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

The New Mexico hair salon guide gives the short version: Articles of Organization cost $50, filed online, and no annual report ever comes due. This page is the long version: how the entity choice works in New Mexico terms, the registered agent rule that can quietly revoke your company, what dissolution and reinstatement actually look like in the statute, why there is no DBA to file anywhere in the state, and the tax accounts and calendar a New Mexico salon LLC really lives on.

Researched from New Mexico 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 proprietor, or corporation in New Mexico terms

A sole proprietorship is the default. Do nothing and you are one: no state filing, no formation fee, and no legal distance between you and the business, which means a salon debt or a judgment is your personal debt or judgment. New Mexico gives the sole proprietor no DBA registry either, so even the name formality other states offer does not exist here. A corporation is the opposite pole: it files articles with the Secretary of State and then owes the state a recurring report, because the biennial report in Section 53-5-2 of the Business Corporation Act belongs to corporations. Owners who go looking for their LLC's report deadline are usually remembering that corporate rule. It does not apply to you.

The LLC sits between the two, and in New Mexico it is unusually light. Formation is a single $50 online filing, and after that the Secretary of State asks the entity for nothing on a schedule: no annual report, no biennial report, no franchise style fee to stay alive. What the state does require is continuous rather than periodic, a registered agent and office that never lapse, covered below. The Board of Barbers and Cosmetologists is indifferent to the choice in one specific way: it licenses people, and it licenses the establishment in whatever form the business takes, with the establishment application built around your municipal business license rather than your entity type. Form the entity for liability and tax reasons, not because the board demands one.

Forming the LLC, step by step

Start with the name and the agent, because the Articles of Organization carry both. The name has to satisfy Section 53-19-3 of the Limited Liability Company Act, which means it must contain "Limited Liability Company" or an accepted abbreviation such as LLC, and it must be distinguishable from the names already on the Secretary of State's records. The agent is set by Section 53-19-5: every New Mexico LLC must continuously keep a registered agent and a registered office in the state, the agent being an individual resident, a domestic entity, or a foreign entity authorized here whose business office is the registered office. You can serve as your own agent if you meet those terms, and many solo salon owners do; whoever serves has to actually be reachable at that address, because the agent is where legal papers land.

The filing itself is the Articles of Organization, and since December 9, 2024 it is an online act: the Secretary of State takes LLC filings through its SOS Enterprise portal and no longer accepts paper filings for them. The fee is set in Section 53-19-63 at $50 for a domestic LLC's articles, $100 if the company was formed in another state and is registering here as a foreign LLC. The articles state whether the company is managed by its members or by managers, which for a salon is a real decision: member managed fits a working owner, manager managed fits an owner who hires someone else to run the room. When the filing is accepted, the LLC exists. There is no publication requirement to complete, no initial report to file, and no second state step waiting behind it.

The DBA question: there is no filing

Owners moving to New Mexico from other states ask where the DBA form is, and the honest answer is that there isn't one. No provision of the Limited Liability Company Act, and no Secretary of State procedure, provides a DBA, assumed name, or trade name registration for an LLC, or for any other New Mexico business. The Secretary of State's own business portal offers entity searches, UCC filings, and trademark services, and a name registration is not among them. What the Act offers instead is in the formation document itself: an LLC that wants to do business under a name other than its legal name puts that other name in its Articles of Organization, where the parent guide notes it sits alongside the legal name.

Practically, that means your brand name lives or dies on consistency rather than on a certificate. Your articles, your board licenses, your Taxation and Revenue account, your bank account, and your lease should all carry the same legal name, with the brand styled the same way everywhere it appears, because no DBA certificate exists to reconcile a mismatch later. If the brand itself needs legal protection, that is a different instrument: New Mexico's Trademark Act, Chapter 57, Article 3B, provides state trademark and service mark registration through the Secretary of State, which protects the mark rather than registering the business.

