Starting a Business in Los Angeles: The City and County Filings, and Which Address Goes on Each

The city name in an address may not match the city that governs it

Los Angeles County is not one city. The county’s own history page says it “has grown from 76 cities to 88 cities.” Most cities set up their own business tax or license. The county licenses listed activities in unincorporated areas and in three contract cities: Malibu, Santa Clarita, and Westlake Village. The county’s Registrar-Recorder, which handles fictitious business names, says it “does not issue business licenses” and tells readers to “contact the City Hall in the city where the business will be conducted,” or the county’s business license office for unincorporated areas.

The trouble is that the city name in an address does not always match the city that governs the building. We checked this in the City of Los Angeles’s own Listing of Active Businesses dataset, last updated September 15, 2026. Each location in it carries a Los Angeles City Council district number, and the data dictionary says “0” means “the business location is out of the City.” Many locations coded 0 have no map coordinates, and many sit in ZIP codes that are otherwise inside the city, so we do not treat a 0 as proof that a location is outside the city. The counts below use locations coded with a council district other than 0.

So the city name in an address does not settle the question. Hundreds of locations listed as Beverly Hills or West Hollywood are coded with a City of Los Angeles council district. Which cities you register with depends on two things: the city that governs your address, and the cities where you do business.

The second part matters too. The Office of Finance lists “No Nexus” businesses as exempt only when their physical presence in the city is limited to “six (6) or less days per calendar year.” A business based in a neighboring city that works in Los Angeles more often than that can owe Los Angeles as well as its home city.

The City of Los Angeles business tax registration

The City of Los Angeles calls its registration a Business Tax Registration Certificate, or BTRC. The Office of Finance says “All individuals or entities conducting business activities within the City of Los Angeles are required to apply for and obtain” one. The city also lists business types that do not need it, such as real estate agents (but not brokers), notaries appointed by the state, and people who rent three or fewer residential units.

The registration asks for the owner’s Social Security Number for a sole proprietorship or an Employer Identification Number (EIN) for other structures, a description of the business, the legal name and any DBA, the start date, and contact details. For the address, the Office of Finance asks for “The exact business address and primary mailing address for your business location if different from the business location.”

The first year is not free. The Office of Finance says “The first year of new business activity in the City of Los Angeles is not exempt from taxation.” It adds: “The first year of taxes is paid in the second year when you renew your BTRC.” The same page says that if your “global gross receipts are under $100,000 and you renew on time, you are eligible for the Small Business Exemption.” The city’s exemptions page describes it as applying to registered businesses whose gross receipts do not exceed $100,000, and says the exemption “requires that businesses file a timely renewal statement.” The annual business tax renewal deadline is February 28, or February 29 in a leap year. A small business that misses the renewal can lose the exemption, so put the date on your calendar.

The address becomes public in a practical way. The city’s open dataset of active businesses has columns for the business name, DBA name, street address, and mailing address. If you register a home-based business at your home, that address is what the dataset will show. The data dictionary describes the street address column as the “Street address of the business location.”

Running the business from home in the City of Los Angeles

Working from home is allowed within limits. The city’s LA Business Navigator lists home occupation rules, including these: the business activity “cannot be visible from outside,” you may have “one employee working in the office who does not live in the home,” and you may have “one client visit per hour between the hours of 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.” It also limits deliveries and pickups to two per day.

Other cities set their own rules. Santa Monica, for example, has a separate home-based business license process that includes a Home Occupation Checklist with the application. If your home is in one of the other cities in the county, look up that city’s home business rules before you register.

The county fictitious business name statement

A fictitious business name statement is the county’s DBA filing. The Registrar-Recorder says it is for “Persons doing business for profit under a fictitious name (does not include surname in company name).” An LLC needs one too if it uses a different name. California’s Business and Professions Code section 17900 defines an LLC’s fictitious name as “any name other than the name stated in its articles of organization.”

You file in the county of your principal place of business. Section 17915 says the statement “shall be filed with the clerk of the county in which the registrant has his or her principal place of business in this state.” For a business based anywhere in Los Angeles County, that is the county clerk, whatever city the address is in. Filing costs $26 for one business name and one registrant, with $5 for each additional name or registrant, according to the county’s fee page.

Section 17913 sets out what the statement contains. There are two address lines:

• The business location: “the street address, and county, of the registrant’s principal place of business in this state.”
• The registrant: for an individual, “the registrant’s full name and business mailing address if it differs from the business address.” For an LLC, “the name and business mailing address of the limited liability company, as set out in its articles of organization …”

The registrant line changed recently. The county’s filing page says that effective January 1, 2024, anyone filing a statement “is required to include a ‘business mailing address’ instead of a residence address.” The county’s general information page still says “All owners and their residence addresses must be listed,” so if you see that wording, know that the county’s filing page and the current statute both use business mailing address.

How the DBA statement becomes public

The statement is meant to be public. Section 17917 says that after filing, “the registrant shall cause a statement in the form prescribed by subdivision (a) of Section 17913 to be published” in a newspaper of general circulation. The form it refers to is the statement itself, with the business address line and the registrant line. Government Code section 6064 sets the schedule: “once a week for four successive weeks.”

The statute and the county give different deadlines to start. The statute says the publication must happen “Within 45 days after a fictitious business name statement has been filed.” The county’s requirements page says “Publication must begin within 30 days after a fictitious business name statement has been filed.” If you file in Los Angeles County, plan around the county’s shorter date. You then file an affidavit showing the publication with the county clerk.

The county also puts recent statements online. Its fictitious business name dataset covers unexpired filings starting February 16, 2024, and its columns include the business name, business address, city, ZIP code, and registered owner name. When we checked it on September 30, 2026, it held 271,098 records. We did not see a column for the owner’s mailing address in the dataset, though the newspaper notice follows the full statement form.

A statement lasts five years, or ends earlier. Section 17920 says it expires “five years from the date it was filed,” and also “40 days after any change in the facts set forth in the statement.” Moving the business changes one of those facts, so plan on a new statement after a move. The county’s renewal page says a renewal is not required to be published in a newspaper, and section 17917 limits that to a refiling with no change in the information, filed within 40 days of expiration.

Choosing the address for these filings

Two of these records show your address to anyone who looks: the city’s active business dataset, if you register with the City of Los Angeles, and the county’s DBA statement, through the newspaper notice and the open data portal. If you run the business from home and list your home as the business location, your home address goes on both.

Each form has its own lines, so fill them one at a time. On the City of Los Angeles registration, the business address is where the business operates, and the primary mailing address line is for a different address where you receive mail. On the county DBA statement, the principal place of business line is the street address where you run the business, and the business mailing address line is for mail if it differs (for an LLC, the mailing address in its articles of organization). An address where you only receive mail belongs in the mailing address lines.

Your address and the places you work together decide which city’s tax or license applies. A business location in the City of Los Angeles brings the BTRC with it, and so can working in the city more than six days a year from outside it. Ask which city a building is in before you sign up for an address there.

Our Los Angeles page covers business addresses in the area. You can also run the address you plan to use through our free address checker to see how it is classified before any of these forms go in.