Forming an LLC for Your Georgia Hair Salon: The Complete Filing Guide

The Georgia hair salon guide gives the short version: Articles of Organization for $110, an annual registration of $60 due between January 1 and April 1, and a trade name filed at the county courthouse if the salon operates under a different name. This page is the long version: how the entity choice works in Georgia, the annual registration trap that dissolves LLCs quietly, reinstatement at $260, why Georgia trade names live at the Clerk of Superior Court instead of the Secretary of State, and the calendar that keeps a Georgia salon current with three levels of government at once.

Georgia sources last reviewed: November 5, 2026

Researched from Georgia state sources. Our guides are free. We may earn a commission when you use a partner service, at no additional cost to you.

Choosing the entity in Georgia

A sole proprietor in Georgia skips the Corporations Division entirely. No formation filing exists, the owner and the business are the same legal person, and every debt, lease obligation, and injury claim the salon generates lands on the owner personally. That is survivable for a solo stylist renting a chair, and dangerous for anyone signing a multi year lease, financing a buildout, or employing a team.

The LLC is the middle path most Georgia salons take, and Georgia prices it simply. The Articles of Organization cost $110 in total, and the only recurring state filing is the $60 annual registration. In exchange, the salon becomes a legal person separate from its owner: the entity signs the lease, holds the Salon/Shop license, owns the equipment, and employs the staff. The shield has limits worth understanding. It does not protect a stylist from claims arising from her own work behind the chair, and it erodes when owners run personal money through the business account, which the bank section covers.

A corporation costs the same at the door in Georgia: Articles of Incorporation also total $110, and the annual registration is also $60. The differences are machinery: a Georgia corporation files an initial annual registration within 90 days of incorporation listing its principal officers, holds formal meetings and records, and issues stock, and its tax treatment is a separate election. Stylist owned corporations exist, usually for tax reasons an accountant chose on purpose, but for a salon deciding fresh, the LLC delivers the same separation with less upkeep, and the annual registration is the same $60 either way.

Forming the LLC, step by step

Georgia formation runs through the Secretary of State's Corporations Division, and the steps below follow its published fee schedule, effective September 6, 2025.

1. Choose and clear the legal name. The entity's legal name is what goes on the Articles, the lease, and the bank account. If you want to be sure a name is held while you prepare, the Division offers a 30 day name reservation for $25 plus a $10 service charge, $35 in total. The public facing salon name, if it differs, is a separate county filing covered in the trade name section.
2. File the Articles of Organization. The fee is $100 plus a $10 service charge, $110 total, identical online and on paper per the Division's fee schedule. The Articles name the LLC, give its address, and name a registered agent with a Georgia street address who accepts legal papers on the entity's behalf. Keep the confirmation the Division issues; the bank, the landlord, and the board's licensing process all ask for formation proof, and lenders later ask for a Certificate of Existence, which the Division issues for $10 plus the $10 service charge.
3. Adopt an operating agreement. Georgia does not collect this document, and single member salons often skip it, which is a mistake the first time a partner, a spouse, or a buyout enters the picture. Write down who owns what, who can sign leases and loans, and what happens when a member leaves, while everyone still agrees.
4. Calendar the annual registration before you open. Every Georgia LLC files an annual registration with the Corporations Division between January 1 and April 1 each year, beginning the year after formation. The fee is $50 plus the $10 service charge, $60 total. After April 1, a $25 late penalty attaches. An LLC that lets the registration lapse entirely can be administratively dissolved by the Secretary of State: the Division gives written notice, allows sixty days to correct the grounds, and then issues a certificate of administrative dissolution. Dissolution does not close the salon's doors by itself, but it strips the entity's good standing precisely when a bank, landlord, or buyer goes looking for it.
5. If the LLC is already dissolved, reinstate it. Georgia allows an administratively dissolved domestic LLC to apply for reinstatement within five years after the date of administrative dissolution. The application fee is $250 plus the $10 service charge, $260 total on the current fee schedule, and reinstatement requires bringing the delinquent annual registrations and their late penalties current. Five years sounds generous; in practice the cost is the discovery, which usually happens mid loan or mid lease renewal, at the worst possible moment.

