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.
The season is short and the demand is real: installs in November, a maintenance window in December, and takedowns in January. Sell the route you can finish with the ladder you own. The rest of the year the same crew can power-wash winter film off the siding, or run a landscaping route once the clips are back in the bins. Publish the off-season service only if it is real. A lighting page that pretends to be a twelve-month electrical contractor attracts the wrong calls. A lighting page that says you are back in spring with a pressure washer or a mower gives the customer a reason to keep the number. In District of Columbia the first customers are in Washington. A rowhouse and a suburban two-story do not share a ladder plan.
The District is rowhouses, condos, humid summers, and cold winters. A DC registration does not license work in Maryland or Virginia. Name the jurisdiction. Flat roofs, stacks, and parking belong in the estimate.
File an LLC with the DC Department of Licensing and Consumer Protection. We do not have a filing fee for District of Columbia that we are willing to print. The DC Department of Licensing and Consumer Protection publishes it. Sole proprietors who operate under their own name often skip this filing. Confirm that on the same site.
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 progressPick a name that says lights, so a November call does not land on an electrician who does not hang them, or a landscaper who stopped in October. Search the state filing office and the city. Short enough to print on a bin. Use the same spelling on the invoice, the voicemail, and the Google profile. Homeowners book the company that sounds like it will come back in January.
Search that name at the DC Department of Licensing and Consumer Protection before you print shirts. Use the same spelling on the truck and on a quote in Washington.
A seasonal lighting route often starts as a sole proprietorship because the owner is the person on the ladder. An LLC is a reasonable filing when you hire a helper, when a storefront wants a certificate, or when you want the deposit account in a company name. The filing does not make you an electrician. Read the electrical board before you advertise anything with a wire in the wall. This page is not legal advice.
We do not have a filing fee for District of Columbia that we are willing to print. The DC Department of Licensing and Consumer Protection publishes it. Sole proprietors who operate under their own name often skip this filing. Confirm that on the same site.
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 District of Columbia licensing page we could verify is the DC Department of Licensing and Consumer Protection. Open it and read the part that names the work you will sell.
The same department handles business registration and many occupational licenses. Read the page for your trade.
Read the electrical board far enough to see whether temporary holiday lighting is on it. Get the city business license. Refer new circuits, hardwired sockets, and panel work. Ask the HOA or condo before you attach anything, and put the takedown date on the quote.
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 before you are on a ladder or a roof. Tell the insurer you install temporary seasonal lighting, and say whether you step on the roof. A fall, a damaged shingle, and a trip of the breaker are the claims to describe. Commercial auto if the van is how you move ladders and storage bins between houses, because a personal policy often excludes business use. Workers' compensation before a second person is on a ladder. You are not an electrician because you own a spool of outdoor lights. If the job needs a new circuit, refer it and say so on the page.
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 District of Columbia.
November deposits and January takedown payments should hit a business account, not a personal card you used for clips in October. The season is short, so the money looks like a bonus until storage, fuel, and the helper's days come out of it. Note which address paid for install and which still owes the takedown. Set tax money aside in December, before the quiet months feel broke.
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.
Treat these as typical planning estimates, not a price list. A one-story roofline with a few shrubs is often discussed in a broad range, commonly a few hundred dollars to install, with takedown priced as its own visit in January. A two-story house, a long ridge, a tall tree, or a commercial storefront is a different day. Custom design and a December maintenance call are extra lines. Do not copy a national per-foot number onto your city. Write three numbers from your own hours: the install, the takedown, and the job you will refer because it needs an electrician.
Roof pitch, stories, and the distance between houses change the day more than the bulb count. A price that assumes a clear, dry, one-story ranch will lose money on a wet two-story or a tile roof you should not walk. Adjust after you have timed ten real installs. Say on the quote whether the timer and the January visit are included.
Washington: humid summers, cold winters, nor'easters, and freeze-thaw that opens brick, flat roofs, and old masonry Roofline and landscape lighting as separate installs, a December check if you offer it, and a January takedown. In Washington, DC, list Capitol Hill and Silver Spring together only if one crew really covers both.
Open the Google Business Profile in early fall, before the street is booked. Photos should be of houses you have actually clipped in this climate, taken down to the outlet and the clip, not a catalog of indoor trees. Reviews should say install or takedown and the neighborhood. The website splits rooflines from trees, names the story limit, and says a new circuit is referred. The form asks for stories, roofline or landscape, and whether an outdoor outlet already exists. ServiceBase publishes the page and keeps the requests. It does not pull an electrical permit.
In Washington, 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.
We do not have a filing fee for District of Columbia that we are willing to print. The DC Department of Licensing and Consumer Protection publishes it. Sole proprietors who operate under their own name often skip this filing. Confirm that on the same site.
The District of Columbia licensing page we could verify is the DC Department of Licensing and Consumer Protection. Open it and read the part that names the work you will sell. The same department handles business registration and many occupational licenses. Read the page for your trade.
Start where you can reach the stops in a day. The city guides cover Washington. Owners, condo boards, and property managers hire differently. 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 Christmas light installation business steps · Holiday lighting website guide
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