For established small businesses
A back office for a business that outgrew the shoebox. Starting with a filing you can stop paying for.
Real revenue, real customers, and a compliance calendar that still lives in someone's head. Somewhere in that head is a belief that your LLC owes a beneficial ownership report. Since 14 August 2026 it does not — and your bank will still ask you who owns the company, which is exactly why the confusion survives. Both answers are below, with the government's own words cited.
- 14 Aug 2026
- Since when a U.S.-formed company files no BOI report
- 15.3%
- Self-employment tax an S-corp election is sold against
- 31 Aug 2026
- Every figure below re-checked
- 4
- Ownership-reporting cases separated, not blurred into one deadline
- $0
- Fee to file BOI directly with FinCEN — there never was one
- 25%
- Stake at which your bank must still identify an owner
- 6
- Primary government sources cited on this page
The straight answer
Do you still file a beneficial ownership report? Almost certainly not.
This is the obligation small-business owners are most often sold and least often owe. The exemption turns on where the company was formed, not on who owns it — which is the distinction a filing mill has every reason to blur. The cases are separated below rather than collapsed into one deadline.
| Your company | Files BOI? | What that means for you |
|---|---|---|
| Formed in a U.S. state — LLC, corporation or LP | No. | Under FinCEN's final rule, U.S. companies are exempt from the beneficial ownership information reporting requirements and are no longer required to file BOI reports. The rule became effective 14 August 2026. |
| Formed in a U.S. state, but owned from abroad | No. | The exemption turns on where the company was formed, not on who owns it. Reporting companies are only those entities formed under the law of a foreign country that have registered to do business in a U.S. State or Tribal jurisdiction. |
| Formed abroad, then registered to do business in a U.S. state | Yes. | This is now the only category of reporting company. It does not describe a business incorporated in Delaware, Wyoming, Florida or any other state — that is a U.S.-formed company, however far away its owner lives. |
| You already filed a report, or hold a FinCEN ID | Nothing to do. | U.S. persons with a FinCEN ID are not required to update or correct the information they previously submitted to FinCEN. |
If an invoice for this has arrived
Where this page stops
The other half of the answer
Your bank will still ask who owns you. That rule never changed.
FinCEN stopped collecting beneficial ownership information from U.S. companies. Banks did not stop collecting it from their customers — because that obligation was never yours. It rests on the financial institution under a separate regulation the Corporate Transparency Act did not touch, and it is the single most common reason an owner concludes the reporting requirement must still be alive.
Who your bank has to identify
- →25% or more of the equity — Each individual who, directly or indirectly, owns 25 percent or more of the equity interests of a legal entity customer.
- →One person who runs it — A single individual with significant responsibility to control, manage, or direct the company — a CEO, CFO, COO, managing member, general partner, president, vice president or treasurer, or anyone who regularly performs similar functions.
- →Asked when the account is opened — Covered financial institutions must maintain written procedures reasonably designed to identify and verify beneficial owners, and must identify them at the time a new account is opened.
So which is it?
Who this is for
The professionalizing moment.
Every durable small business hits it: the point where memory stops scaling. An annual report almost slips. A bank asks for financial statements you do not have. A big customer's procurement team asks for documents scattered across three inboxes. Professionalizing is not about becoming corporate. It is about making the business run on records instead of recall.
Service businesses on the move
Contractors, agencies and shops with real revenue and a compliance calendar that still lives in someone's head.
Local retail and storefronts
Real customers, real inventory, and books that live in a spreadsheet instead of a monthly cadence.
Operators past roughly $10K a month
Revenue where bookkeeping pays for itself in saved time, cleaner decisions and fewer surprises.
Businesses with logistics and payroll
Enough moving parts that an accountant seen once a year in a panic is no longer enough.
Who this is not for
- ×A business that needs one filing and nothing after — If a single state filing is genuinely all you need, take it and keep the difference. Prolify is a monthly cadence, not a transaction.
- ×A company that has not started trading — There is nothing yet for a calendar to track or books to reconcile. Form the entity first and come back when there is.
- ×Anyone who needs advice on a specific tax or legal position — That is a different engagement from tracking and filing, which is what this is.
Scope
What Prolify handles for an operating business.
Included means a plan covers it today. Partner-led means a licensed third party does the work and we coordinate it. We say which is which here rather than letting you discover it at the wrong moment.
Entity formation or migration
IncludedA new LLC formed correctly, or your existing entity moved in with a written status review: agent transferred, calendar loaded, gaps named.
Registered agent and state filings
IncludedA registered agent at an address that does not change when you do, and every state filing tracked against its own due date.
The compliance calendar
IncludedFederal, state of formation, and every other state you have touched — on one calendar, with what each item actually requires.
Bookkeeping
IncludedOn eligible plans, a monthly close rather than a year-end reconstruction. Statements you can hand a bank without apologising for them.
