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.
Seattle landscaping is drainage, moss, and evergreens. A weekly Bermuda route does not exist here in any honest form. Ballard and West Seattle lots need water moved away from foundations. Bellevue and Kirkland are a different city permit and often a more managed bed. Moss on walks and roofs is adjacent to your work even when you are not the roofer. Photos should look wet and green for the right reasons, with mulch and ferns, not a desert or a Midwest sod job.
mid-century houses, damp crawl spaces, steep lots, and newer eastside homes with different permit cities months of rain, moss, a mild winter, and heat events that exposed how many houses have no real cooling Drainage help, moss and bed care, evergreen pruning, and maintenance routes that respect the bridge.
Start the route in Ballard, West Seattle, and Beacon Hill. Add Bellevue and Kirkland when you can reach them the same day. People hire for moisture control as much as for the trade name. They want to know you have seen moss, rot, and a wet crawl space.
The Washington guide has the filing office. This page is the local version: what the first jobs are, which permit counter to call, and how to price a day here.
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 progresslandscaper names that work here are plain. Use one you can spell from a driveway in Ballard.
Search it at the Washington Secretary of State before you order magnets. The voicemail, the invoice, and the Google profile should use that spelling.
A lot of mowing routes start as a sole proprietorship because the owner is the crew. That can be you, operating under your own name, with no formation filing. An LLC is a state filing and a separate company on paper. It does not license you, and it does not replace insurance. Form the LLC when you are hiring, signing HOA contracts, or buying equipment in the company name. If you are unsure which one fits, ask an accountant before you pay a filing fee. This page is not that advice.
We do not have a filing fee for Washington that we are willing to print. The Washington Secretary of State publishes it. Sole proprietors who operate under their own name often skip this filing. Confirm that on the same site.
If your customers are in Seattle, the registered-agent address still has to satisfy Washington. Read the filing office's rule. A neighbor's kitchen table is not always an acceptable address.
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.
Confirm whether mowing itself is on the state license list. Then check irrigation, pesticide application, and the city business license as separate questions. Advertising a service the board licenses, before you hold that license, is how a new route gets shut down.
State page: Washington contractor registration. Read this page for your trade. A city or county can require its own registration even when the state does not.
Seattle and Washington State permits is the local counter for work in Seattle. We are naming that office, not linking a fee schedule we have not read. Call them or open the city's own site and ask what a new landscaper has to register before the first job in West Seattle.
The Washington guide has the longer license note for this trade, including the official pages we could verify.
General liability before the mower goes onto someone else's grass. Commercial auto if a truck or trailer is part of the work, because a personal auto policy often excludes business use. If anyone rides along or runs a trimmer for you, ask about workers' compensation before they start. HOAs and realtors ask for a certificate sooner than a homeowner does. Keep a PDF you can send the same day.
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 Seattle.
Open a checking account in the business name once the tax ID is real. Deposit route money there, and move a slice of every paid week into a separate savings bucket for taxes and repairs. Equipment payments and personal groceries in the same account make April miserable. A local credit union is a valid choice. So is an online business account, if you can deposit checks without driving across the metro.
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.
Price the stop, not a number you saw in a national forum. Time on the property, drive time between stops you already have, dump fees, and whether irrigation or a cleanup is included. A weekly cut on a small fenced yard and a bed rebuild are different jobs. Write three numbers before you need them: the route stop, the half-day cleanup, and the job you will refer.
Heat, watering limits, and HOA rules change how many stops fit in a day. A price copied from a mild climate under-prices a summer route. Adjust the three numbers after ten real invoices, not after one nervous conversation in a driveway.
months of rain, moss, a mild winter, and heat events that exposed how many houses have no real cooling mid-century houses, damp crawl spaces, steep lots, and newer eastside homes with different permit cities That is why a price copied from another metro will miss. Drainage help, moss and bed care, evergreen pruning, and maintenance routes that respect the bridge.
Write the price you want for the common job in Ballard and the price you want for a far stop in Kirkland. If the second number is not worth the drive, leave Kirkland off the service area.
Claim the Google Business Profile for Seattle, WA. Set hours you answer. The service area should list Ballard, West Seattle, and Beacon Hill if those are real stops, and it should leave off towns you will not drive.
Ask for a review after a clean job, and ask them to mention the neighborhood and the task. A review that says the work and Bellevue helps the next search. A review that says 'great service' does not.
Claim the Google Business Profile in the business name, with the hours you actually answer and a service area made of towns you drive. Ask for a review only after a clean visit, and ask the customer to name the neighborhood and the work. Publish a one-page site that splits mowing from irrigation and cleanup, and put a form on it that asks for the address and whether they want a route or a one-time rescue. ServiceBase does that page and files the requests in a list. It does not get the license or the insurance.
When the name and the phone are real, create the free landscaper site with Seattle already filled in. Quote requests land in your list. The site does not replace Seattle and Washington State permits.
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Signup asks for an email and a password. No card. This guide opens the next step with the trade and city filled in. You can change every line after.
Pick the service you can finish, search the name at the Washington Secretary of State, get the free EIN from the IRS, read the license page (Washington contractor registration), call Seattle and Washington State permits, insure the work, open a business account, and publish a page that names Ballard and the jobs you want. Drainage help, moss and bed care, evergreen pruning, and maintenance routes that respect the bridge.
Confirm whether mowing itself is on the state license list. Then check irrigation, pesticide application, and the city business license as separate questions. Advertising a service the board licenses, before you hold that license, is how a new route gets shut down. Start at the Washington contractor registration. Then ask Seattle and Washington State permits what the city adds.
Price the stop, not a number you saw in a national forum. Time on the property, drive time between stops you already have, dump fees, and whether irrigation or a cleanup is included. A weekly cut on a small fenced yard and a bed rebuild are different jobs. Write three numbers before you need them: the route stop, the half-day cleanup, and the job you will refer. months of rain, moss, a mild winter, and heat events that exposed how many houses have no real cooling Time the first ten jobs in Ballard and Beacon Hill before you copy a price from another city.
You can draft it. Put it in public under the name you will actually use, with the phone you answer. If the state requires the license before you advertise the work, wait. The free ServiceBase site does not file the company. Signup can open with landscaper and Seattle filled in so you are not retyping them.
Washington filing and license · Free landscaper website in Seattle, WA · All trades in Seattle, WA
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