6: Expanding to Other States

Big news...I received my Maryland LLC approval! With that now in place, I have several other registrations to take care of:

Firm Engineering License

The state of Maryland requires engineering firm to obtain licensure, in addition to engineers themselves. The Maryland firm license was a pretty quick application and took just a few minutes.

While researching requirements for firm licensure, I learned that not all states actually require it. The District of Columbia, for example, requires any business to register, but does not require a specific engineering firm license. Harbor Compliance has a great guide for each state that explains the requirements.

Doing Business in Other States

I plan to have a number of projects in both DC and Virginia, so I applied for business registrations in both. Since I am a Maryland LLC registering to do business in these states, I cam considered a "foreign entity." The application process for both involved the basic company information and providing certified articles of organization and/or certified certificates of status from the State of Maryland for my company. Both applications and the certified copies of these documents come with a cost...$100-200 for the application and $45 a piece for the certified documents!

Once the Virginia business registration is approved, I will also need to apply for a Virginia firm engineering license.

Resources Used Today:

• ​Maryland Firm License
• Harbor Compliance
• DC Foreign Entity Registration
• Virginia Foreign Entity Registration​​