Registry entry

Florida LLC Formation (Sunbiz Articles of Organization)

Form a limited liability company (LLC) in Florida by filing Articles of Organization with the Florida Department of State, Division of Corporations (Sunbiz), pursuant to s. 605.0201, F.S. Covers the minimum statutory field set for the initial formation filing: LLC name and optional professional purpose, principal and mailing addresses, registered agent (name, Florida street address, and signature), an optional voluntary Manager/Authorized Representative designation, effective date, correspondence contact, the mandatory authorized-representative signature, and the two optional add-on items (Certificate of Status, Certified Copy). Filing may be completed online (dos.fl.gov/sunbiz/start-business/efile/fl-llc/) or by mailing the printed 'Articles of Organization for Florida Limited Liability Company' form; both channels collect the same underlying data. It does not submit the filing; the live Florida Division of Corporations source is always authoritative (see VERIFICATION.md). Out of scope: the LLC's operating agreement (not filed with the state), the annual report every LLC must file January 1 – May 1 of the following calendar year to remain active (a separate filing), the federal EIN application (see us/irs/employer-identification-number-ss4), and beneficial ownership information reporting (a separate federal FinCEN requirement, not administered by the Division of Corporations).

Registry entry

us/fl/doc/llc-formation

Jurisdiction
United States · Florida (subnational)
Version
1.0.0
Verification
draft
Authority
Florida Department of State, Division of Corporations

GovSchema spec v0.3

Authoritative source Instructions for Articles of Organization (FL LLC); e-filing entry point https://dos.fl.gov/sunbiz/start-business/efile/fl-llc/; paper form 'Articles of Organization for Florida Limited Liability Company' (PDF), http://form.sunbiz.org/pdf/cr2e047.pdf

Machine access

Schema document
registry/us/fl/doc/llc-formation/1.0.0/schema.jsonapplication/schema+json
Verification record
registry/us/fl/doc/llc-formation/1.0.0/VERIFICATION.mdtext/markdown
Registry catalog
registry/index.jsonone record per schema id

Field reference

30 fields across 7 steps, read from the published schema.json — names, types, requiredness, and validation as the document states them. The live government form remains the authoritative source.

LLC name and purpose

  • llcType enum required

    standard = an ordinary limited liability company; professional = a Professional Limited Liability Company, formed under both Chapter 605 and Chapter 621, F.S., for a single specific licensed profession. Determines both the required name suffix (see llcName) and whether a stated purpose is required (see llcPurpose).

    enum: standard | professional
  • llcName string required

    The proposed LLC name exactly as it should appear on Division of Corporations records. Must be distinguishable on the records of the Florida Department of State (a preliminary name-availability search is recommended before filing). Must include 'Limited Liability Company', 'LLC', or 'L.L.C.'; if llcType is professional, must instead include 'Chartered', 'Professional Limited Liability Company', 'P.L.L.C.', or 'PLLC'. Do not use or assume the name is approved until a filing acknowledgment is received from the Division.

    length: 1–200
  • llcPurpose string optional

    A single specific professional purpose (e.g. 'the practice of law', 'accounting services', 'practicing medicine'). Required only for a Professional Limited Liability Company. Non-professional companies are not required to state a purpose on the Articles, though they may do so voluntarily (out of scope here).

    length: 1–300

Business addresses

  • principalAddressLine1 string required

    The street address of the LLC's principal office (Article II). Not restricted to a Florida address; the Instructions and the statutory Article II text impose no in-state requirement here (unlike the registered agent's address).

    length: 1–120
  • principalAddressCity string required

    Principal office — city

    length: 1–80
  • principalAddressState string required

    Two-letter USPS state abbreviation. Modelled as a free field, not fixed to FL, since neither the Instructions nor the statutory Article II text restrict the principal office to Florida.

    pattern
  • principalAddressZipCode string required

    5-digit or ZIP+4 U.S. format, e.g. 32303 or 32303-1234.

    pattern
  • mailingAddressLine1 string optional

    Optional; a P.O. box is acceptable here (unlike the principal office and registered agent addresses).

