Get a DBA for an LLC in Florida: No-Nonsense Guide

What Is a DBA?

To begin, let’s quickly run down what exactly a DBA is. One point of confusion we often hear about is that a DBA is not a business entity, like an LLC, corporation, sole proprietorship, general partnership, etc. Instead, you can think of a DBA as an add-on feature of sorts.

The DBA allows you to create alternate business names for your entity, which you can then use interchangeably with your LLC’s official business name. In addition, for informal business entities that don’t have exclusive business names (like sole proprietorships and general partnerships), a DBA can be a great way to inject some additional professionalism into a business venture.

But let’s talk strictly about LLCs, shall we? Why would an LLC want an additional business name? There are several potential reasons, although they obviously vary considerably depending on what your business does. One popular reason is to differentiate a new product line from a company’s existing offerings.

Let’s say that you own a business called “Fine Footwear, LLC” that produces high-end shoes. If you decide to also start a new product line that sells inexpensive flip-flop sandals, you might want a way to differentiate this brand from your core business. In this circumstance, you could register a DBA for “Flip-Flops by Fine Footwear,” and you can use this name to market your new products, while your original product line remains unaffected if your sandal side business fails.

It could also be helpful if you decide to expand your local business into a new market. For instance, if you own a Florida-based plumbing business called “Miami Plumbing,” and you want to expand beyond Miami, you can register a DBA for “Orlando Plumbing” and use that name in the Orlando market.

The state of Florida provides no exclusivity for DBA holders, which means that if someone else wants to use your name as their own, there’s nothing you can do to stop them. This is why we’re not big fans of getting DBAs in this state and usually prefer to form a new LLC to acquire exclusive rights to the new name. That said, if you still want a DBA, we’ll walk you through the process below.

How to Get a DBA for a Florida LLC

First off, we’ll note that Florida often refers to DBAs as “fictitious names,” so for the purposes of this article, we’ll continue to use both terms interchangeably because most states use the term “DBA.”

The process for obtaining a DBA in Florida starts with a business name availability check to ensure that the name you want isn’t already registered by an LLC or corporation. After that, we’ll jump ahead to filling out the application form, which is called the Application for Registration of Fictitious Name.

This form requires the DBA name you wish to register, your business mailing address, the county where your principal place of business is located, your federal tax ID number (EIN), the official business name of your LLC, your signature, your email address, and your phone number.

When you’re ready to file this form, you can submit it to the Department of State online, by mail, or in person. You will also need to pay your $50 filing fee. Florida does not provide estimated turnaround times for this filing. Instead, they merely say that your application will be processed “in the order received.”

The state also used to have a publication requirement for DBAs, which required you to advertise your new fictitious name in a newspaper in your county at least once. Florida recently got rid of this requirement, but they didn’t actually update all of their state websites to reflect this fact, so you’ll often come across pages like this one that indicate this requirement still exists. Feel free to simply ignore the state’s badly outdated websites on this point.

In Conclusion

The doing business as (DBA) name varies more from state to state than most other business filings. In some states, a DBA grants you exclusive rights to your new trade name, but in states like Florida, that simply isn’t the case. Due to this lack of exclusivity, we’re not fans of registering DBAs in this state.

Instead, it’s probably a better option to form an additional LLC if you want to be able to use multiple names for your business. This is certainly more of a hassle that registering a DBA, but at least you’ll have exclusive rights to your name.

If you’re looking for a new way to market your LLC in Florida, a DBA might not be the best idea.