Amending Your Company Name.

What Is Entity Name Amendment? Entity Name Amendment is a legal act of changing the name of your corporation, LLC, or other business entity that you use. Companies are authorized and bound to do business only using their legal names filed with the registering state. When changing its name, company must get an approval from the state BEFORE officially using the new name. What Is an Article of Amendment? An Article of Amendment is a formal document that is filed with the state of registration when any business entity wants to change its legal name. If the company also does business in other states as a Foreign Entity, it should not use the new name until it files Article of Amendment in each one of those states. Changing Your Company Name A corporation or LLC name is changed by filing an amendment to the Articles of Incorporation or Organization (Article of Amendment). The name change amendment may be adopted by the corporation's board of directors, unless its Articles of Incorporation require that the name change be adopted by the corporation's shareholders (or, in case of LLC, by Members or Managers). Checking Availability of a Name The new company name must be available on the records of the state. If the name is not available, the state may reject the name amendment. NOTE: when you choose to file your Name Amendment using our service, we will run a free preliminary search to check the availability of the name, in order to avoid rejection before submitting the amendment to the state. What If the Name Is Unavailable? When placing your name amendment order with us please provide three name options to secure a name choice and eliminate a potential delay in the processing of your order. When using our services, we will contact you with additional name options if the name you have requested is not available. Alternatives to Name Amendment There is a way to do business under a different name without going through the Name Amendment process. You could instead file a DBA application ("Doing Business As") with the state/county where you plan to use that name. Notifying the IRS and State Agencies When you file the Article of Amendment for name change your federal Tax ID (EIN) or any Licenses associated with the previous company name will remain same. You will, however, need to notify the Internal Revenue Services (IRS) department and other state agencies about the change.