    length: 0–120
  • mailingAddressCity string optional

    Mailing address — city

    length: 0–80
  • mailingAddressState string optional

    Two-letter USPS state abbreviation.

    pattern
  • mailingAddressZipCode string optional

    5-digit or ZIP+4 U.S. format.

    pattern

Registered agent

  • registeredAgentName string required

    Name of the individual or business entity accepting service of process on the LLC's behalf (Article III). A business entity with an active Florida filing or registration may serve as agent; the LLC cannot serve as its own registered agent, though an individual or principal associated with the LLC may. This document does not split the name into an individual/entity branch, since the source form uses a single name line for either case.

    length: 1–160classification: pii
  • registeredAgentStreetAddressLine1 string required

    Must be a physical Florida street address; a P.O. box is not acceptable.

    length: 1–120classification: pii
  • registeredAgentCity string required

    Registered agent — city

    length: 1–80classification: pii
  • registeredAgentState enum required

    Fixed to Florida: the registered agent must have a physical street address in this state.

    enum: FL
  • registeredAgentZipCode string required

    5-digit or ZIP+4 U.S. format.

    patternclassification: pii
  • registeredAgentSignatureName string required

    The registered agent must sign, confirming familiarity with and acceptance of the obligations of the position under s. 605.0113(3), F.S. If filing online, typing the name in the signature block is sufficient (s. 15.16, F.S. gives electronic signatures the same legal effect as original signatures); if the agent is a business entity, a principal of that entity signs here to accept the obligations. Typing someone's name/signature without their permission is forgery under s. 831.06, F.S.

    length: 1–160classification: pii

Manager / Authorized Representative (optional)

  • representativeDesignation enum optional

    manager = a person designated to perform the management functions of a manager-managed LLC (use MGR); authorized_representative = a person authorized to execute and file records with the Division of Corporations under s. 605.0102(8), F.S. (use AR). May be an individual or a business entity; do not list members. Entirely optional, though Florida's Division of Workers' Compensation or a financial institution may require it to be on record for a workers'-comp exemption or bank account. This document scopes to a single optional Manager/Authorized Representative; the live e-filing interview supports listing more than one — out of scope here, see VERIFICATION.md.

    enum: manager | authorized_representative
  • representativeName string optional

    Optional; leave blank to omit this voluntary designation entirely.

    length: 0–160classification: pii
  • representativeAddressLine1 string optional

    Manager / Authorized Representative — street address

    length: 0–120classification: pii
  • representativeCity string optional

    Manager / Authorized Representative — city

    length: 0–80classification: pii
  • representativeState string optional

    Two-letter USPS state abbreviation, or country subdivision if outside the U.S.; not restricted to Florida.

    length: 0–40
  • representativeZipCode string optional

    Manager / Authorized Representative — ZIP/postal code

    length: 0–20classification: pii

Effective date

  • effectiveDateOption enum required

    on_filing = the LLC's existence begins on the date the Division of Corporations receives and files the Articles (the default); specified_date = an alternate effective date is specified (see effectiveDate), which must be no more than five business days prior to, or 90 days after, the date the Division receives the document. Filers forming an LLC between October 1 and December 31 can list a January 1 effective date to postpone the first required annual report by one calendar year.

    enum: on_filing | specified_date
  • effectiveDate date optional

    Must be no more than five business days prior to, or 90 days after, the date the Division of Corporations receives the Articles. This document does not structurally enforce that window, since it depends on the (unknown at authoring time) date of receipt; see VERIFICATION.md.

Correspondence and signature

  • correspondenceName string required

    Name of the point of contact for this filing.

    length: 1–160classification: pii
  • correspondenceEmail string required

    A valid email address. If filing online, the filing acknowledgment and any requested certification are emailed here, and all future email communications about this filing are sent to this address.

    length: 3–254classification: pii
  • authorizedSignerName string required

    The Articles must be signed by at least one person acting as the authorized representative (s. 605.0102(8), F.S.). If filing online, typing the name in the signature block is sufficient (s. 15.16, F.S.). This signer need not be the same person voluntarily designated as Manager/Authorized Representative above.

    length: 1–160classification: pii

Optional add-ons

  • wantsCertificateOfStatus boolean optional

    Optional add-on. A Certificate of Status certifies the LLC's status and existence and verifies all fees are paid through a certain date. Fee: $5.00.