Trade names: filed at the county courthouse

Georgia is a county state for trade names, and owners arriving from states that file assumed names centrally get this wrong. A trade name, the name the public knows the salon by when it differs from the legal entity name, is registered under O.C.G.A. Section 10-1-490 with the Clerk of Superior Court in the county where the business is chiefly carried on. The Secretary of State has nothing to do with it. An LLC called Peach State Beauty Group LLC that trades as a salon under a shorter, friendlier name files that name at the courthouse in the county where the salon sits.

The statute has teeth and timing. Registration comes before doing business under the name, not after the sign is printed. The registrant files a statement verified by affidavit, and notice of the filing is published once a week for two weeks in the newspaper in which the sheriff's advertisements are printed in that county. Georgia is one of the states where forming the business involves a newspaper, and it is the trade name, not the LLC, that triggers it. The fee is the clerk's fee under O.C.G.A. Section 15-6-77, set county by county rather than in one statewide schedule, so a filing in Fulton or DeKalb costs what that clerk charges, and the parent guide's published example from Wayne County is $163. Call the clerk's office for the current figure before you go.

Two properties of the Georgia trade name are worth keeping straight. It creates nothing: no entity, no liability shield, and no trademark rights, only the public record connecting the salon's trading name to its owner. And it is durable: a new or amended statement is required only when ownership changes, not on an annual cycle. The bank will ask for the filed trade name statement when the account is opened under the salon's public name, and the name across the trade name filing, the Salon/Shop license, and the lease should match word for word. Metro Atlanta salons sitting near county lines should file in the county where the business is chiefly carried on, which is where the chairs are, not where the owner lives.

The federal EIN

With the Articles filed, get the Employer Identification Number from the IRS. It is free, and the parent guide's advice stands: apply in the LLC's exact legal name so the EIN record, the Corporations Division record, and the bank's file all read identically. The EIN is what the salon's tax accounts, payroll, and business bank account run on, and taking it out before opening accounts or hiring avoids the tangle of a business launched under the owner's Social Security number and migrated later.

Georgia tax and employer accounts

Georgia LLCs pay no franchise tax and no separate entity level tax, a genuine difference from states that charge LLCs an annual tax for existing. The entity's recurring state duty is the $60 annual registration above. Everything else the state asks for runs through revenue and labor accounts, opened once and used for the life of the salon.

Register with the Department of Revenue through the Georgia Tax Center before the first retail sale. Styling services are not taxed in Georgia, but retail products are, at the 4 percent state rate plus the county and city taxes where the salon sits, which combine to 8.9 percent inside Atlanta in Fulton County. The registration produces the Certificate of Registration as a dealer, and the same account handles employer withholding: register for a withholding number through the Georgia Tax Center and collect Form G-4 from each employee. Remember the mirror rule on the buying side: products the salon consumes itself, the back bar, are taxed to the salon as the end user.

The labor account sits with the Georgia Department of Labor. An employer becomes liable for unemployment insurance at $1,500 in wages in a calendar quarter, or with at least one employee in each of twenty different weeks in a year, which is to say almost immediately for a staffed salon. File the Employer Status Report, Form DOL-1N, to open the account. New employers pay 2.70 percent on the first $9,500 of each employee's wages per year, and quarterly reports on Form DOL-4N are due April 30, July 31, October 31, and January 31. New hires must be reported within ten days under O.C.G.A. Section 19-11-9.2. One wage note from the parent guide: Georgia's own minimum wage of $5.15 covers only employers of six or more and excludes employment covered by federal law, so the federal $7.25 floor governs nearly every Georgia beauty business.

Underneath the state layer sits the local one, unchanged by the LLC: the city or county occupational tax certificate that functions as the general business license, Atlanta's city business license for salons inside the city, and zoning and certificate of occupancy approval for the premises. The entity holds all of it in its own name, which is the point of forming before you sign.

