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.
Book the kind of job you can prep well with the tools you have. Interiors in occupied houses are a different calendar from empty move-outs and from exteriors. Pick one for the first month and write the other as a waitlist. In North Carolina the first customers are in Charlotte, Raleigh. Charlotte painting follows new homeowners and HOA exteriors in Huntersville and Matthews, plus older interiors in NoDa and Plaza Midwood. Pollen, humidity, and a mix of old wood, brick, and new hardboard siding.
North Carolina summers are humid, winters are milder than the Northeast with ice now and then, and the Piedmont is growing quickly. Red clay and crawl spaces are common. The general-contractor threshold is not the license for every trade.
File an LLC with the North Carolina Secretary of State. We do not have a filing fee for North Carolina that we are willing to print. The North Carolina Secretary of State 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 progressChoose a name that fits on a proposal and a shirt. Search the state and the city. Interior and exterior can live under one name if you are honest about which one you are booking this month. The voicemail should say it.
Search that name at the North Carolina Secretary of State before you print shirts. Use the same spelling on the truck and on a quote in Charlotte.
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.
We do not have a filing fee for North Carolina that we are willing to print. The North Carolina Secretary of State 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 North Carolina licensing page we could verify is the North Carolina Licensing Board for General Contractors. Open it and read the part that names the work you will sell.
The board says a general contractor license is required when the project cost is at or above the threshold on its site. Read that page. Other trades have their own boards.
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.
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 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 North Carolina.
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.
Charlotte: humid summers, mild winters, pine pollen, and storms that drop limbs and leak through flashing HOA exteriors, interior repaints, and a town boundary. Raleigh: humid summers, mild winters with the occasional ice storm, heavy pine pollen, and red clay Interior and exterior as different seasons, with the prep named. In Raleigh, NC, list North Hills and Holly Springs together only if one crew really covers both.
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.
In Charlotte, Raleigh, 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 North Carolina that we are willing to print. The North Carolina Secretary of State publishes it. Sole proprietors who operate under their own name often skip this filing. Confirm that on the same site.
The North Carolina licensing page we could verify is the North Carolina Licensing Board for General Contractors. Open it and read the part that names the work you will sell. The board says a general contractor license is required when the project cost is at or above the threshold on its site. Read that page. Other trades have their own boards.
Start where you can reach the stops in a day. The city guides cover Charlotte, Raleigh. New residents compare quotes from phones. 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 painting business steps · Painting website guide
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