  • wantsCertifiedCopy boolean optional

    Optional add-on. A Certified Copy includes a filed-stamped copy of the Articles of Organization and verifies it is a true and correct copy of the Division's record. Fee: $30.00.

Verification record

This file is the source-review record for this document version, per the manual-source-review-v1 practice. It documents the provenance of the published fields and flow, records a mock-data test run of the field set, and states the current verification claim honestly.

Current claim

  • status: draft
  • verification.method: manual-source-review-v1
  • verification.lastVerifiedAt: 2026-07-02

The document was derived directly from the live official sources below, but the full field-by-field comparison the practice requires (confirming every published field, type, requiredness, and constraint against the live form/interview — manual-source-review-v1 → Procedure step 2) has not yet been independently re-verified against an actual screen-by-screen run of the e-filing interview. It therefore remains draft, not verified. Consumers SHOULD treat this as an accurate, source-grounded structural reference, not a load-bearing description of the live process.

Sources examined

  • Document (id, version): us/fl/doc/llc-formation / 1.0.0
  • Spec version: GovSchema 0.3.0
  • Authority: Florida Department of State, Division of Corporations (Sunbiz)
  • Primary source URL: https://dos.fl.gov/sunbiz/start-business/efile/fl-llc/instructions/ ("Instructions for Articles of Organization (FL LLC)") — fetched directly via curl and parsed as plain HTML text (not summarized by an intermediary model), so every quoted field label and statutory citation below is verbatim from the live page.
  • E-filing entry / FAQ page: https://dos.fl.gov/sunbiz/start-business/efile/fl-llc/ — same domain, fetched directly — supplied the fee schedule and the online signature/payment mechanics ("What are my payment options...", "How do I sign the online form?").
  • Paper form: Articles of Organization for Florida Limited Liability Company (PDF), http://form.sunbiz.org/pdf/cr2e047.pdf — downloaded directly (curl, HTTP 200, no CDN block encountered, unlike the CA LLC-1 precedent). Parsed with the repo's usual zlib-inflate-stream + parenthesized-Tj/TJ extraction convention (node:zlib inflateSync over each stream/endstream block, then regex over (...)Tj and [...]TJ operators) — no ad hoc PDF library needed. The recovered text has loose inter-letter spacing (a glyph/kerning artifact, not missing content) but is legible; it was used only to confirm the Article I–V statutory structure (name, principal/mailing address, registered agent, manager/authorized representative, effective date) already described in plain, clean prose by the Instructions page.
  • Retrieved / reviewed: 2026-07-02
  • Reviewer: GovSchema Engineering (Standards Engineer) — initial authoring source-review

Not a time-versioned (edition) form

Articles of Organization is a one-time initial filing made once per LLC, not filed "for" a recurring tax/award year — applying the GSP-0005 §2 coexistence test, there is no scenario where two editions of the data model need to coexist for the same applicant. This document is therefore authored at the plain (non-edition) registry path, registry/us/fl/doc/llc-formation/1.0.0/. A future field-set change ships as a new version, not an edition.

Authority slug decision: doc, not dos

The issue that scoped this document (GOV-682) left the exact authority slug to the author's judgment, with the one constraint that it be consistent with the sibling Sunbiz annual-report schema. This document uses doc (Division of Corporations) rather than dos (Department of State) because:

  • The live source itself brands the office as the "Division of Corporations" throughout (page titles, breadcrumbs: "Division of Corporations - Florida Department of State"), with "Department of State" appearing only as the parent cabinet-level agency in the footer address block.
  • Sunbiz filings — Articles of Organization, the annual report, corporate/LP/LLP filings, fictitious name registration, UCC — are all administered by this one Division, not by the Department of State's other divisions (Elections, Historical Resources, Library and Information Services, Arts & Culture), so a doc-scoped authority slug is the more precise and more reusable identifier for the whole Sunbiz family of schemas.
  • This mirrors the existing us/ca/sos/* convention of naming the authority segment after the specific office that runs the filing, not a broader parent department.