Your EIN: the federal number everything else asks for

After the articles are accepted, get the company's Employer Identification Number from the IRS. It is free, it is issued online in minutes, and it is the number your bank, your payroll setup, and your tax registrations will ask for in place of your Social Security number. If a website offers to obtain one for a fee, close the tab: the IRS charges nothing, and the number is a federal identifier, unrelated to any New Mexico filing. Form the LLC first and apply second, so the EIN is issued to the entity's exact legal name.

New Mexico tax accounts: gross receipts, withholding, and unemployment

New Mexico's signature tax fact surprises owners from sales tax states: there is no sales tax here. Instead the state levies a gross receipts tax on the business, and it reaches services. Haircuts, color, styling, and the rest of the service menu are taxable receipts, so the salon's main revenue is inside the tax from the first day. Registration runs through the Taxation and Revenue Department's TAP portal, which issues the business its New Mexico Business Tax Identification Number, the account under which gross receipts, withholding, and the workers compensation assessment all live. The return is Form TRD-41413, due on the 25th of the month following the reporting period.

The rate has two layers. The state rate is 4.875 percent, and counties and municipalities add their own increments on top, set district by district on the department's published rate schedule, so two salons in different towns pay different combined rates on the same haircut. The tax is legally the business's own liability even though passing it through to the customer on the ticket is common and accepted. Two certificate mechanics keep the salon from paying tax twice on what it resells: a Type 2 nontaxable transaction certificate covers inventory bought for resale, and a Type 5 certificate covers services bought for resale, both executed through TAP. Retail product sales ride the same account, which is why the point of sale setup, tax on services, tax on retail, certificates on file, belongs in the opening checklist rather than the first audit.

Employers open two more accounts. Withholding on wages is registered and filed through the same TAP account as the gross receipts tax. Unemployment insurance sits with the Department of Workforce Solutions: the salon registers as an employer, files quarterly wage reports, and pays contributions on the first $34,800 of each employee's wages in 2026, at a new employer rate set at the greater of 1.00 percent or the average rate for the salon's industry, with published 2026 industry rates running from 1.00 to 1.28 percent. The wage rules underneath are parent guide facts worth repeating here: the state minimum wage is $12.00 an hour, tipped employees get at least $3.00 in cash wages with the employer making up any shortfall to $12.00, and some New Mexico localities set higher floors than the state.

The bank account and keeping the money separate

Open a business bank account in the LLC's legal name as soon as the EIN exists. The bank will want the filed Articles of Organization and the EIN, and the account is where the separation the LLC promises is either kept or lost. Run every dollar of salon revenue through it, pay rent, payroll, product, and tax from it, and pay yourself on a schedule you can describe, rather than treating the register as a personal wallet. The gross receipts account makes this more than tidy bookkeeping: the tax is computed on the business's receipts, filed under the business's own tax ID, and a clean business account is the record that makes a monthly TRD-41413 a ten minute task instead of a reconstruction. Commingled money is also the fact pattern that invites a court to ignore the entity, which would hand back the personal exposure the LLC was formed to avoid.

Dissolution, revocation, and reinstatement

Ending a New Mexico LLC on purpose is a filing, not a disappearance. When the members decide to wind up, or another dissolution event in Section 53-19-39 occurs, the company files Articles of Dissolution under Section 53-19-41, and Section 53-19-63 prices that filing at $25. Until the tax accounts are closed with the Taxation and Revenue Department, the gross receipts and withholding duties keep running, so the state tax side of a shutdown is closed with TRD directly rather than assumed away.