Year-end tax filings
Partner-ledFederal and state returns prepared and filed by licensed partners, coordinated on schedule rather than chased in April.
S-corp election review
Partner-ledModelled with a licensed partner before anything is filed — including the cases, common in our book, where the answer is no.
The election everyone recommends
S-corp status, and why we will often talk you out of it.
The pitch is real, and it is why every forum recommends it. Self-employment tax runs at 15.3% — 12.4% for Social Security and 2.9% for Medicare — and an S-corp election lets part of the profit leave the business as a distribution rather than as wages.
You have to pay yourself first
The IRS is explicit: S corporations must pay reasonable compensation to a shareholder-employee in return for services the employee provides to the corporation before non-wage distributions may be made to that shareholder-employee.
A wage set too low gets re-characterised
Distributions and other payments by an S corporation to a corporate officer must be treated as wages to the extent the amounts are reasonable compensation for services rendered — and the IRS has the authority to reclassify non-wage distributions as wages.
You acquire a payroll
Wages mean a real payroll, real employment tax deposits and real quarterly filings, running every month whether or not the election saved you anything that year. That running cost is what decides the answer far more often than the headline rate does.
There is a window, and it is short
Form 2553 must be filed no more than 2 months and 15 days after the beginning of the tax year the election is to take effect, or at any time during the preceding tax year. Miss it and you are asking for relief with reasonable cause rather than making an election.
Why there is no threshold number on this page
What actually goes wrong
Six ways an operating business acquires a problem it did not choose.
Paying for a beneficial ownership filing you do not owe
U.S. companies are exempt and no longer required to file BOI reports, and filing directly with FinCEN never carried a fee in the first place. An invoice for one in 2026 is selling a filing that does not exist.
The registered agent is you, at an address you left
Service of process goes to the address on the state's record. When that address is stale, the first you hear of a lawsuit is a default judgment, and the first you hear of an administrative dissolution is a bank declining a transfer.
The annual report that almost slipped
Every state sets its own report, its own date and its own penalty, and none of them remind you the way the IRS does. Late fees are the cheap consequence; losing good standing is the expensive one.
The bank asked for financial statements you do not have
A credit line, a lease, a large customer's procurement review — each of them wants statements produced on a cadence. Books reconstructed the week they are asked for read exactly like books reconstructed the week they were asked for.
Electing S-corp on a forum's advice
The election is filed, the payroll is never set up, and the whole profit leaves as a distribution — which is the one shape the IRS says it may treat as wages to the extent it is reasonable compensation for services rendered.
A year of decisions made blind
Books closed once, in April, for a year that is already over. Every pricing, hiring and inventory decision in between was made on a feeling about the bank balance rather than on a margin.
Straight answers
The questions owners actually ask.
Do I still have to file a BOI report?
If your company was formed in a U.S. state, no. U.S. companies are exempt from the beneficial ownership information reporting requirements and are no longer required to file, under a final rule effective 14 August 2026. That holds whoever owns the company.
Then why is my bank asking who owns the business?
Because that is a different rule, resting on the bank rather than on you. A covered financial institution must identify and verify the beneficial owners of a legal entity customer when an account is opened. Answering the bank's form is not a FinCEN filing and never was.
I already have an LLC. Do I have to re-form it?
No, and you should not. Your existing entity moves in: registered agent transferred, compliance calendar loaded, books caught up where they need to be, and a written review of what was missed before you arrived.
Can I keep my accountant?
Yes, and plenty of customers do. They keep their accountant for strategy and use Prolify for the cadence — compliance, records and bookkeeping. We will work alongside them rather than around them.
Should I elect S-corp status?
Possibly, and the section above is the honest version of that conversation. It turns on your reasonable compensation, your state and your payroll cost, so we model it with a licensed partner rather than answering it from a rate table.
Is Prolify overkill for a small local business?
If you need one state filing and nothing after it, yes — and we will tell you so rather than sell you a plan. Prolify earns its keep when the filings need tracking, the books need to be current, and the records need to be in one place every month.
Next
Answer one question at a time, free.
Confirm your BOI status in one answer
Where the entity was formed decides it. The checker asks that first.
Find your annual report deadline
Every state sets its own date and its own penalty. Yours is probably not the one you remember.
Score the entity you already have
Agent, filings, records and good standing — what is current and what has quietly lapsed.
See every deadline your entity owes
Federal, state of formation, and every other state you have touched, on one calendar.
Close the books monthly instead of annually
Statements you can hand a bank without apologising for the dates on them.
Form the entity
If the company does not exist yet, there is nothing here for a calendar to track. Start there instead.
Run the business on records. Recall stops scaling before you do.
The filings have dates whether or not anyone is watching them. The books are either current or they are a project. The difference between those two states is the difference between a business you can sell, borrow against and hand to someone else — and one that only you can operate.