The bank account and keeping money separate

Open the salon's business checking account in the LLC's name and EIN as soon as the Articles and EIN exist, and bring the formation confirmation plus the filed trade name statement if the account will carry the salon's public name. From that day, salon money moves only through salon accounts: chair revenue, booth rent from renters, retail sales, supply purchases, and payroll. The owner's draws come out as documented transfers, not as the owner paying personal bills from the till.

This separation is not bookkeeping fussiness. In Georgia, as anywhere, the fastest way to argue an LLC out of its own shield is to run it as the owner's wallet, and lenders read commingled statements as a risk signal during underwriting. Clean separation also makes the quarterly Form DOL-4N filings, the sales tax returns on retail, and the annual registration season simple, because every number the state asks for is sitting in one account's history. The Georgia business loans guide covers what lenders do with those statements when a salon applies.

The Georgia annual duties calendar

• January 1 to April 1, every year: file the LLC annual registration with the Corporations Division, $60 total. After April 1 the $25 late penalty attaches; continued failure leads toward administrative dissolution, and reinstatement costs $260 plus the back registrations.
• Quarterly, April 30, July 31, October 31, January 31: unemployment insurance reports on Form DOL-4N to the Department of Labor, with the sales tax and withholding filings the Department of Revenue schedules for the salon's accounts running alongside.
• Within ten days of each hire: report the new employee under Georgia's new hire reporting law, and open withholding for them from the first paycheck, not the first quarterly filing.
• Staggered by license type: practitioner and Salon/Shop renewals fall due on different cycles, master cosmetologists by March 31 of even years, hair designers by September 30 of even years, and the Salon/Shop license by June 30 of odd years at $75. The entity does not hold these, but the salon cannot operate without them current.
• Annually, on the local schedule: renew the city or county occupational tax certificate, and for Atlanta salons the city business license, on the locality's own calendar.
• Not on your calendar: no biennial report, no franchise tax return, and no annual trade name renewal. Georgia's trade name is refiled only when ownership changes. The duties Georgia skips are as worth knowing as the ones it imposes, because owners import checklists from other states and chase filings that do not exist here.

Insurance renewals belong on the same calendar, including the workers compensation policy Georgia requires once the salon regularly employs three people. The Georgia salon insurance guide covers that three employee threshold and the Form WC-10 waivers available to owners.

Questions Georgia salon owners ask

How much does it cost to form an LLC in Georgia?

$110 in total: a $100 filing fee for the Articles of Organization plus a $10 service charge, the same whether you file online through the Corporations Division or on paper. The state charges no extra state-level fee to begin operating, but budget for the $60 annual registration that starts coming due the following January.

What happens if I miss the Georgia LLC annual registration?

A $25 late penalty applies after the April 1 deadline, and an LLC that keeps missing registrations can be administratively dissolved by the Secretary of State. A dissolved domestic LLC can apply for reinstatement within five years of the dissolution date; the application costs $260, and the delinquent annual registrations and late penalties have to be brought current.

Where do I register a salon trade name in Georgia?

With the Clerk of Superior Court in the county where the business is chiefly carried on, not with the Secretary of State. Georgia law requires the registration before you do business under the name, a verified statement filed by affidavit, and publication once a week for two weeks in the newspaper where the sheriff's advertisements are printed. The fee is the clerk's fee and varies by county.

Does a Georgia LLC pay a franchise tax or an annual entity tax?

No. Georgia imposes no franchise tax and no separate annual entity tax on LLCs. The recurring state filing for the entity itself is the $60 annual registration with the Corporations Division. Everything else is account based: sales tax on retail products, employer withholding, and unemployment insurance through the Department of Labor.

Do I need an EIN for a single member Georgia salon LLC?

In practice, yes. The business bank account, the first hire, and most landlord and lender paperwork all ask for the LLC's own EIN, and it is free from the IRS. Forming the LLC first and then taking out the EIN in the LLC's exact legal name keeps the bank, the board, and the tax accounts consistent.

Start a Beauty Business publishes licensing and startup guides researched from official state sources. This is general information, not legal, tax, or insurance advice. Verify fees and requirements with the Georgia Secretary of State Corporations Division, the Department of Revenue, and the Georgia Department of Labor before you act. We may earn a commission when you use a partner service, at no additional cost to you.