Same-Day Texas LLC: the $750 rush service is now online

In Texas, the Secretary of State is the office where businesses are born, change and come to an end. It keeps the register of every entity in the state. On September 23, 2026, the office announced that its new business filing system would launch on September 29. The SOSPortal replaces the two previous channels, SOSDirect and SOSUpload, and brings filing, ordering and searching together on a single platform. The online service was offline from September 25 at 12 noon until September 29 at 8 a.m. to make the switch.

On October 8, Governor Greg Abbott announced the next step: Texas Express, the office's rush service, can now be booked online too. The figures he cited explain why Texas is investing in this. More than 3.2 million active businesses are registered in the state. In 2015 there were about 1.4 million, and in 2025 the count passed 3 million. That includes companies formed in Texas and companies from other states registered to do business there.

More than double in ten years. Behind every one of those numbers is someone who once sat in front of a blank form and wanted to know when things would finally get going.

Texas Express isn't new as of October. The service launched in September 2025 for a handful of filings, was extended to formations in April 2026, and since July 14, 2026, it has covered all business filings with the Secretary of State. By then, according to the office, it had handled more than 2,600 rush orders. What's new is that the two fastest tiers no longer have to be requested by email, courier or in person at the counter in Austin, but directly in the portal.

The three tiers and their surcharges, each per document and on top of the statutory fee:

• Same-Day: Anything received by 12 noon is processed by close of business the same day. Surcharge: $750.
• Next-Day: Anything received by 12 noon is processed by close of business the next business day. Surcharge: $500.
• Standard Expedited: Your filing is processed ahead of regular submissions, typically within two to three business days according to the office. Surcharge: $50.

The fee for the Certificate of Formation, the founding document of an LLC (Form 205 at the office), is $300. So a Same-Day formation costs $1,050 in state fees, a Next-Day formation $800 and a Standard Expedited formation $350. You pay in the SOSPortal by credit card or ACH, the American direct debit. There's no invoicing and no installment plan: Texas business law requires all fees to be paid before a document is filed.

Back to the parking lot in Round Rock. Lena and Jonas want to set up a coffee roastery in the warehouse, with a small roaster, a storeroom and, later, a wholesale business supplying cafés in and around Austin. The landlord is holding the space until Friday. After that it goes to the next applicant, and the next suitable space the two have found won't be available for another two months.

Their plan projects $9,000 in gross profit from the first full month, meaning revenue minus green coffee and packaging. A two-month delay would cost them $18,000, plus two more months' rent on their temporary apartment at $2,400 each, $4,800 in total. Losing the warehouse would cost them $22,800 without making a single mistake.

Now the three options. If they file with Same-Day on Tuesday morning, they pay $1,050 and have their LLC on Tuesday evening. With Next-Day they pay $800 and have it on Wednesday evening. With Standard Expedited they pay $350 and typically have it sometime between Thursday and Friday, with no guarantee. The difference between the safest and the cheapest rush option is $700.

They go with Next-Day. One day of buffer in case the office raises an issue, and $250 less than Same-Day. Measured against $22,800 at risk, that peace of mind costs them just over three percent of what's at stake. Had the landlord given them a month, every dollar of surcharge would have been wasted, and that's exactly the point: speed has no value in itself. Speed has a price, and it only pays off when there's a real deadline behind it.

On its Texas Express page, the office includes a sentence worth reading before you pay: a rush order does not guarantee filing, because every document is reviewed against the statutory requirements. Pay $750 and submit a flawed form, and by evening you won't have a company, you'll have a rejection. The surcharge buys the speed of the review, not its outcome.

That's why the office expressly recommends a preliminary review, called preclearance, for the two fastest tiers. It also pays to know the mistakes that typically hold up a formation. The name must include the words "Limited Liability Company", "Limited Company" or an abbreviation of them, and must not falsely suggest a connection to a government agency. The Registered Agent, the legally required address for service in Texas, must have a street address in the state, and the new LLC cannot be its own agent. Whoever signs confirms that the agent has consented to the appointment. And the entire form is signed subject to penalties for false statements.

One field is especially easy to overlook. Form 205, in its September 2026 version, asks for an initial mailing address where the state should send its franchise tax correspondence. More on that shortly, because that mail will definitely come.

The SOSPortal is available around the clock. Every document can be filed there, including mergers and conversions, which used to go through on paper more often than not. You can save drafts, and on the "My Submissions" page you can see where your filing stands and download your filed documents. Access is protected by multi-step sign-in. Searching the register for a company costs a statutory fee of $1 per search.

One change mainly affects service providers: the old system's Client Accounts no longer exist in the new one. Anyone who worked through such an account had to switch over. For you as a founder, it mainly means one thing: the document that ends up in the portal is the original. Secretary of State certificates are generated electronically, in black and white, without a gold seal, bearing the officeholder's electronic signature. Anyone can have their authenticity confirmed by verifying the document number with the office.

