Doing Business As in Arizona: Trade Name Filing, Renewal, and Limits

To do business as another name in Arizona, you register a trade name with the Arizona Secretary of State. The filing costs $10, takes about three weeks to process, and lasts five years before you need to renew.¹ Registration is not legally required, but it puts your name on the public record and is often needed for practical steps like opening a business bank account or applying for local licenses.

Who Needs to File

Whether you need a trade name depends on your entity type and the name you want to use publicly.

LLCs, corporations, and limited partnerships already register their formal legal name with the Arizona Corporation Commission when they form. If one of these entities wants to operate under a different name, it files a trade name with the Secretary of State.²

Sole proprietors and general partnerships don’t register with the Corporation Commission at all. If you want to use anything other than your full legal name (or the full legal names of the partners), the Secretary of State filing is how you put that name on record.

What Registration Does and Does Not Give You

A trade name filing is not a trademark. The Secretary of State’s office states directly that registering a name “does not grant rights or interests in that name” and cannot guarantee it won’t conflict with another business.³

What you do get is a first-in-time position with the state. The Secretary of State will refuse to file any trade name that isn’t distinguishable from names already on record with that office or from corporate names on file with the Corporation Commission.⁴ So no one else can later register an identical or confusingly similar name through the same office. If you want broader protection, that’s a trademark question, not a trade name question.

Search and Name Rules

Before filing, search the Secretary of State’s online database. It covers trade names on file with that office along with entity names registered with the Corporation Commission. The Secretary of State “strongly suggests that customers perform extensive, independent research before registering a trade name,” so a federal trademark check and a general web search for similar Arizona businesses are worth the time.¹

A few naming rules will trip up filings:

No corporate designators. You cannot include “LLC,” “Inc.,” “Corp.,” “Ltd.,” or “Limited Partnership” in a trade name unless the business is actually formed as that type of entity with the Corporation Commission.
No implied government affiliation. Names that falsely suggest a tie to a federal, state, or local government body will be rejected.
Must be distinguishable from everything already on file at the Secretary of State and the Corporation Commission.

Endings like “Company” or “Incorporated” are ignored when the office evaluates distinguishability, so tacking “Co.” onto an otherwise identical name won’t help.³

Filing the Application

The application is best submitted online. It asks for the proposed trade name, the legal name of the owner (individual or entity), the business address, a description of your business and the goods or services you provide, how long you’ve used the name in Arizona, and a statement that you’ve confirmed the name is distinguishable from existing filings.²

The fee is $10. Expedited processing is available for an additional $25.³ Standard applications can take up to three weeks to review.⁵ Paper applications for a new trade name do not need to be notarized; notarization applies only to cancellations and assignments.

Once approved, you’ll receive a Certificate of Registration showing the business name and address, the trade name, the date of first use, and the registration date. The registration runs five years from the date the Secretary of State receives it.¹

Renewing, Amending, and Canceling

Renewal

You have a six-month window before the five-year expiration to file a renewal. Miss it and the name drops off the record, open for anyone else to claim.¹ The owner name on the renewal must match what the Secretary of State has on file exactly; you cannot update the owner through a renewal, and a mismatch gets the filing returned.

Amendments

Changes to your address, phone number, email, business description, or legal name (sole proprietors only) are handled through a Trade Name Amendment for $3, filed through the online portal.³ An amendment cannot change the trade name itself and cannot transfer ownership.

Cancellations and Assignments

Canceling the registration or transferring it to a new owner requires a paper filing, signed, dated, and notarized, then mailed to the Secretary of State. There’s no online option for either. If you deliver the document in person at the Phoenix or Tucson office with a government-issued ID, you can skip notarization.⁵

What a Trade Name Filing Doesn’t Cover

Two things people often assume come with a DBA filing in Arizona don’t.

First, you do not need a new EIN. The IRS states that changing a business name does not require a new Employer Identification Number for any entity type.⁶ You keep the one you have and use the trade name on your public-facing materials.

Second, filing a trade name does not handle your tax registration or local licensing. If your business sells products or provides taxable services in Arizona, you need a Transaction Privilege Tax license from the Arizona Department of Revenue.⁷ The state TPT license is $12 per location, registered through AZTaxes.gov, and many Arizona cities require their own separate TPT or business licenses on top of the state filing.

1
Arizona Secretary of State. Trade Names and Trademarks
2
Arizona Legislature. Arizona Code 44-1460 – Registration of Trade Name, Title or Designation
3
Arizona Secretary of State. Trade Name and Trademark Handbook
4
Arizona Legislature. Arizona Code 44-1460.01 – Issuance of Certificate; Restrictions
5
Arizona Secretary of State. Trade Name and Trademark Popular Questions
6
Internal Revenue Service. When to Get a New EIN
7
Arizona Department of Revenue. Transaction Privilege Tax