Digital nomads: how to move your company to a new state and keep the EIN & contracts [step-by-step]

Attorney and CPA Chad D. Cummings addresses the digital nomad whose company is still stuck in the wrong state. You work from a laptop in Lisbon, Mexico City, or Chiang Mai. Clients pay in dollars through Stripe, and nothing about how you earn requires a fixed location. Yet the LLC or corporation you formed years ago still has a domicile that demands franchise fees, annual reports, and in some cases a claim on income earned thousands of miles away. California imposes an $800 minimum franchise tax even on an LLC that earns nothing and has a long record of pursuing former residents. New York applies similar persistence. Redomestication moves the company you already have. The federal employer identification number stays the same, so your Stripe account, business banking, merchant processing, and client contracts remain intact. Dissolving and reforming severs all of it. Florida and Texas impose no personal income tax. For a single-member LLC or S corporation, business income flows to your personal return, and neither state cares that you spend most of the year abroad. Neither imposes California’s minimum franchise tax. A commercial registered agent satisfies the street-address requirement; owners and members are not required to live there. Personal tax residency remains a separate question for counsel and a tax professional. Your work stopped being tied to a location. Your company can stop being tied to the wrong one. Learn about redomesticating your company to a new state: https://www.cummings.law/redomestication/