People holding an American certificate for the first time are sometimes disappointed by how plain it looks. It's still the paper everything else is built on.

This is the biggest misunderstanding we hear again and again from founders coming from Europe. Registration with the state is the first step, not the last. After that, the company needs its federal tax number, the EIN, a Company Agreement setting out who owns what and who decides, and a business account the rent can run through. None of these steps moves at Texas Express speed. The State of Texas can register your LLC in an afternoon. The bank opening your account works to its own calendar.

That's why Lena and Jonas planned in parallel. While the formation is filed on Wednesday, the documents for the account are already prepared, and the landlord receives the filed certificate and the signed Company Agreement along with the lease. The account follows a few days later. How you get an American business account as a non-American, and what ITIN Express does along the way (a specialized process developed with the attorneys on the firm's team), is explained under US Bank Account Opening. For the first few months, many founders also use an account with Mercury or Wise.

And when the company in America one day needs a credit line for its second roaster, the company's credit history is what counts. That history can only grow once the company exists, which is why our Credit Builder ideally starts right at formation.

Back to that mailing address on the form. Every LLC in Texas is subject to the franchise tax, the state's business tax. For the 2026 and 2027 reports, it only applies above annualized revenue of $2.65 million. Lena and Jonas will be well below that in their first year. They still have to file a report: below the threshold, the Public Information Report or the Ownership Information Report is enough, due May 15, and anyone who misses it gets a letter from the Comptroller and has to catch up.

That mail goes to the address you give on Form 205. An address where nobody empties the mailbox is the surest way to miss a deadline you never heard about. We explained in May how that deadline works in detail in Texas has no income tax, but it still has a deadline.

The new portal changes nothing about any tax. Sales tax stays as it is, and whether Texas will actually abolish the tax on platform fees is still an open question. We have been following it since Texas wants to abolish the double tax on platform fees. To this day, the amended rule is not in force.

Most formations don't need the expedited fee. If you form your LLC weeks before your first deal, or settle the structure first and file afterwards, you pay $300 and wait a little. That is the normal case, and that's fine.

Speed pays off when someone else sets the date. A landlord who will only hold a space for a short time. A customer who will only sign with an American company and wants to decide by the end of the month. An investor whose commitment depends on an existing company. A consulate appointment for an E-2 visa, where you want to bring your company's documents complete. How formation, investment and application fit together for the E-2 investor visa is something we work out in writing in the Visa Roadmap. In the end, the consulate decides, not the founder's calendar.

And then there are cases where speed is no help at all. If you don't yet know whether the LLC should really be in Texas, whether a corporation would fit better, or how the profits will be taxed in your home country, $750 only buys you the chance to make the wrong decision faster. The tax picture for the first few years, federal, Texas and home country together, belongs before the filing. That is exactly what our written Tax Plan is for, coordinated with your accountant at home.

A Texas LLC is the right choice when the business happens in Texas: a warehouse in Round Rock, an office in Austin, employees in Houston, customers you meet in person. Then the company sits where its life is, and you save yourself the extra registration as a foreign entity. How Texas compares with Delaware, Wyoming or Florida is covered in our US Company Formation section, and everything about the state itself under Texas.

If, on the other hand, you don't plan any activity in America and just want an LLC as a shell for business outside the US, a Texas LLC is the wrong address. There are dedicated structures for that case, explained on our sister site zerotax.llc.

You can read the SOSPortal as software, a new form on a new screen. You can also read it as a message. The governor summed it up in one sentence: Texas moves at the speed of business. A state that promises, for $750, to register a company by the evening is telling everyone torn between Austin and somewhere else: nobody here is going to keep you waiting.

For founders from Europe, this is an unfamiliar experience. Anyone who has set up a company in Germany, for example, knows the notary appointment, the trip to the bank to pay in the share capital, the weeks until it appears in the commercial register. In Texas there is no minimum share capital and no notary for the Certificate of Formation. There is a form, a fee and now also a choice of how fast it should go. Which makes it all the clearer that getting the form right is your responsibility.

Lena and Jonas filed on Tuesday at 10:40 a.m., with a pre-checked form, a Registered Agent in Austin and the address of their future office as the mailing address for the Comptroller. On Wednesday at 4:12 p.m. the certificate was in their portal. In black and white, no seal, with a document number at the bottom.

On Thursday morning they signed the lease, one day before the deadline. The landlord handed them the keys and asked when the first coffee would be ready. Jonas laughed and said the roaster was still sitting in a container somewhere outside Houston. But the company that will pay for it now exists.

If you want to form your Texas LLC, expedited or not, our team in Austin handles the SOSPortal filing, the pre-check, the Registered Agent and the first steps afterwards. You'll find all the details and the price under Form a Texas LLC, and every package at a glance under Services & Fees. We have been helping founders to America since 2008, and we know a Friday is sometimes closer than it looks on the calendar.

Consultation & implementation

If you'd like to find out what this means for your own situation, the best step is to book a consultation.