Convention for follow-on Sunbiz schemas (e.g. the FL annual report, FL.5 in the GOV-664 plan): use the same us/fl/doc/<process> id shape.

What was confirmed against the source

  • Form identity and purpose, and total fees. Articles of Organization filed online or by mail with the Division of Corporations to form an LLC, pursuant to s. 605.0201, F.S. Fee table confirmed verbatim from the live "New Florida Limited Liability Company Fees" table: Articles of Organization $100.00, Registered Agent Designation $25.00, Certified Copy (optional) $30.00, Certificate of Status (optional) $5.00, TOTAL $160.00 (i.e. the two optional add-ons are excluded from the mandatory $125.00 base).
  • LLC name requirements (llcType, llcName): the distinguishability requirement, the standard vs. professional LLC name-suffix branch ("Limited Liability Company", "LLC", "L.L.C." vs. "Chartered", "Professional Limited Liability Company", "P.L.L.C.", "PLLC"), and the "do not assume the name is approved" caution — all transcribed verbatim from the Instructions page's "Limited Liability Company Name" section.
  • Principal and mailing address (principalAddress*, mailingAddress*): the street-address-only requirement for the principal office (no P.O. Box restriction stated, and — unlike the registered agent — no in-state restriction), and the P.O.-Box-acceptable optional mailing address, transcribed verbatim from "Principal Place of Business Address" and "Mailing Address".
  • Registered agent (registeredAgentName/registeredAgentStreetAddressLine1/ registeredAgentCity/registeredAgentState/registeredAgentZipCode/ registeredAgentSignatureName): the individual-or-entity eligibility rule, the "cannot serve as its own registered agent" rule, the Florida-physical-address (no P.O. Box) requirement, and the full signature mechanics (s. 605.0113(3) acceptance-of-obligations statement, s. 15.16 online-typed-signature validity, s. 831.06 forgery warning) — all transcribed verbatim from "Registered Agent Name and Address" and "Registered Agent's Signature".
  • Manager/Authorized Representative (representativeDesignation/ representativeName/representativeAddress*): the fully optional nature of this item, the MGR/AR designation vocabulary and s. 605.0102(8), F.S. citation for "Authorized Representative", the "do not list members" instruction, and the workers'-comp-exemption/bank-account note — transcribed verbatim from "Manager/Authorized Representative".
  • Effective date (effectiveDateOption/effectiveDate): the receipt-date-is-default rule, the ±5-business-days-prior/90-days-after window, and the January-1-effective-date annual-report-deferral tip — transcribed verbatim from "Effective Date".
  • Signature and correspondence (authorizedSignerName/correspondenceName/ correspondenceEmail): the "at least one person acting as the authorized representative" signing rule and the online-typed-signature mechanics from "Signature"; the correspondence name/email purpose (filing acknowledgment, future email communications) from "Correspondence Name and Email".
  • Optional add-ons (wantsCertificateOfStatus/wantsCertifiedCopy): purpose and $5.00/$30.00 fees transcribed verbatim from "Certificate of Status" and "Certified Copy".
  • Payment methods (documents[].methods): credit card (Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover), debit card (Visa or MasterCard), Prepaid Sunbiz E-File Account (online), or check/money order (by mail) — from the e-filing FAQ's "What are my payment options to file the Articles of Organization online?" and "I don't want to file online. Can I print and mail my application and payment?".
  • Paper-form cross-check. The extracted PDF text for Articles I–V (name; principal/mailing address; registered agent name/address/signature obligation; manager/authorized-representative MGR/AR designation and "do not list members"; effective-date window) matches the Instructions page's prose description of the same items in substance, confirming the Instructions page (used as the primary, cleanly-parseable source) accurately reflects the statutory form.

