What this guide covers
What to obtain after registration: the federal tax identifier, registration with the Florida Department of Revenue, local licenses, and beneficial ownership reporting. Each unlocks a different piece of the business, and the order matters.
What exists
The EIN, federal tax identifier
Issued by the IRS. Required to hire, to open an account and to file. An applicant without a social security number cannot use the online form and follows a separate procedure.
Registration with the Florida DOR
Required as soon as you sell a good or service subject to sales tax, or as soon as you employ staff. It opens the periodic filing obligations.
Local licenses
They belong to the county and sometimes the city, not the state. An identical activity can face different rules from one county of the corridor to the next.
Beneficial ownership reporting
A federal filing separate from registration, with FinCEN, with its own deadlines and its own penalties.
What surprises people arriving from Europe or Quebec
Nothing is centralized. Each agency has its own front desk, calendar and identifier, and none checks that the others were done. A company can be perfectly compliant with the state and out of compliance with its county with nothing to warn it.
Where it gets complicated
Local licenses are the blind spot of foreign founders, because the equivalent does not exist in Europe. They are often discovered through an inspection, a commercial lease or an insurance application.
Official sources
- IRS, apply for an EIN
- Florida Department of Revenue
- FinCEN, beneficial ownership
- Florida DBPR, regulated professions
What French Executive Network can do
Introduce you to the French-speaking business lawyers, accountants and tax advisers in the network who handle this subject, and to the members who have already been through it.