Step by step. Official links included.
This is not legal, tax, or insurance advice. Read the official pages linked here. Partner offers are optional and labeled.
Start with springs, cables, and openers if that is the skill you have. Add door sales when you can order, permit if required, and warranty the install. Say you do not free a wound spring for a customer to 'just hold.' In Texas the first customers are in Austin, Houston, Dallas–Fort Worth, San Antonio, McAllen–Edinburg. Austin garage doors sit on hot slabs and get used as the front door. Houston garage doors rust, flood, and lose springs in humidity. Dallas–Fort Worth garage doors are a hail business and a spring business. San Antonio garage doors fail from heat and ordinary springs, with hail often enough to mention and not so constant that it is the only sentence. Valley garage doors take heat and wind.
Texas is several markets: Gulf humidity, north-Texas hail, a short freeze that still breaks pipes, and a Valley that almost never freezes. The license depends on the trade. City permits sit on top. Do not use one city page for the whole state.
File an LLC with the Texas Secretary of State business filings. The Form 205 instructions linked from the Texas Secretary of State list the certificate-of-formation filing fee. When those instructions were read for this site, the fee was $300. The same office says it cannot tell you which entity to choose. Open the instructions and confirm the number before you pay. A sole proprietorship can still be you, under your own name, without this filing. The fee is not a suggestion to form an LLC.
Some boxes are labeled Partner. ServiceBase has not joined those programs. The links go to each company's own homepage, not a tracking link. If a program later approves us, the address will change and we may earn a commission. You can file, insure, and bank anywhere. Official government links are not partner links. Nothing on this page is a discount code.
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The guide stays public. An account saves your state, city, and trade, and lets you mark each filing as you go. The advertising credit is reserved when you register. It can be spent after the free website is live.
Create a free account to track your progressUse a name that says garage doors, so a stranded driver can tell you from a general contractor. Search the state records. The name on the invoice should match the name on the spring you warranty. Keep it short enough for a voicemail.
Search that name at the Texas Secretary of State business filings before you print shirts. Use the same spelling on the truck and on a quote in Austin.
A sole proprietorship is a common start for a one-truck door company. An LLC makes sense before you sell full door replacements and take deposits. The formation does not decide the license. Read the contractor board for a door classification. Some states treat garage-door installation as a contractor trade and treat a spring repair as service. Read the page. Ask an accountant once deposits are large enough to matter.
The Form 205 instructions linked from the Texas Secretary of State list the certificate-of-formation filing fee. When those instructions were read for this site, the fee was $300. The same office says it cannot tell you which entity to choose. Open the instructions and confirm the number before you pay. A sole proprietorship can still be you, under your own name, without this filing. The fee is not a suggestion to form an LLC.
An employer identification number is the business tax ID. The IRS issues it online at no charge and says you never have to pay a company to get one. If you form an LLC, file with the state first. The IRS says an EIN application can stall when the state filing is not done. A sole proprietor can often start with a Social Security number and get an EIN when a bank or a hire requires it.
Apply on the IRS page if you want the number yourself. LegalZoom, the partner beside this step, can request it while they form the company. That service is optional. The IRS fee is still zero either way.
The Texas licensing page we could verify is the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation. Open it and read the part that names the work you will sell.
TDLR licenses some trades, including electricians and air-conditioning contractors. Its program list does not include a general landscaper license. Irrigation and pesticide work have their own offices below. Cities can still require a registration.
Look on the contractor board for a garage-door or installation classification, and for a dollar threshold a new door would cross. Spring repair may not be listed. Check the city registration too. Do not guess that 'no line on the page' means no rule.
Garage-door repair is not named in the TDLR programs we verified. Read the current list for an installation classification, and ask the city before you sell a full door replacement. Spring repair is still skilled work whether or not a license line exists. Tell the customer not to release a wound spring.
A city or county can require its own registration even when the state page is quiet. The city guides name the local permit counter. Call that office and write down what they say. Do not pay a third party that promises a license until you have read the official page.
General liability that you have described as garage-door work, including springs. Those injuries are serious. Commercial auto for the truck. Workers' compensation before a second person is on a ladder with a spring. A new-door deposit should not be taken until the certificate and the license question are settled.
Workers' compensation is a state program. Before anyone works with you, including a friend, ask an insurer and the state labor office whether you must carry it. This guide does not quote a headcount, because those rules differ and the state page is the source. The SBA page describes the common policies. It does not sell them. Buy the policy before you work in a house in Texas.
Parts and door deposits go in a business account. A spring repair is a small ticket. A new door is not. Keep those deposits identifiable so a cancelled order is refundable without a scramble through a personal account. Set tax money aside when a door job pays.
The bank will usually ask for your ID, the EIN or your Social Security number, and the formation papers if you filed an LLC. A checking account and a habit of setting tax money aside are enough at the start.
Write three prices: a spring or cable repair, an opener repair, and a new door. The first two are often same-day. The door is an estimate, an HOA approval in some suburbs, and a lead time. Say which is which.
A trapped car is a different schedule from a dented panel. Put that question on the form so you do not price them as the same visit. Include the trip in the repair price if you do not want to argue about a dispatch fee.
Austin: long summers that sit above 100°F, flash floods on dry ground, and a short cold snap that still breaks pipes Springs, openers, off-track repairs, and new doors where an HOA cares. Houston: Gulf humidity, hurricane season, and street flooding that reaches houses the maps called safe Springs, flood-damaged panels, openers, and replacements in the suburbs you serve. Dallas–Fort Worth: hail season, tornado warnings, 100°F summers, and the occasional ice storm Hail-panel replacement, springs, openers, and HOA-approved doors. San Antonio: long heat, limestone and clay, sudden rain, and watering rules tied to the Edwards Aquifer Springs, openers, hail panels when they happen, and same-day repairs if you offer them. McAllen–Edinburg: extreme heat, a mild winter, irrigation culture, and tropical wind and rain Springs, openers, wind-damaged panels, and a town-by-town Valley map.
Google Business Profile aimed at the neighborhoods that have driveways, not a downtown of street parking. Photos of doors you have hung in local subdivisions. Reviews that say spring, opener, or new door, and the area. The website separates those three and asks whether a car is trapped. ServiceBase files the request.
In Austin, Houston, Dallas–Fort Worth, San Antonio, McAllen–Edinburg, the profile, the reviews, and the site should name the neighborhoods you actually drive. ServiceBase publishes the page and keeps quote requests in a list on your account. No card. It does not file the LLC, get the EIN, or buy the insurance.
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Signup asks for an email and a password. No card. This guide opens the next step with the trade filled in. You can change every line after.
The Form 205 instructions linked from the Texas Secretary of State list the certificate-of-formation filing fee. When those instructions were read for this site, the fee was $300. The same office says it cannot tell you which entity to choose. Open the instructions and confirm the number before you pay. A sole proprietorship can still be you, under your own name, without this filing. The fee is not a suggestion to form an LLC.
The Texas licensing page we could verify is the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation. Open it and read the part that names the work you will sell. TDLR licenses some trades, including electricians and air-conditioning contractors. Its program list does not include a general landscaper license. Irrigation and pesticide work have their own offices below. Cities can still require a registration.
Start where you can reach the stops in a day. The city guides cover Austin, Houston, Dallas–Fort Worth, San Antonio, McAllen–Edinburg. Owners compare a local page with a Google profile and a marketplace lead. A statewide claim is a weak service area.
Yes. Use the IRS link in the steps if you want the number yourself. LegalZoom, the partner on the EIN step, can request it while they form the company. That service is optional. The IRS fee is still zero.
All garage door business steps · Garage door website guide
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