How do you form a Washington PLLC?
- Form
- Certificate of Formation – Professional Limited Liability Company
- Filed with
- Washington Secretary of State, Corporations & Charities Division
- State fee
- Set by the state, and confirmed with you before anything is filed.
Confirm each member is licensed for the service
A PLLC is formed by persons licensed or otherwise legally authorized to render the same professional services in Washington (RCW 25.15.046(1)). Each member practising in Washington must be licensed, and at least one manager, or the member in charge of each Washington office, must be licensed (RCW 25.15.048(2)). No board certificate is filed; the formation includes an attestation that each executor is licensed.
Source: RCW 25.15.046 · RCW 25.15.048 · Washington Secretary of State: Start a Domestic PLLC Online
Use a PLLC designator in the name
The name must contain "professional limited liability company", or "professional limited liability" with "Co.", or "P.L.L.C." or "PLLC" (RCW 23.95.305(5)(b), applied by RCW 25.15.046(5)). A dental PLLC's name must contain the full names or surnames of all members and no other word than "chartered", "professional services", "P.L.L.C." or "PLLC".
Source: RCW 23.95.305 · RCW 25.15.046 · Washington Secretary of State: LLC & PLLC Filing Resource Page
File the Certificate of Formation – Professional LLC
File the Certificate of Formation – Professional Limited Liability Company with the Corporations & Charities Division, online through the Corporations and Charities Filing System (CCFS) or by mail or in person. It asks for the name, duration, effective date, registered agent and consent, principal office, an attestation of stated profession, and executors. Pay the filing fee set by the state.
Have LLCity prepare and file it ›
Source: Washington Secretary of State: LLC & PLLC Filing Resource Page · Washington Secretary of State: Start a Domestic PLLC Online · RCW 25.15.071
Appoint a Washington registered agent
Name a commercial registered agent or a noncommercial registered agent with a physical Washington street address (no PO box or PMB) and an email address (RCW 23.95.415). The agent must consent to the appointment, and the consent is filed with the record first appointing the agent.
What Washington requires of your agent, and how we serve as it ›
Source: RCW 23.95.415 · Washington Secretary of State: Start a Domestic PLLC Online
Adopt a limited liability company agreement
Washington defines the limited liability company agreement as the members' agreement on the company's affairs and business, whether oral, implied, in a record, or a combination (RCW 25.15.006(8)). The Secretary of State says an operating agreement is not recorded by its office.
Source: RCW 25.15.006 · Washington Secretary of State: LLC & PLLC Filing Resource Page
File the Initial Report and each Annual Report
File an Initial Report within 120 days after formation (RCW 23.95.255(1)); it may be filed with the certificate. File the Annual Report by the last day of the month in which the PLLC was formed; it can be filed up to 180 days early. A PLLC must also maintain the professional liability cover RCW 25.15.046(3) describes, or members lose protection to that extent.
Source: RCW 23.95.255 · Washington Secretary of State: LLC & PLLC Filing Resource Page · RCW 25.15.046
Steps checked against the sources linked under each one on 12 November 2026.
The Washington professional LLC
What creates it in Washington
RCW 25.15.046, Professional limited liability companies, with RCW 25.15.048. RCW 25.15.046(2) subjects a professional limited liability company to all the provisions of chapter 18.100 RCW that apply to a professional corporation, and RCW 25.15.046(4) maps the corporate vocabulary onto the LLC one (director or officer means manager, shareholder means member, articles of incorporation means certificate of formation, and so on). The Secretary of State states the governing statute as RCW 25.15 "with the election to have RCW 18.100 provisions apply".
What the name must contain
RCW 23.95.305(5)(b), applied by RCW 25.15.046(5). The name must contain either the words "professional limited liability company," or the words "professional limited liability" and the abbreviation "Co.," or the abbreviation "P.L.L.C." or "PLLC", provided that the name of a professional limited liability company organized to render dental services must contain the full names or surnames of all members and no other word than "chartered" or the words "professional services" or the abbreviation "P.L.L.C." or "PLLC."