Mock-data test run

A representative filled-out filing was authored and checked field-by-field against every type/required/requiredWhen/validation constraint in schema.json with a small one-off Node script (node:fs, no committed dependency):

``json { "llcType": "standard", "llcName": "Sawgrass Creative Studio LLC", "principalAddressLine1": "1401 Riverplace Blvd, Suite 800", "principalAddressCity": "Jacksonville", "principalAddressState": "FL", "principalAddressZipCode": "32207", "registeredAgentName": "Denise M. Alvarez", "registeredAgentStreetAddressLine1": "1401 Riverplace Blvd, Suite 800", "registeredAgentCity": "Jacksonville", "registeredAgentState": "FL", "registeredAgentZipCode": "32207", "registeredAgentSignatureName": "Denise M. Alvarez", "effectiveDateOption": "on_filing", "correspondenceName": "Denise M. Alvarez", "correspondenceEmail": "denise@sawgrasscreative.example", "authorizedSignerName": "Denise M. Alvarez", "wantsCertificateOfStatus": true } ``

This models a single-member, standard (non-professional) LLC that uses its own member as registered agent, does not designate a voluntary Manager/Authorized Representative, takes the default (on-filing) effective date, and requests an optional Certificate of Status. The scenario exercises the llcType: standard path (so llcPurpose correctly stays unrequired), the effectiveDateOption: on_filing path (so effectiveDate correctly stays unrequired), and the representativeName-absent path (so representativeDesignation/ representativeAddress* correctly stay unrequired), while omitting the optional differing mailing address:

`` PASS — mock standard single-member LLC filing (own registered agent, effective on filing, requests Certificate of Status) satisfies all field-level constraints. ``

Both registry validators were run against the schema document itself (not the mock data) and pass:

``` $ node tools/validate.mjs registry/us/fl/doc/llc-formation/1.0.0/schema.json ok registry/us/fl/doc/llc-formation/1.0.0/schema.json

$ cd tools && node validate-ajv.mjs ../registry/us/fl/doc/llc-formation/1.0.0/schema.json ok registry/us/fl/doc/llc-formation/1.0.0/schema.json [v0.3] ```

What is NOT yet independently verified

  • The live e-filing interview's actual screen-by-screen flow (question order, exact on-screen wording, dynamic branching) was not directly observed; this document is sourced from the Instructions/FAQ prose and the paper PDF form, which the Instructions page states cover "the minimum requirements for filing Articles of Organization" common to both channels.
  • Constraint patterns (string length maximums, the FL-fixed registered-agent state enum) are reasonable encodings consistent with the sourced field descriptions, not citations of a published Sunbiz field-length validation rule.
  • The ±5-business-day/90-day effective-date window is described in effectiveDate's field description but not structurally enforced (it depends on the filing's actual receipt date, which is unknown at authoring/consumption time).
  • Downstream/related filings (the annual report due January 1 – May 1 of the following calendar year, the LLC operating agreement, the federal EIN, and federal beneficial ownership information reporting) are out of scope; this document covers the initial Articles of Organization filing only.
  • Multiple Managers/Authorized Representatives and multiple registered agents/organizers beyond the single optional Manager/Authorized Representative modelled here are out of scope, mirroring the same single-item scoping decision made for ca/on/registration/business-incorporation.

Path to a verified claim (next step)

To advance this document to status: verified, a reviewer applies manual-source-review-v1 (Procedure step 2 field-by-field comparison, step 3 flow comparison) against an observed run of the live dos.fl.gov/sunbiz e-filing interview (not just its Instructions/FAQ prose) and the then-current paper form, confirms the sources are still authoritative, resolves any newly discovered discrepancy by shipping a new schema version (immutability — VERSIONING §3, practice Procedure step 5), and records the outcome here plus sets status: verified with a current verification.lastVerifiedAt / nextReviewBy. This v1.0.0 record stays as the authoring provenance.

Re-verification

Per the practice's Cadence, nextReviewBy is set to 2027-01-01 (6 months). Re-check the source on or before that date, on any source.url change, or when the Division of Corporations publishes a new revision of the Articles of Organization form or instructions.

View the raw record (VERIFICATION.md)

Version history

  • 1.0.0 draft latest this page has verification record schema.json

Independent and non-affiliated

GovSchema is an independent, open-source project. This reference is not produced, reviewed, or endorsed by Florida Department of State, Division of Corporations or any government. The authoritative source is always the live government form and its official instructions.