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

Michigan breaks the pattern most founders expect: an LLC is not filed with a Secretary of State at all. Formation runs through the Corporations Division of LARA, the same department that licenses the salon, on Form 700 for $50, and the state's one recurring demand is a $25 annual statement every February 15. This page works through the filing itself, the resident agent Michigan requires, the two different assumed name routes the state splits by entity type, and the Treasury and unemployment accounts that follow the filing.

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

LLC, sole proprietorship, or corporation for a Michigan salon

A sole proprietorship needs no state filing to exist, and that is its whole advantage: the owner is the business, liable for its debts and its accidents, trading under a county assumed name certificate if the salon's name differs from her own. A corporation is the heavyweight option, taxed at the entity level under Michigan's corporate income tax and run on a separate report cycle. The LLC sits between them and fits most salons: a $50 filing creates a separate legal person that holds the lease, the equipment loans, and the business's debts, while the owners are taxed as pass-throughs unless they elect otherwise.

Know what the shield does not cover, because salon work tests exactly those edges. The LLC does not protect an owner from her own hands: a stylist who burns a client is personally answerable for her own negligence whatever the entity says. It does not erase personal guarantees, which landlords and lenders will still ask for. And it does not hold the licenses. Your cosmetologist license is personal, the establishment license belongs to the premises, and that license is void if the business is sold, whoever owns the entity. The LLC organizes the money side of the salon; the licensing side stays with people and premises, as our Michigan hair salon guide lays out.

Michigan also maintains a professional LLC, formed on Form 701 for the same $50, for services organized under the professional part of the Limited Liability Company Act. Its annual filing is heavier, a combined statement and report at $75 with a real late penalty, described in the calendar section below. A hair salon is ordinarily organized as a standard LLC on Form 700; the professional form exists for the licensed professions that part of the Act names.

Filing the Articles of Organization: Form 700

The filing itself is a single page, Form 700 (current form number CSCL/CD-700). Four decisions go on it, and two of them, the name and the resident agent, are where Michigan filings stall.

1. Choose the name. It must contain "Limited Liability Company," "Limited Company," or an abbreviation the Act allows: LLC, L.L.C., LC, or L.C. It must be distinguishable from every entity already on LARA's records, and it cannot borrow corporate clothing: no "Corporation," "Incorporated," "Corp.," or "Inc." Check availability in the business entity search inside the MiBusiness Registry Portal before falling in love with a sign.
2. Name the resident agent and registered office. Michigan calls the registered agent a resident agent. The agent is an individual who resides in Michigan, or a Michigan corporation or LLC, or a foreign corporation or LLC authorized to transact business in Michigan, in each case with an office at the registered office street address. A post office box can be an added mailing address, never the office itself. The LLC must keep a resident agent and registered office in Michigan for as long as it exists.
3. File with the Corporations Division. File online through the MiBusiness Registry Portal, which replaced the old Corporations Online Filing System, or file by mail or in person. The fee is $50 either way, and the LLC exists when LARA files the Articles.
4. Keep the filed Articles with the salon's records. The bank, the landlord, and the Treasury registration all ask for them, and the operating agreement you adopt at the same time is where ownership actually lives, because the routine public filings never list members or managers.

One habit saves grief later: the annual statement exists to refresh the resident agent and the registered office, so treat any agent or address change as a calendar item for that filing, and keep the address the state holds identical to the address on the salon's bank and tax accounts. Mismatched addresses across LARA, Treasury, and the bank are the most common self-inflicted wound in a young Michigan LLC.

The assumed name certificate: county clerk or LARA

If the salon trades under any name different from the legal name of its owner or entity, Michigan calls that an assumed name, and where the certificate is filed depends entirely on the structure. It is a Michigan quirk that sends half of all new owners to the wrong counter.

A sole proprietor or general partnership files with the county clerk of each county where business is conducted or a location is maintained, under Act 101 of 1907. The fee is $6, the certificate runs 5 years, a renewal filed before expiration costs $4 and extends the name another 5 years, and letting it lapse is treated as abandonment of the name.

An LLC does not file at the county at all. It files its certificate of assumed name with LARA for $25; the certificate expires December 31 of the fifth full calendar year after the filing year, and renews for $25, filed within 90 days before expiration. A corporation pays $10 on the same LARA term. So the same salon name is a $6 county filing for the stylist renting a chair as a sole proprietor down the street, and a $25 state filing for the LLC that owns the building she rents in.

An assumed name certificate is not a license and does not create the entity. It is public notice of the trade name, and it is the document the bank asks for when the account, the lease, and the signage carry the salon's trading name instead of the LLC's legal name. Keep the three consistent on paper: the entity's legal name, its assumed name, and the name the business presents to LARA, Treasury, and the bank.