Does a licensing board have to approve the filing?
No licensing board certificate is required before the Corporations and Charities Division accepts the filing. The office takes an attestation instead: its online instructions for starting a domestic PLLC describe a "PLLC Attestation" checkbox by which "the business entity is attesting that each member personally engages in the practice of this profession, is duly licensed or legally authorized to practice said profession in Washington State", and the paper Certificate of Formation – Professional LLC carries an "Attestation of Stated Profession" signed by the executors. Board authority is preserved rather than inserted into the filing: RCW 25.15.046(7) and RCW 18.100.050(5)(b) both provide that forming the entity does not restrict the uniform disciplinary act (chapter 18.130 RCW) or the health care professional statutes in Title 18 RCW.
Which occupations does Washington say must use a PLLC?
A general licensed-profession test with a non-exhaustive illustration, not a closed list. RCW 18.100.030(1): "professional service" means any type of personal service to the public which requires as a condition precedent to the rendering of such service the obtaining of a license or other legal authorization and which prior to the passage of the chapter and by reason of law could not be performed by a corporation, "including, but not by way of limitation, certified public accountants, chiropractors, dentists, osteopaths, physicians, podiatric physicians and surgeons, chiropodists, architects, veterinarians and attorneys-at-law" (RCW 25.15.006(16) adopts this definition for the LLC Act). RCW 25.15.046(1) opens the PLLC to a person or group duly licensed or otherwise legally authorized to render the same professional services in the state. Registered architects and registered engineers may render their services through one professional service corporation (RCW 18.100.050(2)), and health care professionals licensed under the chapters listed in RCW 18.100.050(5)(a) are treated as rendering the "same specific professional services". RCW 25.15.046(6) sets out which entities may themselves be members of a PLLC.
Washington also offers a corporation under a professional statute
A practice choosing between the two forms is choosing between these rules and the ones above.
What creates it in Washington
Chapter 18.100 RCW, Professional service corporations: definitions at RCW 18.100.030, organization at RCW 18.100.050. The corporation itself is organized under Title 23B RCW.
What the name must contain
RCW 23.95.305(1)(b). The name of a professional service corporation must contain either the words "professional service" or "professional corporation" or the abbreviation "P.S." or "P.C." It may also contain "corporation," "incorporated," "company," or "limited," or the abbreviation "Corp.," "Inc.," "Co.," or "Ltd." The name of a professional service corporation organized to render dental services must contain the full names or surnames of all shareholders and no other word than "chartered" or the words "professional services" or the abbreviation "P.S." or "P.C."
Does the agent requirement differ from an ordinary Washington LLC’s?
No. Washington sets no separate agent requirement for a professional entity — it is the same requirement an ordinary Washington LLC files under.
The PLLC uses Washington's ordinary registered agent regime under RCW 23.95.415: the Certificate of Formation – Professional LLC and the online instructions give the same commercial or noncommercial agent choice, the same signed consent, the same required agent email address, and the same requirement of a physical street address in Washington with no PO boxes and no PMBs.
What else Washington requires
RCW 25.15.046(3): where the members must be licensed, the PLLC must maintain for itself and its members practising in Washington professional liability insurance, a bond or other evidence of financial responsibility of a kind the state insurance commissioner designates by rule, in at least the amount the statute itself fixes or any greater amount the commissioner sets by rule for a profession or specialty. If it does not, the members are personally liable to the extent the cover would have applied. The Secretary of State publishes a separate Certificate of Formation – Professional LLC form (revised 6.2025) and a separate online PLLC filing path in CCFS.
Verified against the Washington Secretary of State, Corporations & Charities Division (www.sos.wa.gov/corporations-charities/business-entities/limited-liability-company-llc-professional-llc-pllc-filing-resource-page) · Statute text: app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=25.15.046 · Last updated November 2026. Washington only — the rules in this cluster differ by jurisdiction, and this page speaks for no other.