Has your new Arizona LLC opened a bank account in its name yet? Opening an LLC bank account is one of the first tasks your LLC’s manager or managing member should perform. One of the most important LLC asset protection rules is that all of the LLC’s revenue MUST flow through its bank account and all of its expenses should be paid from the LLC’s bank account.

To open a bank account for the LLC, a manager of your LLC must do the following

1. Give the bank a copy of the LLC’s filed Articles of Organization approved by the Arizona Corporation Commission. We emailed the filed and approved AOO to your company’s contact person the day we filed the Articles with the Arizona Corporation Commission.

2. Give the bank the LLC’s federal employer ID number (EIN). I recommend that LLCs always get an EIN of its own to avoid giving third parties the social security number of a member.

3.  If your trust owns the LLC give the banker a copy of your Certification of Trust that DocuSign sent to you.

Note:  The big banks and some smaller banks will not open a bank account for the company until the Arizona Corporation Commission has approved the filed Articles of Organization.

Your LLC’s Employer ID Number (EIN)

If your LLC does not yet have its EIN, see our article called How to Get an Employer ID Number from the IRS for Your LLC for instructions on how to get the EIN in a 5 – 10 minute data entry session on the IRS’ website. It is very easy to get the EIN online.

If you hired us to get the EIN, How to Get an Employer ID Number from the IRS for Your LLC explains how a member or manager of your LLC must complete IRS Form SS-4, sign it and send it to us to give us the authority to contact the IRS on behalf of the LLC and get the EIN.