How to Publish a Fictitious Name in a Florida Newspaper

To publish a fictitious name in a Florida newspaper, place a single advertisement listing the name and its owners in a qualifying newspaper in the county where your principal place of business is located, then file the registration with the Florida Division of Corporations for $50. The ad only has to run once, but the newspaper has to meet specific standards under Florida law, and you certify the publication happened when you sign the state application.¹

When to Run the Ad

Publication comes before registration, not after. Florida requires you to advertise the fictitious name at least once in a newspaper located in the county where your principal place of business sits, and you must have already done so by the time you sign the registration application on Sunbiz. The state does not ask you to upload the ad or the newspaper’s affidavit. You certify under penalty of law that the publication occurred.²

This applies to any person or business operating under a name other than their legal name: sole proprietors, partnerships, corporations, and LLCs. If your LLC is called “Sunshine Holdings LLC” but the storefront reads “Bay Breeze Coffee,” the storefront name has to be registered, and the ad has to run first.¹

Check the Name Is Allowed Before You Pay

Do not pay for an ad on a name Florida will reject. A fictitious name cannot contain “Corporation,” “Inc.,” “LLC,” “L.L.C.,” “Limited Partnership,” “LP,” “LLP,” or “Professional Association” (and similar variations) unless the business is actually organized as that type of entity and registered with the state. A sole proprietor cannot advertise “Green Acres Landscaping LLC” because there is no LLC behind it.¹

Picking a Newspaper That Qualifies

Not every publication counts. The newspaper has to meet the standards for legal advertisements in Florida Chapter 50. At a minimum, it must:

Be published in the county where your principal place of business is located.
Come out at least once per week, with at least 25 percent of its content in English.
Have existed for at least two years at the time of publication, unless no newspaper in the county meets that threshold.
Be a paper of general circulation, available to the public and customarily carrying information of public interest to county residents.

The two-year existence rule is the one that catches people. Some older guides say one year; the current statute is two.³ Most counties have one or two papers that routinely run legal notices and already meet every requirement. If you are unsure, call the paper’s legal notices desk and ask whether they are qualified under Chapter 50.

What Goes in the Ad

Contact the legal notices department at the newspaper you have chosen. You will need to give them:

The exact fictitious name you plan to register.
The full legal name of every owner, or the legal name of the business entity that owns the name.
The mailing address of the business.
The county where the principal place of business is located.

Papers that handle legal ads generally have a template ready. The ad only needs to run once.¹ Publication fees vary by paper and market, but a single insertion typically runs somewhere between $30 and $150. Weekly papers in smaller counties usually cost less than major metro dailies.

Keep the Proof of Publication

After the ad runs, the newspaper will issue a proof of publication, sometimes called an affidavit or certificate of publication. Keep this document permanently. Florida does not require you to submit it to the Division of Corporations, but it is your only evidence if anyone ever challenges whether you complied with the publication requirement.²

Filing With Sunbiz After the Ad Runs

Once the ad has appeared, file the fictitious name registration through the Division of Corporations at sunbiz.org. The state filing fee is $50, and the whole process is online.⁴

The application asks for the fictitious name, the mailing address of the business, the name and address of each owner, and your federal employer identification number if the business has one. If the registrant is a corporation, LLC, or other entity that filed formation documents, that entity must be in active status with the Division and must supply its Florida document registration number.¹

Signing the application is the certification step: you are attesting that the name has already been advertised at least once in a qualifying newspaper. The Division accepts credit cards and sends email confirmation once the registration posts to Sunbiz, typically within about 24 hours.²

What Happens If You Skip the Ad

Operating under an unregistered fictitious name has real teeth. The business cannot file or maintain a lawsuit in any Florida court until it comes into compliance. You cannot sue a customer who owes you money, enforce a contract, or pursue any legal claim in the business’s name until the registration is fixed. The same restriction applies to any successor or assignee of the business.¹

Non-compliance does not void your existing contracts, deeds, mortgages, or liens, and you can still defend yourself if someone sues you. But the opposing party in a case involving your non-compliant business can seek reimbursement for attorney fees and court costs caused by the failure to register. Operating without a registered fictitious name is also a noncriminal violation under Florida law and can carry a fine.¹

1
Justia Law. Florida Code 865.09 – Fictitious Name Registration
2
Florida Department of State. Florida Fictitious Name Registration
3
Florida Senate. Florida Code 50.031 – Newspapers in Which Legal and Official Advertisements Must Be Published
4
Florida Department of State. Fees – Division of Corporations