Starting a Business in San Jose or Santa Clara: Local Filings and Which Address Goes on Each

San José: the Business Tax Certificate

The City of San José calls this a Business Tax Certificate. Its Finance Department notes that you may hear it called a business license or a business permit. The rule is short: “Every person or company conducting business in San José must register for a Business Tax Certificate. Payment is due within 90 days of starting business in San José.” The city says the certificate is “an official receipt for payment of the tax,” and that it “does not mean you have approval for zoning, fire rules, occupancy, or any other permits or licenses.” The city also tells you to post it at your place of business.

The tax is based on employee count for most businesses. Starting July 1, 2026, the base tax for 1 to 2 employees is $222.89, and the city adds a $4 state fee each year for businesses that are not exempt. A business in San José for 5 days or less pays no fee but still has to register.

The registration asks for more than one address. The city’s list of what you need includes “Ownership name(s) & address(es)” and “Address of each location in San José where you do business,” along with a tax ID number and the principal owner’s driver’s license number. If you plan to run the business from home, the city’s economic development FAQ says some uses are eligible and some are not, and it points you to the Planning Department.

Some of this becomes public. San José runs an online Business Tax Lookup, and the city describes it this way: “This includes the business name, address, owner, type of work, account number, start date, and employee count.” The city’s economic development FAQ also says the Finance Department can provide a list of all registered businesses for a nominal fee. If the address on your registration is your home, that is the address a search can show.

City of Santa Clara: zoning first, then the license

The City of Santa Clara uses the word license. Its page says “All businesses are required to have a valid business license from the City of Santa Clara in order to transact business or occupy space in the City.”

The order is different from San José’s. Santa Clara says “Prior to applying for your Business License, you must obtain a Zoning Clearance from the Planning Division.” It also says “Approval of a business license application may take up to eight weeks,” and that businesses can legally conduct business once the license has been approved. The application form, called the New Business Tax Affidavit, cites City Code 3.40.150 for a 25% penalty on anyone who fails to apply within 30 days of starting business or occupying space. So in the same county, San José requires payment within 90 days, while Santa Clara’s penalty applies to applications filed more than 30 days after you start.

The form asks for a business address and a mailing address, and it asks whether the business will be run from your home in Santa Clara. If the answer is yes, the application has to be submitted in person, and you must first obtain the city’s Home Occupation Rules and Regulations. Each owner or officer is listed with an alternate address, and the form says that address cannot be a PO box. For businesses located in the city, the tax from July 1, 2026, is $47.37 per employee, with a lower schedule for businesses based outside the city that work inside it part of the year.

Santa Clara also publishes a list. Its business tax page links a New Business Licenses listing, a PDF of recently licensed businesses showing each one’s DBA, business address, business type, and phone number.

Santa Clara County: the fictitious business name statement

A fictitious business name statement is California’s DBA filing, and it is made with the county clerk where your principal place of business is. In Santa Clara County, that is the Office of the County Clerk-Recorder. You need one if you do business under a name that is not your legal name. For an individual, the statute counts a name as fictitious if it “does not include the surname of the individual” or suggests additional owners. For an LLC, it is “any name other than the name stated in its articles of organization.” You must file within 40 days after you first transact business under the name.

The statement asks for one main address. Under Business and Professions Code 17913, if you have a place of business in California, you insert “the street address, and county, of the registrant’s principal place of business in this state.” An individual adds a business mailing address only if it differs from the business address. An LLC gives its name and business mailing address as shown in its articles of organization.

Then it goes into the newspaper. Within 45 days of filing, you must have the statement published in a newspaper of general circulation in the county. The form the county gives you must say the statement is published “once a week for four successive weeks,” and you then file an affidavit of publication with the clerk. That means the principal place of business address runs in print four times.

The statement expires five years after filing, or 40 days after any of the facts in it change, such as a move to a new principal place of business. A refiling of an expired statement does not have to be published again if nothing changed and you refile within 40 days of the expiration. It also expires when you file a statement of abandonment.

The public part is intentional. Section 17900 says “The filing of a fictitious business name certificate is designed to make available to the public the identities of persons doing business under the fictitious name.” Any person can request a certified copy of a statement for $2, and the Superior Court of Santa Clara County’s self-help page links to the county’s online fictitious business name search. The clerk may dispose of a statement four years after it expires, so an old statement can stay on file for years after you stop using it.

One limit is worth saying plainly. The statute asks for the principal place of business, which in plain terms points to where the business is run. It is a different question from where your mail goes. In the sections we read, the statute does not define that phrase. If your business truly runs from your kitchen table, a rented mailing address does not change that answer.

The filings side by side

Here is what each local filing asks for, based on the city and state pages and statutes cited below as read on September 30, 2026.

State filings sit on top of these. Our guide to the California LLC franchise tax and Statement of Information covers the state side, and the address lines there are separate from the city and county forms above.

If your company is a Delaware startup working from San José

Many Silicon Valley startups form in Delaware and then work from an office or a home in the South Bay. The city and county filings above still apply to where the business actually operates. The state question is separate: a Delaware company doing business in California may have to register with California as a foreign entity. Our guide on a Delaware LLC with a California address walks through when that applies and which address goes where.

A practical order for a new business in the area looks like this:

1. 1Decide where the business will actually operate, and confirm which city that address is in.
2. 2Check how the address you plan to use is classified with our free address checker.
3. 3Form the company, or register the Delaware company in California if it will do business in the state.
4. 4In Santa Clara, get the Zoning Clearance before the business license application. In San José, register for the Business Tax Certificate within 90 days of starting.
5. 5If you will use a name other than your legal name, file the fictitious business name statement with the county clerk within 40 days and arrange the newspaper publication.

Choosing the address that goes on these records

For a home-based business, the address on the city registration and the county statement is often the owner’s home. That address can then show up in a city lookup, a city listing, and four weeks of newspaper notices. If you run the business from a separate business address instead, that is the business address these records carry, though the city forms still ask for each owner’s address.

An address inside a city can bring that city’s rules with it. The San José form asks for each location in San José where you do business, and the Santa Clara form asks for a business address along with the number of people working at that Santa Clara address. Whether a business address used mainly for mail counts as doing business in that city is something we did not find answered on the city pages we read, so ask that city’s finance office. An address in one city also does not remove the tax in a city where you actually work, since both cities tax businesses that operate inside their limits. Ask any address provider, including us, which city the address is in before you put it on a form.

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