Washington DC professional LLC (PLLC)

The Washington DC professional LLC

Which occupations Washington DC says must use it

A general licence test with an illustrative list, applied to both forms by the filing office. § 29-502(3) defines "professional service" as any type of personal service to the public which may be lawfully rendered only pursuant to a license and which, by law, custom, standards of professional conduct or practice in the District before December 10, 1971, could not be rendered by a corporation, including services performed by certified public accountants, attorneys, architects, health professionals as defined in D.C. Code § 3-1201.01(8), and professional engineers. The Corporations Division's Form DLC-1 instruction sheet tells a PLLC filer that the specific professional service stated in the articles "must be one of the following" and then reproduces that same § 29-502(3) language, which is how the definition reaches LLCs.

Washington DC 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 Washington DC LLC’s?

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

What else Washington DC requires

The District recognises both forms, but they sit in different places in the code and only one of them has a chapter of its own. The professional corporation has Chapter 5. The PLLC has no chapter: it is an ordinary Chapter 8 LLC that the general definitions section marks out by purpose (§ 29-101.02(38)) and the general naming section marks out by designator (§ 29-103.02(f)). Chapter 8 itself never uses the word "professional", which is why the Corporations Division's own form, not the LLC statute, is where a filer learns what counts as a professional service. Two naming quirks are worth stating plainly because they cut opposite ways: a District professional corporation may not use "company", "incorporated", "corporation" or "limited" in its name, while a District PLLC must use "company" (inside the required phrase or its abbreviation). Incorporating a professional corporation requires the articles to designate the professional services, name and address every original shareholder, and state that each original shareholder and director is licensed (§ 29-506). The corporation may be organised solely to render professional services through licensed people, may employ unlicensed staff who do not perform professional services, and may not do any act prohibited to an individual licensee (§ 29-505). Chapter 5 does not displace other routes: § 29-503 says it does not apply to a corporation that may lawfully render professional services other than under that chapter, and does not affect any right or privilege permitting professional services through any other form of business organization. Code sections and Form DLC-1 (Ver. 8, October 2022) read September 2026.