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.
Stucco and sun on one side of the metro, fog and older wood on the other. Salt air near the water changes the promise. Lead-safe rules still apply in pre-1978 interiors. Read them. Do not invent a local exemption. In San Jose, the housing decides the visit: ranch houses and newer infill, ADUs, slabs and some crawl spaces, and remodels driven by people adding circuits more than adding bedrooms. The weather on the truck is mild wet winters, dry warm summers, drought, earthquake risk, and wildfire smoke that sometimes sits on the valley. Willow Glen, Almaden, and Santa Clara are worth naming only when they are real stops. Sunnyvale and Cupertino are a different drive until you can reach them the same day. City of San Jose permits is the local counter to ask when the job needs a permit or a city registration. This page names that office. It does not invent a fee. Willow Glen is an older house. Almaden, Santa Clara, Sunnyvale, and Cupertino are different drives and often different permit cities. Say which ones are on the route. ADUs and EV chargers are ordinary asks, not a trend sentence. Customers compare license numbers and whether you will pull a San Jose permit. A San Francisco page that mentions the South Bay in the footer is not local.
ranch houses and newer infill, ADUs, slabs and some crawl spaces, and remodels driven by people adding circuits more than adding bedrooms mild wet winters, dry warm summers, drought, earthquake risk, and wildfire smoke that sometimes sits on the valley Interior and exterior as different seasons, with the prep named. In San Jose, CA, list Willow Glen and Cupertino together only if one crew really covers both.
Start the route in Willow Glen, Almaden, and Santa Clara. Add Sunnyvale and Cupertino when you can reach them the same day. Customers compare license numbers and whether you will pull a San Jose permit. A San Francisco page that mentions the South Bay in the footer is not local.
The California guide has the filing office and the LLC fee we could verify ($70 to file). 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.
$500 in free advertising when you launch
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 progresspainter names that work here are plain. Use one you can spell from a driveway in Willow Glen.
Search it at the California Secretary of State before you order magnets. The voicemail, the invoice, and the Google profile should use that spelling.
Painters often start as sole proprietors and form an LLC when the jobs get larger than a few rooms or when a general contractor wants a company on the certificate. Either is a real start. The LLC filing does not decide whether a city wants a home-improvement registration. Read that separately. Ask an accountant if you are hiring painters as employees and still thinking of them as subcontractors.
California Government Code section 12190 sets the fee for filing articles of organization at $70, and the fee for the statement of information at $20. The Secretary of State's LLC-1 cover sheet also says an LLC may have to pay a minimum $800 tax to the Franchise Tax Board. Read the Franchise Tax Board page before you treat $70 as the whole cost. A sole proprietorship can still be you, under your own name, without this filing. The fee is not a suggestion to form an LLC.
If your customers are in San Jose, the registered-agent address still has to satisfy California. 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.
Check the contractor or home-improvement board for painting, and read any project-cost threshold on that site. Exterior repairs that go past paint can be a different license. Ask the city about a business license either way.
State page: California Contractors State License Board. Read this page for your trade. A city or county can require its own registration even when the state does not.
City of San Jose permits is the local counter for work in San Jose. 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 painter has to register before the first job in Almaden.
The California guide has the longer license note for this trade, including the official pages we could verify.
General liability for overspray, floors, and a ladder falling the wrong way. If you spray, say so to the insurer. Commercial auto when the van carries ladders and paint as the business. Workers' compensation before a second painter is on a ladder. A certificate is a normal request from a contractor who hired you for the interior.
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 San Jose.
Deposits on paint and the final check should hit a business account. Material stores will put the company name on the receipt if the card matches. Keep the deposit schedule on the proposal so you are not funding a whole interior on a personal card.
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 interior and exterior separately. Rooms or elevation, occupied or empty, and what prep includes: caulk, patch, sand, primer. Color advice is optional. Prep is the job. Cabinets are their own price.
Climate decides when exterior paint will fail and when you can apply it. Build dry time into the schedule. Do not quote a whole exterior from photos without asking about the surface: stucco, wood, brick, or previously painted siding.
mild wet winters, dry warm summers, drought, earthquake risk, and wildfire smoke that sometimes sits on the valley ranch houses and newer infill, ADUs, slabs and some crawl spaces, and remodels driven by people adding circuits more than adding bedrooms That is why a price copied from another metro will miss. Interior and exterior as different seasons, with the prep named. In San Jose, CA, list Willow Glen and Cupertino together only if one crew really covers both.
Write the price you want for the common job in Willow Glen and the price you want for a far stop in Cupertino. If the second number is not worth the drive, leave Cupertino off the service area.
Claim the Google Business Profile for San Jose, CA. Set hours you answer. The service area should list Willow Glen, Almaden, and Santa Clara 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 Sunnyvale helps the next search. A review that says 'great service' does not.
Google Business Profile with photos of your own edges and the neighborhoods you work. Reviews should say interior or exterior and the area. The website splits those services and the form asks for rooms or elevation and timing. ServiceBase turns that into a public page and a list of requests.
When the name and the phone are real, create the free painter site with San Jose already filled in. Quote requests land in your list. The site does not replace City of San Jose permits.
$500 in free advertising when you launch
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 California Secretary of State, get the free EIN from the IRS, read the license page (California Contractors State License Board), call City of San Jose permits, insure the work, open a business account, and publish a page that names Willow Glen and the jobs you want. Interior and exterior as different seasons, with the prep named.
Check the contractor or home-improvement board for painting, and read any project-cost threshold on that site. Exterior repairs that go past paint can be a different license. Ask the city about a business license either way. Start at the California Contractors State License Board. Then ask City of San Jose permits what the city adds.
Price interior and exterior separately. Rooms or elevation, occupied or empty, and what prep includes: caulk, patch, sand, primer. Color advice is optional. Prep is the job. Cabinets are their own price. mild wet winters, dry warm summers, drought, earthquake risk, and wildfire smoke that sometimes sits on the valley Time the first ten jobs in Willow Glen and Santa Clara 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 painter and San Jose filled in so you are not retyping them.
California filing and license · Free painter website in San Jose, CA · All trades in San Jose, CA
Prefer a one-time score? The AI visibility checklist stays in this browser. It is not emailed.