Most businesses that incorporate in Delaware aren’t actually doing business in Delaware and don’t want to get a Delaware Business License.
Believe me, once you get on the radar for the Delaware Department of Revenue, it will be hard to get off of it.
Businesses that aren’t actually operating in Delaware do not need a Delaware business license. It’s really just a registration with the Delaware Department of Revenue. It isn’t really a professional license at all.
If you’re actually going to do business in Delaware, there is a nice online registration system to register with the Department of Revenue, Division of Unemployment Insurance, and the Delaware Office of Workers Compensation.
Here is the one stop link: Delaware business license – online registration
Delaware business licenses cost $75 a year for your first location and $25 for each additional location. You have to pay it by the end of each year, and can pay for up to 3 years at the same time.
The application process takes the state of Delaware Division of Revenue about 1 month to mail you the actual green business license. If you do the online application, you can print out a temporary Delaware business license immediately.
Part of having a Delaware business license is paying the Delaware gross receipts tax.
Delaware charges .1037% to 2.0736% of your gross receipts depending on your industry. Wholesaling type industries with smaller profit margins have the smaller percentages and higher profit industries like services pay a higher percent.
The nice thing Delaware has going for it is an exemption for small to medium sized businesses. Your first $80,000 each month is exempt from the gross receipts tax in Delaware.
The Delaware Division of Revenue has 3 locations:
Wilmington:
Division of Revenue
Carvel State Office Building
820 North French Street
Wilmington, DE 19801
302-577-8205
Dover:
Division of Revenue
Thomas Collins Building
540 South Dupont Highway, STE 2
Dover, DE 19901
302-744-1085
Georgetown:
Division of Revenue
422 North Dupont Highway STE 2
Georgetown, DE 19947
302-856-5358
The Department of Revenue is actually pretty helpful on the phone and they answer pretty quickly. It’s amazing how most state agencies take forever to answer the phone, but you can always get a tax collector in less than a minute…
Maybe we should have the DE Corporations Division answer their phone quicker, provide quicker filings times, and provide free online access to normal things that most every other state corporation divisions provide, like instant certificates of status and initial filings online for anyone. Maybe that way we’d get more revenue coming in quicker.
Think about it. A client of ours wants to send in their filing to create a new Delaware LLC around February and the state takes 2 months to process it and charge their card. That potential money just sits there for 2 months before the state takes it. If the state had online instant filings for anyone the Division of Corporations would make more money overnight than it currently makes in an entire morning.