Register an LLC formed elsewhere in Kansas and keep the two-year cycle straight

Kansas expects a foreign business to be registered ahead of its Kansas work, and it carves out 11 activities, such as keeping a bank account, using independent sellers or wrapping up one stand-alone deal in 30 days. The carve-outs are examples, not a closed set, and they say nothing about tax or service of process. Our doing-business test reads each item and tests it against ordinary situations such as a remote employee, a warehouse or a customer site.

The packet is short. Form FA has ten numbered sections: the type of business, its legal name, its home jurisdiction, a resident agent, a registered office, the date the business began working in Kansas, the date it was formed, the nature of its Kansas business, a series statement for series LLCs, and the signature block. Behind it come any information reports, a consent form if the name is taken, and a cover page for card payment. The Form FA page walks through each section.

After registration, the recurring task is the information report. For profit businesses it falls due every second year on April 15, and the cycle follows the year you registered, because a Kansas registration made in an even-numbered year reports in every even-numbered year, and one made in an odd-numbered year reports in every odd-numbered year. For an LLC the online fee is $90, and the report asks mainly for identifying details. The information report page has the fees by entity type and the dates in order.

Kansas uses the term resident agent. The agent may be the business itself, an individual resident in the state, or a corporation, partnership or LLC authorized to do business in Kansas, and it needs a registered office at a street, rural route or highway address where someone is regularly present. Changes go on Form ROA for $30 online. See the resident agent page for resignations and what happens when an agent disappears.

The form has a box for each of six business types: profit corporation, nonprofit corporation, limited partnership, limited liability partnership, LLC and series LLC. Only a limited liability partnership needs two partners to sign; everyone else needs one authorized person. Corporations pay $90 online for the information report and nonprofits $80, and nonprofit corporations report by June 15 instead of April 15.

A business that has stopped working in Kansas files Form FC, the Certificate of Cancellation, Foreign (non-Kansas) Business, for $30 online or $35 on paper. It must be in good standing first; a delinquent business files its past due report and a forfeited one reinstates before it can leave. The Form FC page has the four sections and the steps.

$199 plus the state fee, including your first year of registered agent service; after that the agent service renews at $149 a year.