, you’ll be offered to make the payment during checkout. When mailing hard copies, you’ll have to attach the payment confirmation to your document pack. Besides, the fee for mailed applications is $110 since it covers a $10 service charge.

Want to know the requirements for articles of organization in other states? Select state:

How to Submit the LLC Articles of Organization in Georgia Online

Online filing is fairly simple and will hardly take you more than a few minutes to complete given that you’ve already prepared all the required info.

To create an online application, you should first create your personal online account on the Georgia Secretary of State’s website, log in, and complete the following steps:

1. Select the “Business” section and choose “Create a Domestic Entity” from the list of options. Choose “Domestic LLC” for the business type; 
2. Follow the instructions that will help you fill in the online form of the Articles of Organization in Georgia;
3. Pick the state processing time when you’ll be asked if you want to expedite the whole procedure. Regular filing time included in a $100 fee is 7 business days. To speed up the process to two days will cost $100 more and the price of the same-day filing is $150 subject to submitting documents before midday;
4. Pay for the filing by entering your credit card data for an online transaction.

When your documents are approved by the state, you’ll get a payment verification, a copy of the Articles of Organization in Georgia signed and sealed by the regulator, and a Certificate of Organization you might need further on (for opening a business checking account, for example). All docs will be sent to you via email.

Secretary of State Contacts

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