To start a corporation in Arizona, you file Articles of Incorporation and a Certificate of Disclosure with the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC), pay a $60 filing fee, and name an in-state statutory agent to accept legal documents. Standard processing runs about 9 to 11 business days, with same-day and two-hour expedited options available for extra fees. The work doesn’t end at approval: an EIN, bylaws, a first board meeting, stock issuance, a bank account, tax registrations, and an annual report all follow in short order.
Pick a Name That Will Clear the ACC
Your corporate name has to be distinguishable from every other entity name already on file with the ACC and the Arizona Secretary of State, including other corporations, LLCs, limited partnerships, registered LLPs, and registered trade names.1Arizona Legislature. Arizona Revised Statutes 10-401 – Corporate Name The ACC ignores entity-type words like “Corp.,” “Inc.,” “LLC,” or “Ltd.” when it checks distinguishability, so adding one of those to an existing name won’t make yours unique.2Arizona Corporation Commission. Determining Distinguishability of Entity Names
The name itself must include one of these designators: “Association,” “Bank,” “Company,” “Corporation,” “Incorporated,” “Limited,” or an abbreviation of any of them.1Arizona Legislature. Arizona Revised Statutes 10-401 – Corporate Name Check availability through the ACC’s online entity search before you commit anything to paper.
Appoint a Statutory Agent
Arizona calls its registered agent a “statutory agent,” and every corporation has to maintain one in the state continuously to receive legal documents and official notices.3Arizona Legislature. Arizona Revised Statutes 10-501 – Known Place of Business and Statutory Agent The agent can be an Arizona resident, a domestic corporation, a foreign corporation authorized to do business in Arizona, or an LLC. The agent’s address must be a physical Arizona street address, not a P.O. box.4Arizona Corporation Commission. LLC Statement of Change of Principal Address or Statutory Agent
You can act as your own agent if you live in Arizona, or hire a professional service, which typically runs $50 to $300 per year and guarantees someone is available to accept service of process during business hours.
Decide C-Corp or S-Corp Before You File
Every corporation starts as a C-corporation by default. A C-corp pays federal income tax on its profits, and shareholders pay tax again on any dividends — the familiar double taxation problem.5Internal Revenue Service. Forming a Corporation
An S-corporation passes profits and losses through to shareholders’ personal returns, so income is taxed once. To elect S status, file IRS Form 2553 no later than two months and 15 days after the date of incorporation. Miss that window and the election takes effect only in the following tax year. S-corps also come with limits: no more than 100 shareholders, only one class of stock, and all shareholders must be U.S. citizens or residents. Make this call before you file, because it shapes share classes and your first-year tax obligations.
File the Articles of Incorporation and Certificate of Disclosure
The Articles of Incorporation are the founding document, filed with the ACC. Arizona law requires them to include:
- The corporate name, meeting the rules above
- The total number of shares the corporation is authorized to issue
- A brief description of the business the corporation initially intends to conduct in Arizona
- The name and address of each director serving until a successor is elected
- The name, street address, and signature of the statutory agent
- The corporation’s known place of business, if different from the agent’s address
- The name, address, and signature of each incorporator
Optional provisions, such as limits on director liability or shareholder preemptive rights, can be included as well.6Arizona Legislature. Arizona Revised Statutes 10-202 – Articles of Incorporation
Arizona also requires a Certificate of Disclosure filed with the Articles. It asks whether any officer, director, incorporator, or shareholder holding more than 10% of outstanding shares has, within the past five years, been convicted of certain felonies or been subject to court orders involving securities fraud, consumer fraud, or antitrust violations. It also asks whether any of those individuals were officers or major shareholders of another corporation that went through bankruptcy or receivership.6Arizona Legislature. Arizona Revised Statutes 10-202 – Articles of Incorporation If none of that applies, file it anyway with “no” checked on each item. Skipping the certificate will hold up your filing.
Fees and How Fast You Can Get It Processed
The base filing fee for Articles of Incorporation of a for-profit corporation is $60. The Certificate of Disclosure carries no additional fee when filed by paper. Filing through the ACC’s eCorp online portal costs more.7Arizona Corporation Commission. Fee Schedule – Corporations
Standard processing currently runs about 9 to 11 business days.8Arizona Corporation Commission. Document Processing Times If that’s too slow, the ACC offers three expedited tiers on top of the base fee:
- Next-day service: $100 (submitted before 5 p.m., processed by 5 p.m. the next business day)
- Same-day service: $200 (submitted before 10 a.m., processed by 5 p.m. that day)
- Two-hour service: $400 (submitted between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m.)
Older guides sometimes mention a newspaper publication requirement. That requirement was eliminated by the state legislature. The ACC now posts formation documents to its own online database, and nothing needs to be arranged with a newspaper.
What to Do Once the Entity Exists
Approval creates the legal entity. Making it operational takes several more steps, and the order matters because some depend on others.
