Incorporating a business

This section of the How to incorporate business information website covers how to incorporate a business. Steps necessary to incorporate a business to form a corporation are discussed.

Incorporating a business by filling out forms

Incorporating a business means first preparing and filing your corporation Articles of Incorporation. Then you will prepare your corporate bylaws and the minutes of your organizational meeting. Finally, you will issue your initial shares of corporate stock (if any). When actually incorporating a business, most people are surprised how easy incorporating a business is. Incorporating a business can be done in a hour but there are certain areas of incorporating a business you may want to spend more time on.

When incorporating a business especially incorporating a small business, you may just need to get the Articles of incorporation form(s) from the state you want to incorporate your business in. Many states now have fill in the blanks Article of incorporation forms and most forms you need for incorporating a business can be found online. More often than not, you can incorporate a business yourself without the help of a lawyer or tax attorney. The do it yourself incorporating a business is now more popular than ever.

Filing articles of incorporation

After you file your articles, your corporation is an official legal entity. The other steps are for practical reasons. Click here for filing articles of incorporation help.

• The bylaws contain the essential rules needed to operate your corporation.
• The first (organizational) meeting of your directors is necessary to transact the initial business of your corporation by issuing shares of stock in return for investors’ capital contributions. If you are a one person small business corporation, this involves you talking to yourself and you can conduct the meeting your way.