The involuntary route is narrower than owners fear, and it runs entirely through the registered agent. Section 53-19-66.1 gives the Secretary of State exactly two grounds to revoke an LLC's articles, and both are agent failures: the company has no registered agent or office for 30 days, or its agent resigned or moved and the company never filed a successor. There is no revocation for a missed annual report, because there is no annual report to miss. Revocation is therefore preventable with one habit: when the agent changes, file the successor immediately rather than at renewal time, because this entity has no renewal time. If revocation happens anyway, Section 53-19-66.2 allows reinstatement within two years of the revocation, once the grounds are cured, with one trap built in: the company's name must still meet the Act's requirements, and a name another business took in the meantime can block the old entity from coming back under it. The fee schedule in Section 53-19-63 lists no reinstatement fee for an LLC, so none is quoted here; confirm the current cost in SOS Enterprise if you ever need the filing.

The annual duties calendar for a New Mexico salon LLC

The calendar below is the recurring load. Notice what is not on it: no Secretary of State annual report exists for this entity, at any price, in any month.

• Registered agent and office, continuously. Required at all times under Section 53-19-5. A gap of 30 days is a revocation ground under Section 53-19-66.1, so treat any agent change as a same week filing.
• Gross receipts tax returns. Form TRD-41413, due the 25th of the month after each reporting period, under the business's TAP account.
• Unemployment wage reports. Quarterly to the Department of Workforce Solutions, with contributions on the first $34,800 of wages per employee in 2026.
• Establishment license renewal. $50 a year to the Board of Barbers and Cosmetologists. Under the board's rules the license goes void if it is not renewed within 30 days after it expires, so this deadline has no soft landing.
• Booth establishment licenses. Each independent renter's booth license renews at $50 on the same licensing cycle, and the salon's establishment application carries an up to date renter list.
• Practitioner license renewals. Personal licenses run on a two year cycle ending in the licensee's birth month; a cosmetologist renews at $100, with a $40 late fee inside the grace window.
• Paid sick leave accrual. The Healthy Workplaces Act applies to every private employer regardless of size: one hour of leave per 30 hours worked, up to 64 hours in a 12 month period, tracked from each employee's first day.

That is the whole standing load: one continuous duty to the Secretary of State, a monthly tax rhythm, quarterly wage reports, and the board's license renewals. The money side of the salon, what coverage to carry once the payroll grows and how lenders read an entity with no annual report, is covered on the insurance page and the New Mexico business loans page.

This page is general information researched from official New Mexico 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 New Mexico?

The state filing fee for Articles of Organization is $50, set in Section 53-19-63 of the Limited Liability Company Act, and the filing is made online through SOS Enterprise. There is no publication requirement and no annual report fee after formation, so the $50 is the entire recurring state cost of keeping the entity itself alive, separate from its tax accounts.

Does a New Mexico LLC have to file an annual report?

No. New Mexico law contains no annual or biennial report for a domestic LLC, and no fee is owed to the Secretary of State to keep one in existence. The biennial report in Section 53-5-2 belongs to corporations. What an LLC must do instead is keep a registered agent and a registered office in place continuously, and keep its tax accounts current.

Where do I file a DBA or trade name for a salon in New Mexico?

Nowhere. No New Mexico statute or Secretary of State procedure provides a DBA, assumed name, or trade name filing for an LLC or any other business form. An LLC that wants to operate under another name puts that name in its Articles of Organization. Brand protection runs through use and through a state trademark registration under the Trademark Act, not through a name filing.

What happens if a New Mexico LLC loses its registered agent?

The entity is exposed to administrative revocation. Under Section 53-19-66.1, failing to keep a registered agent and office for 30 days is a ground for the Secretary of State to revoke the articles. A revoked LLC can be reinstated under Section 53-19-66.2 within two years, once the grounds are cured, provided its name still meets the Act's requirements.

Are hair salon services taxed in New Mexico?

Yes. New Mexico has no sales tax; it has a gross receipts tax that reaches services, and haircuts, color, and styling are taxable receipts. The business registers through TAP for a New Mexico Business Tax Identification Number, reports on Form TRD-41413 by the 25th of the month after the reporting period, and pays the 4.875 percent state rate plus the county and municipal increments for its location.