There are many ways to form a new company. We chose to form a Limited Liability Company (LLC) with the most direct route. We are not attorneys or accountants. Please contact an attorney or accountant if you have questions about which legal entity type and creation method is right for you.
We went to Sunbiz and filed by ourselves. There is a “Start a Business” tab on the home page. On that tab is “Start E-Filing Limited Liability Company” (see image). When you click there, they give instructions for filing the Articles of Organization. We read those instructions, filled out the form, and paid $125.
Nine days later, SunBiz approved our application. The approval email contained a link to register the new firm with the IRS to receive an Employer Identification Number (EIN). That process took about 15 minutes. The filed articles of organization were available for download on their website.
The next step is to register the new firm with DBPR and FBPE. On FBPE is a “LICENSURE” tab on the home page. On that tab is “Engineering Business Registry > Register Your Engineering Firm” (see image). There we found a page dedicated to registering an engineering firm with detailed instruction about the process with DBPR.
The DBPR account has to be linked to an individual license first. Then you have to register the engineering firm. Finally, you qualify the firm.