Illinois professional LLC (PLLC)

The Illinois professional LLC

Does a licensing board have to approve the filing?

Yes for both forms, from the body that licenses the profession rather than from the Secretary of State. For a PLLC, 805 ILCS 185/15(b): the company "shall not open, operate, or maintain an establishment for any of the purposes for which a limited liability company may be organized without obtaining a certificate of registration from the Department", the Department being the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (805 ILCS 185/5). The Secretary of State's own LLC guide repeats this. For a professional corporation, 805 ILCS 10/12(a) requires a certificate of registration from the "regulating authority", defined at 805 ILCS 10/3.2 as the Supreme Court of Illinois for attorneys at law, the Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, or another State board, department or agency with jurisdiction to license that service, the United States Patent Office, or the Internal Revenue Service.

Which occupations Illinois says must use it

A general licensing test, not an enumerated list, with profession-specific overlays. For a PLLC, 805 ILCS 185/5 defines a professional limited liability company as one that provides "professional services that require the individuals engaged in the profession to be licensed by the Department"; 805 ILCS 185/13(a) then names particular practices (dentistry, medicine, real estate, clinical psychology, social work, marriage and family therapy, professional counseling, sex offender evaluation and treatment, veterinary medicine) where every member and manager must hold the relevant licence, and 805 ILCS 185/13(b) fixes the four groupings of services that may be combined in one company. For a professional corporation, 805 ILCS 10/3.5 defines professional service as "any personal service which requires as a condition precedent to the rendering thereof the obtaining of a license from a State agency or from the United States Patent Office or the Internal Revenue Service"; 805 ILCS 10/6 limits a corporation to one specific type of professional service, and 805 ILCS 10/3.6 restricts "related professional services" to four listed combinations.

Illinois also offers a corporation under a professional statute

A practice choosing between the two forms is choosing between these rules and the ones above.

Does the agent requirement differ from an ordinary Illinois LLC’s?

No. Illinois sets no separate agent requirement for a professional entity — it is the same requirement an ordinary Illinois LLC files under.

What else Illinois requires

The Secretary of State uses one articles form, LLC-5.5, for every Illinois LLC; what makes a filing professional is the purpose stated in Article 5 plus the separate registration with the licensing body. The office's Guide for Organizing Domestic Limited Liability Companies says so directly: an LLC that intends to provide a professional service requiring the individual to be licensed by the Department of Financial and Professional Regulation must obtain a certificate of registration from that Department under the Professional Limited Liability Company Act. 805 ILCS 185/11 requires the articles of organization to state the specific professional service or related professional services, and lets an existing LLC convert to a professional LLC by filing with the Secretary of State. 805 ILCS 185/10 makes the ordinary Limited Liability Company Act apply to professional LLCs except where inconsistent, which is why the registered-agent rule is unchanged: an individual resident in Illinois or an entity authorised to transact business here, at an Illinois street or rural-route address, identical to the agent's business office, with a PO box alone not accepted. Note the two acts set the name rule differently: the PLLC designator is mandatory and fixed, while the professional corporation's name is built from a shareholder's name or a permitted fictitious name and merely has to end with one of the listed words.