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.
Older supply lines, strapped water heaters, and repipes are the everyday work. A freeze-pipe homepage will bounce. Earthquakes and older piping belong in the copy more than snow. In San Francisco, the housing decides the visit: Victorians and multi-unit buildings on hills, soft stories, small garages, and a lot of houses that still treat central air as optional. The weather on the truck is marine fog, a mild wet winter, dry summers, almost no freeze, and earthquakes that changed how houses are braced. Sunset, Noe Valley, and Richmond District are worth naming only when they are real stops. Oakland and Daly City are a different drive until you can reach them the same day. San Francisco Department of Building Inspection 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. Oakland and Daly City are not San Francisco permits. Hills, parking, and stairs are part of the price. Write the cities you will actually drive, and do not describe a suburban garage-door route as the default job. Access is the objection. A page that claims the whole Bay without saying which bridge you cross will not get the call from the far side.
Victorians and multi-unit buildings on hills, soft stories, small garages, and a lot of houses that still treat central air as optional marine fog, a mild wet winter, dry summers, almost no freeze, and earthquakes that changed how houses are braced Leak repair, water heaters, and the drain or sewer work you can finish. In San Francisco, CA, list Sunset and Daly City together only if one crew really covers both.
Start the route in Sunset, Noe Valley, and Richmond District. Add Oakland and Daly City when you can reach them the same day. Access is the objection. A page that claims the whole Bay without saying which bridge you cross will not get the call from the far side.
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.
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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 progressplumber names that work here are plain. Use one you can spell from a driveway in Sunset.
Search it at the California Secretary of State before you order magnets. The voicemail, the invoice, and the Google profile should use that spelling.
You can start as a sole proprietor if the state lets the license sit in your own name. Form an LLC when you want the company on the license, the van, and the bank account, and when the board's qualifier rules allow it. Read those rules first. An LLC does not authorize an apprentice to pull permits. File with the state before you apply for an EIN if you are forming the company.
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 Francisco, 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.
Read the plumbing board for the exam, the hours, and who may pull a permit. Then check the city for water-heater and sewer permits. The license number belongs on the site next to the phone.
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.
San Francisco Department of Building Inspection permits is the local counter for work in San Francisco. 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 plumber has to register before the first job in Noe Valley.
The California guide has the longer license note for this trade, including the official pages we could verify.
General liability that names plumbing, including water damage. Commercial auto for the van. Workers' compensation before a second person is in a crawl space or an attic. A water-heater job can become a claim weeks later, so ask the insurer about completed operations and keep the certificate current.
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 Francisco.
Parts houses and permit fees belong on the business account. Emergency work pays in bursts. Move tax money the day the deposit clears so a slow week does not spend it. The account name should match the name on the invoice you text the customer.
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.
Publish a service-call or diagnostic price, and quote the repair after you see it. Drains, water heaters, slab leaks, and fixtures are different visits. Say whether after-hours is a real dispatch or the next morning.
The housing decides the price more than a national rate sheet. An attic heater, a boiler, a stack in a rowhouse, and a slab leak are not one line item. Name the one you want, and refer the one you do not.
marine fog, a mild wet winter, dry summers, almost no freeze, and earthquakes that changed how houses are braced Victorians and multi-unit buildings on hills, soft stories, small garages, and a lot of houses that still treat central air as optional That is why a price copied from another metro will miss. Leak repair, water heaters, and the drain or sewer work you can finish. In San Francisco, CA, list Sunset and Daly City together only if one crew really covers both.
Write the price you want for the common job in Sunset and the price you want for a far stop in Daly City. If the second number is not worth the drive, leave Daly City off the service area.
Claim the Google Business Profile for San Francisco, CA. Set hours you answer. The service area should list Sunset, Noe Valley, and Richmond District 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 Oakland helps the next search. A review that says 'great service' does not.
Google Business Profile with the license and the neighborhoods you will drive at night. Reviews that say 'slab leak in Meyerland' are worth more than 'great guy.' The website names the failures, and the form asks what is leaking and whether water is still moving. ServiceBase files that request so you can call it back when you are out from under a house.
When the name and the phone are real, create the free plumber site with San Francisco already filled in. Quote requests land in your list. The site does not replace San Francisco Department of Building Inspection 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 California Secretary of State, get the free EIN from the IRS, read the license page (California Contractors State License Board), call San Francisco Department of Building Inspection permits, insure the work, open a business account, and publish a page that names Sunset and the jobs you want. Leak repair, water heaters, and the drain or sewer work you can finish.
Read the plumbing board for the exam, the hours, and who may pull a permit. Then check the city for water-heater and sewer permits. The license number belongs on the site next to the phone. Start at the California Contractors State License Board. Then ask San Francisco Department of Building Inspection permits what the city adds.
Publish a service-call or diagnostic price, and quote the repair after you see it. Drains, water heaters, slab leaks, and fixtures are different visits. Say whether after-hours is a real dispatch or the next morning. marine fog, a mild wet winter, dry summers, almost no freeze, and earthquakes that changed how houses are braced Time the first ten jobs in Sunset and Richmond District 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 plumber and San Francisco filled in so you are not retyping them.
California filing and license · Free plumber website in San Francisco, CA · All trades in San Francisco, CA
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