Can Someone Under 18 Start a Company
Sources last read 2026-07-09.
Short answer
In most states, yes. Three states put an age on the person who files the papers, and in those an adult does that one step. The question hides three different jobs, and almost every page online squashes them into one. Owning a share of a company, being the person who signs and files it, and being its official contact are three separate things with three separate rules. Sort out which one you are asking about and the answer gets a lot clearer.
First, what a company actually is
A company is a legal thing that is not you.
It can own stuff. It can owe money. It can be sued. Those things happen to it instead of happening to you, which is the whole reason anybody makes one.
The common kind is a limited liability company (LLC). Limited liability is just a long way of saying the wall around your own things holds.
That is it. That is what you get. Not being official, not looking grown up. A wall.
The three jobs nobody splits up
Here is the thing that makes every page on this subject confusing.
"Can a minor start an LLC" sounds like one question. It is three, and they have different answers.
Owning part of it. The word for a piece of one of these is a membership interest. Owning it means you get a share of what it makes and a say in it.
Organizing it. This is the person who signs the paperwork and files it with the state. It is a job, not a status. Somebody has to do it and it is over in a day.
Being the registered agent. The official contact. A real name at a real street address in that state, who takes legal post for the business.
Three jobs. States can and do set different rules for each. Illinois puts an age on the second one and says nothing about the first. Texas says it has no age rule for owners, officers or directors.
So when a page tells you a person under 18 cannot have a company, ask which of the three it means. Usually the page does not know either.
The list of five states, and why it is not on this page
You will find a list of five states said to block people under 18 from doing this. The same five names, on page after page.
Two of them are wrong. One has been wrong since 2018.
That is worth its own page, with each state's actual law printed out, and it has one: the five-state list that is wrong about two states.
When it might genuinely be worth it
Almost never at the start. But there are real cases, and it is not honest to pretend there are none.
Somebody could get hurt. Power tools, ladders, driving, minding other people's children or animals. Risk is the one thing a wall is genuinely for.
A customer wants to deal with a company. Some businesses will not buy from a person. If a real customer is asking, that is a real reason.
There is a partner. Two people and shared money gets messy fast, and there is a page here on what going in with a friend already creates without anybody signing anything.
The money is no longer small. You will know. Nobody has to tell you.
If none of those is true, wait. You can form one later in an afternoon. You cannot get the fees back.
The costs people forget
The filing fee is the part everyone quotes. It is not the part that catches people.
Most states want a report every year to keep the thing alive, with another fee. Miss it and the state can charge you or shut the company down.
There is also paperwork that never ends. A separate set of books. Keeping the business money apart from your own, every single time, or the wall stops working.
That is a lot of admin to carry for a wall standing in an empty field.
An example, to show the shape of it
Marissa is 16 and engraves trophies and plaques. A local sports club asks if she can do their events for a year, and their office says they need to buy from a business, not a person.
That is a real reason, and she looks into it properly. In her state the person who files has to be 18, so her mother files it. Marissa owns it. Her mother is also the official contact, because that needs an adult at a fixed address.
They wrote down who owns what before anything got filed. That took an hour and a printed page, and it is the part most people skip.
Marissa still does every bit of the work. Filing is a job somebody did for her once, not a thing she handed over.
What to do with this
Work out which of the three jobs your question is really about. Then look up your own state's law for that job, on a .gov page, not on a page selling you the filing.
Then ask the real question underneath it, which is whether there is anything for a wall to stand between yet.
For most people reading this the honest answer is no, and there is a page here that says so at length: you probably do not need any of this.
Texas, naming the roles separately
The Texas Business Organizations Code does not impose any age requirements on who can be an owner, officer, or director in a business entity.
Texas Secretary of State, business formation questions
Count the jobs in that sentence. Owner. Officer. Director. Three of them, and the state lists them apart because they are apart. This is one state and it is not the rule everywhere. What it shows is that the question is never just how old you are.
Illinois, and notice which job it is talking about
One or more persons, other than natural persons under 18 years of age, may organize a limited liability company.
805 ILCS 180/5-1
The word doing the work here is organize. Not own. Organizing means being the person who signs the papers and files them. In Illinois a person under 18 cannot be that person. There is a separate page here on which states really do this, because two of the five states you keep reading about do not.
The tax office, on who has to stand behind a business tax number
you must name a qualified responsible party and submit their taxpayer ID number. Your responsible party must be a person, not an entity.
IRS, employer identification number
A company usually wants a tax number of its own, and the form asks for a named human behind it, with that human's tax number. Worth knowing before you start. And one honest note: I searched that page and the full form guide for the words age, 18 and minor. The tax office states no age rule in either one. That is not the same as saying you may do it. It means nobody has published an answer.
Questions people actually ask
So can I do it or not?
Where there is an age rule, it sits on the person who files. Three states do that, and in those you own it and an adult files it. Some states put no age on any of the three jobs, and Texas says so outright. Check yours before you believe anybody, including a page like this one.
Is a company a way to get paid when apps say 18?
No, and this is the trap. The apps care about the deal being one they can rely on. A company you cannot sign for yourself does not fix that. Whoever can sign for it is the one the money side ends up with.
My parent would have to be involved. Does that mean it is not really mine?
Not at all. Ownership and signing are different jobs, which is the point of this page. An adult filing something for you does not hand them your business. But you do need to be straight with each other about who owns what, in writing, before anybody files anything.
How much does it cost?
It depends on the state, and the fee is the small part. There is usually a yearly filing to keep it alive, and a fine if you forget. That yearly job is the reason a lot of people who set one up early wish they had not.
What is a registered agent?
The official contact. The person or company at a real street address in that state who takes legal post for the business. Most states want one and most set their own rules for who qualifies. It is a third job again, separate from owning and separate from filing.
Where this came from
Texas Secretary of State, business formation questions
sos.state.tx.us
Illinois General Assembly, 805 ILCS 180/5-1
ilga.gov
IRS, employer identification number
irs.gov
Small Business Administration, apply for licenses and permits
sba.gov