Form a Holding Company, for free.
A holding company is a parent LLC formed to own things: your operating businesses, your intellectual property, your real estate. It doesn't sell to customers. It holds the valuable assets above the risk, so a lawsuit against the business that operates can't reach what the holding company owns. We form it in your state at no service cost.
Right now, your best assets sit in the same box as your riskiest work.
Your brand, your patents, the building you own, the cash you've built up: they're all inside the same company that signs customer contracts, employs people, and can be sued. One bad claim against the operating side can reach every valuable thing you own. A holding company moves the assets up a level, above the risk, so the part that gets sued isn't the part that holds the value. You don't need to design the whole structure yourself. You need one clear path.
The first question that shapes the structure: what belongs up top, and what stays below?
What a holding company separates: and how the wall works.
A holding company is an LLC that owns other things rather than operating itself. Below it sit the parts that take on risk: the operating company that deals with customers and staff. Above it live the assets worth protecting: intellectual property, real estate, equipment, retained cash. Because the operating company is a separate entity that the holding company merely owns, a lawsuit against the operating business generally stops at that company's own assets and can't climb up to reach what the parent holds. It's a structure for keeping what you've built out of reach of the risks you take to build it.
- You own, or will own, more than one business and want them under a single parent.
- You want to keep valuable IP or real estate separate from the company that operates and gets sued.
- You're building an asset base: retained profit, equipment, or property worth protecting.
- You want a clean structure to bring in partners at the parent level or plan a future sale.
- You have one business with no separate assets worth walling off: a standard LLC is enough.
- You don't yet have subsidiaries or valuable IP to hold above the operating company.
- You want the simplest possible setup and can add a holding layer later as you grow.
- You mainly want privacy rather than layering: look at an anonymous LLC.
The detail that makes the protection real: a holding company only shields what it owns if you respect the separation. The operating company signs its own contracts, keeps its own books and bank account, and pays the holding company for what it licenses or rents, at arm's length. Commingle the money or run everything through one account and a court can pierce the whole structure, treating parent and subsidiary as one. Formed and run correctly, the layers hold; run sloppily, they collapse.
Going with a holding company? Settle two things first.
The two calls that stall founders: your name, and your state.
Make both right here. No signup, no guesswork: real 2026 filing numbers, and names you can check on the spot. Wyoming and Delaware are popular homes for a holding company.
Find a name that fits.
Type a word or two about what the parent will hold. We'll spark a set of ideas, then you can check any favorite live against state and USPTO records.
Holding companies often use "Holdings" or "Group" in the name. Run a favorite through the live availability check, or open the full name generator.
What will your holding company cost?
Our service fee is $0. You pay only what the state charges to file, at cost. A holding company files as a standard LLC; each subsidiary you form below is its own filing.
State fees are the government's charge, not ours. Full breakdown on the pricing page.
Name picked, state chosen. Now the handoff.
A clean handoff, in four steps.
You make four decisions. We file the parent, and set it up to own the businesses and assets that go beneath it.
Pick your state
Many holding companies form in Wyoming or Delaware for their low cost and strong protection. BosAI weighs that against where your assets and subsidiaries actually sit.
Confirm the parent's name
We check the parent's name against the state register and naming rules, then reserve it if you're not filing the same day.
Set members + structure
List who owns the parent, map what it will hold, and appoint a registered agent, included year 1. We plan the subsidiaries that go below.
We file it
We submit the parent's Articles of Organization and return the stamped approval: same-day in DE, NV, WY, and CO; a few business days elsewhere.
Then the part you're actually waiting for.
The moment your assets move above the risk.
Delaware, Nevada, Wyoming, and Colorado typically approve the same day or the next. Most other states run a few business days. We file the moment your details check out, so nothing bounces back over an avoidable error.
Meridian Holdings LLC
Parent LLC filed with the Secretary of State, ready to own your operating company, IP, and property. Specialist-reviewed before submission.
Lena separated her brand from her buildings.
She put her trademark and two rental units into the holding company, and kept the busy retail shop, the part with customers and staff, in a separate operating LLC below it. Now a slip in the shop can't reach the brand or the property. Two business days to file the parent, and the structure was live.
Approval is the start, not the finish. Here's your first 30 days.
What to do once it's filed, in order.
These turn a parent entity into a working structure that actually protects what it holds.
Get the parent's EIN
The holding company needs its own EIN to open a bank account and file taxes, and each subsidiary gets its own. It's free from the IRS, and we file the parent's the same day.
Adopt an Operating Agreement for the parent
It sets who owns the holding company and records that the parent owns the subsidiaries. This ownership chain is the backbone of the whole structure, so it needs to be written down, not assumed.