Get an EIN
The corporation needs a federal Employer Identification Number before it can open a bank account, hire employees, or file taxes. Apply online at IRS.gov and the number is issued immediately. There’s no fee. Fax and mail options for Form SS-4 exist but take four business days and four to five weeks respectively.9Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form SS-4 – Application for Employer Identification Number
Draft Bylaws
Bylaws are the internal rulebook: how meetings are called and conducted, what officers exist and what authority each one has, how stock is issued and transferred, and how the bylaws themselves get amended. They aren’t filed with the state. Draft them before your first board meeting so the board can formally adopt them.
Hold the First Board Meeting
At the organizational meeting, directors typically adopt the bylaws, elect officers (president, secretary, and treasurer at minimum), authorize stock issuance, set the fiscal year, and approve opening a corporate bank account. Keep detailed minutes. Those minutes become part of the corporate record and are evidence that the corporation operates as a real entity rather than a name on paper.
Issue Stock
Stock issuance formalizes who owns the corporation and in what proportion. You can’t issue more shares than you authorized in the Articles. Record every issuance in a stock ledger showing each shareholder’s name, the number of shares, the date, and what was given in exchange, whether cash, property, or services. That ledger matters for tax purposes and for proving ownership if a dispute comes up later.
Open a Corporate Bank Account
Open the account in the corporation’s name as soon as possible. Commingling personal and corporate funds is the fastest route to losing the liability protection a corporation provides. Banks typically ask for the EIN, a copy of the approved Articles, a board resolution authorizing the account, and personal identification for anyone with signing authority. Some require a minimum opening deposit.
Tax Registrations and Deadlines
An Arizona corporation has obligations at both the federal and state level, and missing a first-year deadline is a common and expensive mistake.
A C-corporation files federal Form 1120 by the 15th day of the fourth month after the end of its tax year — April 15 for a calendar-year filer. An S-corporation files Form 1120-S by the 15th day of the third month, which is March 15 for calendar-year filers.10Internal Revenue Service. Starting or Ending a Business 3 Both can request a six-month extension of the return, but not of any tax owed. C-corporations expecting to owe $500 or more for the year must make quarterly estimated tax payments.
Arizona imposes a corporate income tax on C-corporations at 2.45% of net income for tax years beginning in 2026, with a $50 minimum tax. S-corporations that properly elected pass-through status federally generally don’t owe Arizona corporate income tax on passed-through income, but still have to file an informational return.
If the corporation sells products or provides taxable services in Arizona, it likely needs a Transaction Privilege Tax (TPT) license from the Arizona Department of Revenue. Register by filing the Arizona Joint Tax Application (Form JT-1/UC-001), which handles TPT, use tax, employer withholding, and unemployment insurance registration in a single filing.11Arizona Department of Revenue. TPT License You need the EIN before submitting it.
Staying in Good Standing
Forming the corporation is the easy part. Keeping it alive requires annual filings, consistent records, and attention to deadlines the ACC enforces aggressively.
Annual Report
Every Arizona corporation files an annual report with the ACC in its anniversary month, meaning the month the corporation was originally formed. The report updates the known place of business, the statutory agent, the principal office address, and the names and addresses of current directors and officers.12Arizona Legislature. Arizona Revised Statutes 10-1622 – Annual Report A Certificate of Disclosure accompanies it.
The for-profit filing fee is $45.7Arizona Corporation Commission. Fee Schedule – Corporations A six-month extension can be requested in writing before the due date. The late penalty is 20% of fees owed for each month or partial month the report is overdue, accumulating until the report is filed or the corporation is administratively dissolved.12Arizona Legislature. Arizona Revised Statutes 10-1622 – Annual Report
Corporate Records
Arizona requires every corporation to keep permanent records: minutes of all shareholder and board meetings, records of actions taken without a meeting, appropriate accounting records, and a shareholder list that supports preparation of an alphabetical roster showing each shareholder’s name, address, and share count. Specified documents, including the current Articles and amendments, current bylaws, board resolutions on share classes, three years of shareholder meeting minutes and written communications, and the most recent annual report, must be kept at the principal office, the known place of business, or the statutory agent’s office.13Arizona Legislature. Arizona Revised Statutes 10-1601 – Corporate Records Many incorporators consolidate everything into a single corporate minute book, physical or digital.
Protect the Corporate Veil
The reason to incorporate is to separate your personal assets from the corporation’s liabilities. Courts can disregard that separation — called piercing the corporate veil — when owners treat the corporation as an extension of themselves. The common failures are commingling personal and corporate funds, skipping board meetings or minutes, undercapitalizing the business, and signing contracts in your own name rather than as an officer of the corporation. None are hard to avoid, but all require consistent habits from day one.
If You’ll Have Employees
Federal law requires every new hire to complete Section 1 of Form I-9 by the end of their first day of work. You then have three business days to review the employee’s identity and work authorization documents and complete Section 2. For a job expected to last fewer than three days, document verification has to happen on the first day.
Arizona employers also have to register with the Department of Economic Security for unemployment insurance. The Joint Tax Application handles that registration together with the TPT license and employer withholding setup, so no separate filing is needed.