Doing Business in Another State

Doing Business in Another State › States › Texas

Doing business in Texas from another state

If your LLC does business in Texas as Texas defines it, you register with the Texas Secretary of State for $750.

Step 1: put these questions to Texas’s law

  1. An employee or contractor works from the state. Ask whether the statute counts work done by people located in the state, and whether employees and independent contractors are treated alike.
  2. You sell to customers there but have no one on the ground. Ask whether the statute treats sales from outside the state differently from activity inside it.
  3. The LLC owns or leases property there. Ask whether owning or leasing real estate is listed as an activity that does, or does not, count.
  4. You open an office, shop or warehouse. Ask whether a fixed place of business is named in the statute. Settle the answer before you sign a lease.
  5. You hold meetings or keep a bank account there. Ask whether the statute lists these ancillary activities, and whether they count by themselves.

The law, as listed in the state’s own sources: Business Organizations Code, Chapter 9.

Step 2: if the answer is yes

Form
Form 304, Application for Registration of a Foreign Limited Liability Company
Fee
$750
Paper from your home state
None for an LLC
Agent
A registered agent in Texas

Best 3 Foreign Registration Services in Texas (2026)

Step 3: if you would rather not file it yourself.

#ServiceService feeTexas feeAgent
1Mainstay Filing$199$750Year one included, then $149/yr
2TX Registered Agent.org$199$750Year one included, then $99/yr
3Texas Registered Agent.ai$199$750Year one included, then $99/yr

Mainstay Filing: Its Texas checkout showed $1,016.13 in total on October 28, 2026, including the state’s required $50 expedite and $17.13 in state processing charges.

Service prices read from each provider’s Texas page on October 28, 2026. The state fee is the official figure below and is paid to the Texas Secretary of State.

Texas questions

When does an LLC from another state have to register in Texas?

When its activity in Texas meets Texas’s own definition of doing business. We do not paraphrase it; read it in the law linked below.

What does registering in Texas cost?

$750 to the Texas Secretary of State.

What is required after registering?

Public Information Report (Texas Comptroller), no fee (due: may 15), and a registered agent in Texas.

Sources