Your EIN from the IRS

The Employer Identification Number is the salon's federal tax identity, and it is free from the IRS. Apply on the IRS website directly; any service charging a fee to obtain one is selling a form the government gives away. A salon needs an EIN to hire employees, and most banks require one to open the business account even for a single member LLC. Get it after the Articles are filed, in the LLC's exact legal name, because the Treasury and unemployment registrations that follow key the business's state accounts to the same identity.

Michigan tax accounts: Treasury registration, sales tax, and employer accounts

One registration opens the state tax accounts. Form 518 registers the business for sales tax, withholding, corporate income tax, and unemployment tax; Michigan Treasury Online handles the same registration electronically. File it before the first retail sale and before the first hire, because two of its outputs, the sales tax license and the unemployment account number, gate ordinary operations.

The sales tax license runs January through December and renews annually. Michigan's rate is 6 percent, charged on retail sales only: the service charge for a cut or color sits outside the tax, and the products a client takes home are the taxable sale. No city, county, or local sales tax layers on top, one of the simpler features of doing business in Michigan. Employer withholding on wages runs at 4.25 percent.

The unemployment side belongs to the Unemployment Insurance Agency, which issues the employer account number, in as little as three days when registration is filed online. A new non-construction employer starts at 2.7 percent of wages plus a fraction of the chargeable benefits component that phases in over its first years. Accounts now live in the MiUI system; MiWAM, the older portal, was permanently retired on November 2, 2026. Our Michigan hair salon guide walks the full hiring stack, including the wage base and the quarterly reports. Once the accounts exist, the remaining money decision is coverage; our Michigan salon insurance guide covers what the state requires and what it does not.

The business bank account, and keeping the separation real

Open the business account in the LLC's legal name, with the filed Articles and the EIN. If the account will carry the salon's trade name, bring the assumed name certificate, and for an LLC that means the $25 LARA filing, not the county certificate: the wrong paper is the most common reason a Michigan salon's account opening stalls at the desk.

The liability shield the LLC promises is only as strong as the separation the owner can prove. Salon income lands in the business account, business expenses leave from it, and the owner's draw is a visible transfer, not a handful of cash from the register. The day an owner pays a personal bill from the salon account, she starts unwinding the protection she paid $50 to create. Clean separation is also loan preparation: the statements a lender asks for, covered in our Michigan business loans guide, are read straight off this account.

Your Michigan LLC annual duties calendar

Michigan's recurring list for an LLC is short, and one date dominates it.

What Michigan does not require is its own list, because founders import duties from other states that do not exist here. There is no annual report beyond the statement: the statement is the whole recurring entity filing. There is no publication requirement for a new LLC. And there is no late fee for a standard LLC that files its statement late, a point worth stating plainly because fee tables across the internet get it wrong: the $50 late penalty belongs to professional LLCs, under section 450.4909 of the Act. An LLC formed after September 30 also skips the immediately following February 15, the one break in the cycle.

The standard LLC's real deadline risk is slower and heavier. Miss the statement for 2 consecutive years and, after the administrator's notice and a 60 day window to cure, the LLC is not in good standing under section 450.4207a: no certificate of good standing will issue, the name becomes available to another filer, and LARA accepts no filings from it except a certificate of restoration of good standing, $50, filed together with the missing statements. The LLC is not dissolved, and it may keep transacting business, but a salon that cannot produce a certificate of good standing will feel it with landlords, lenders, and payment processors. File the $25 statement.

This page is general information researched from official Michigan and federal sources, not legal, tax, or insurance advice. Requirements, fees and forms change; verify the current rules with the agency or regulator linked above before you file, sign or spend.

Frequently asked questions

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

The Articles of Organization, Form 700, cost $50, filed with the Corporations Division of LARA. Add the first $25 annual statement and Michigan's own first year cost is $75, before licenses, local fees, or any optional help.

Does a Michigan LLC file an annual report?

It files an annual statement of resident agent and registered office, due February 15 every year at a fee of $25, filed online through the MiBusiness Registry Portal. An LLC formed after September 30 skips the immediately following February 15. There is no separate annual report.

Is there a late fee if a Michigan LLC files its annual statement late?

Not for a standard LLC: section 450.4207 sets no late fee, and a late statement owes the same $25. The $50 late penalty in many fee tables applies only to professional LLCs under section 450.4909. The standard LLC's risk is standing: two consecutive missed years, a notice, and a 60 day cure window end in not in good standing status until the LLC restores it for $50 plus the missing statements.

Where do I file a DBA for a Michigan salon?

Michigan calls it an assumed name, and the office depends on the structure. Sole proprietors and general partnerships file with the county clerk, $6 for a 5 year term. An LLC files with LARA for $25, and its certificate expires December 31 of the fifth full calendar year after the filing year.

Who can be the resident agent for a Michigan LLC?

An individual who resides in Michigan, a Michigan corporation or LLC, or a foreign corporation or LLC authorized to transact business in Michigan, in each case with an office at the registered office street address. The LLC must keep a resident agent and a registered office in Michigan continuously.