A limited liability company (LLC) is a business structure in the U.S. that protects its owners from personal responsibility for its debts or liabilities. Limited liability companies are hybrid entities that combine the characteristics of a corporation with those of a partnership or sole proprietorship.
In this session, Attorney Thomas B. Burton answers the following question: Can Two LLCs Have the Same Address?
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Hello, I'm Attorney Thomas Burton and today's question is the following:
"Can two LLC's have the same address?"
Here in Wisconsin, it is permissible for two LLC's to have the same address and one reason, I'll point out for this is, if you take a look at the statutes here, Wisconsin statute 183.0105 says, 'Registered office and registered agent - each limited liability company shall continuously maintain in this state, a registered office and a registered agent.'
Notice it says in this state, so it must be in Wisconsin.
'The registered office may but need not be the same as any of its places of business.' So you could be out of state, as your principal plays a business, but you still need to have a registered office in the state of Wisconsin.
'Except as provided in 165.68 some five sub f sub one, the registered agent shall be one of the following -
A. natural person who resides in the state and whose business office is identical with the registered office.
B. a domestic corporation limited liability company, limited partnership, limited liability partnership or corporation organized in this state or that has in effect a statement of qualification under section 178.0901 whose business office is identical with the registered office.
C. it can be a foreign corporation etc. registered in the state or and then under sub 2, a limited liability company may change its registered office or agent by doing any of the following which is delivering to the department of finance institutions, the statement of change and check out the full statute 183.0105 there but I read you the statute because I think this question is saying, contemplating, can a person have two LLC's for example and use the same office address or the same home address for them both and yes, there's nothing in the statutes saying you have to have separate business or street addresses for separate LLCs.
Now what you should do is maintain separate books and records and bank accounts for each LLC in order to maintain the limited liability protection of one from the other but let's say, you're using your home address as the address for both. That doesn't mean that you can't have two LLC's and the reason I'll give for that is, if you see in the statute here, you can name another company to be registered agent and office for your LLC. It says a registered agent can be a domestic corporation limited liability company etc. and it's common, there's a business out there, where people offer registered agent services and you can hire that business to be the registered agent for your LLC, especially, if you're an out of state company and you're trying to operate in Wisconsin and I know in lots of communities and in Madison, if you just Google registered agent services, they will offer you that service for a fee and they have the same address. There can be multiple different LLC's owned by different members, using that same street address as the registered agent service.
There's nothing legally preventing, that says you have to have different office addresses for different LLC's but it's a practical matter, if your question is about can I, as one person, have an LLC that does this and an LLC that does a different line of business and I want to keep them legally distinct, yes, and can I still use my one office or my one home address as that address, the answer is yes, it's more about are you on the backend, maintaining separate operating agreements, separate books and records, separate tax returns and separate bank accounts for the two LLC's. So in the event of a lawsuit or some other mishap, you could prove that they were separate and distinct individual entities.
That would be the test there but in terms of just using the same home or office address for two LLC's, this is allowed and I've seen it happen in practice and again, it happens when someone hires the same or multiple businesses hire one registered agent to serve as a registered agent. They're going to have that same mailing address in the state of Wisconsin.
So great question and thank you for asking, thank you for tuning in and we'll see you next time.
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