Form the subsidiaries below it
Create the operating company, and separate entities for IP or real estate, each owned by the holding company. A standard LLC is the usual building block. Keeping the risky operations in their own entity is what protects the assets above.
Open a separate bank account for each entity
The parent and every subsidiary need their own accounts and books. When the operating company pays the holding company rent or a license fee, it should move between real accounts at arm's length. Commingling is what lets a court collapse the layers.
Track each entity's annual report and BOI
The parent and each subsidiary keep their own good standing, so there are several dates to hit, not one. On federal BOI reporting: as of 2026, U.S.-formed LLCs are exempt. A compliance calendar tracks the whole family of entities. See who has to file →
You can do these one by one. Or hand the whole sequence to one team.
File once, or stay protected year-round.
- Parent LLC Articles of Organization filed
- Specialist review
- Operating Agreement template
- EIN walkthrough
- Everything in one-time
- Registered Agent year 1
- Annual report autopilot across entities
- 47-signal compliance monitoring
- Year-round protection, cancel anytime
State fees vary by jurisdiction and are passed through at cost. See full pricing →
And this is where most filing companies stop. We're just getting to the part that matters.
Your structure is now in place. Let's build everything that comes next.
Formation is one line in a much longer story. Every stage below already lives on one platform, so you're never starting over with a new provider.
Everything above happens inside File.Business: one platform, from your first entity to the day you sell the group. It's where you form your holding company, and where you run the whole structure.
The questions owners ask right before they file.
What's the difference between a holding company and an operating company?
An operating company does the work: it sells to customers, employs people, signs contracts, and therefore carries the risk of being sued. A holding company doesn't operate; it exists only to own things, including the operating company itself, plus assets like IP and real estate. Because the two are separate entities, a claim against the operating company generally stops at that company's assets and can't reach what the holding company owns above it. You typically want both: the holding company on top, the operating company doing business below.
Do I need subsidiaries before I form a holding company?
Not necessarily. Many founders form the holding company first, then create the operating company and any asset entities beneath it, all owned by the parent. Others already have an LLC and add a holding company above it, transferring their membership interest so the existing business becomes a subsidiary. Either order works. If you have valuable assets or more than one venture on the horizon, forming the parent early gives you a clean structure to build into rather than restructuring later.
How does a holding company actually protect my assets?
By keeping the assets in a different legal entity from the one that takes on risk. If your operating company is sued and loses, the creditor can pursue that company's assets, but not the property, IP, or cash held in the separate holding company that merely owns it, provided the two are genuinely kept apart. The protection is only as strong as that separation: separate books, separate bank accounts, contracts signed by the right entity, and arm's-length dealings between them. Run them as one and a court can pierce through.
Is a holding company taxed twice?
Usually not, when it's an LLC. A holding-company LLC is a pass-through by default, so income generally flows up to the owners and is taxed once on their personal returns, even as it moves between the subsidiaries and the parent. It's different if you use a corporation as the holding entity, which can add an entity-level layer. Because multi-entity structures affect how income and losses are reported, this is an area worth a CPA's review; we form the structure, and we'll point you to a tax professional for the return.
Can a holding company own an S-corporation?
This is a common trap. An S-corporation has strict rules about who can own it, and a multi-member LLC or another corporation generally cannot be an S-corp shareholder, so a typical holding company can't own one directly without breaking the election. There are specific structures that work, such as a single-member arrangement or a qualified subchapter S subsidiary, but they need care. If an S-corp is part of your plan, tell us up front so we structure the ownership in a way that keeps the election valid.
Where should I form my holding company?
Wyoming and Delaware are popular for holding companies because of low fees, strong charging-order protection, and privacy, and because a holding company that doesn't operate in a state often doesn't need to register there. That said, if the parent will hold real estate or actively manage subsidiaries in a particular state, forming or registering there can be simpler. We weigh the protection and cost of a state like Wyoming against where your assets and activity actually sit, so you don't end up registered in three states you didn't need.
Can my holding company be anonymous?
Often, yes. States like Wyoming, New Mexico, Delaware, and Nevada don't publish LLC member names, so a holding company formed there can keep its owners off the public record, which pairs naturally with the asset-protection goal. You can even layer an anonymous LLC as the parent. Privacy isn't the same as protection, though: keeping your name off a database doesn't replace real separation between entities. Used together, an anonymous, well-separated holding company gives you both.
Can a holding company own real estate directly?
It can, but the cleaner approach is usually to hold each property in its own subsidiary LLC owned by the holding company, so a claim tied to one building can't reach the others or the parent. That way the holding company owns the property entities rather than the properties themselves. For a portfolio of properties, this is also where a Series LLC can come in, giving you internal walls under one structure. We'll map whichever layout fits how many properties you hold and where.