I have done business as a sole proprietorship and as an LLC, and I
registered them both myself (used a lawyer for the LLC).
In my experience, you should be able to register your business *name*
at the county courthouse, under a "D/B/A" ("doing business as").
Governments don't like multiple businesses using the same name, so
they set up a system of records of who is doing business with what
name, so there is no duplication or confusion. You have to go through
their records to make sure that the name is not already in use, and
you have to pay to register the name. It's not a license, but it *is*
a form of registration.
Of course, if you go the LLC route, that requires registration with
the state, and in my case (New Jersey) they gave us a cute
certificate. :-)
David Reaves
On Fri Jul 2, 2010 8:12 am ((PDT))"James Bucanek" [email protected]
JBucanek wrote:
> Scott Ribe <mailto:[email protected]> wrote (Thursday,
> July 1, 2010 4:30 PM -0600):
>
>> Or, could you get a business license anyway? In some jurisdictions
>> they are
>> remarkably cheap. (I once lived in a city where it went from $15/
>> year to
>> $6/year to free. Really, all the city was interested in was having
>> a list of
>> what kind of equipment & supplies & inventory was in which house,
>> to provide
>> to the fire department.)
>
> I looked into this some more, but it seems that the city of
> Phoenix follows the pattern established by the state: The city
> has no "generic" business license. Unless you are in a regulated
> industry, or are a retail business, there's no license to get.
