# Form your company as one clean open act. > Company formation · founder self-serve Delaware C-corp or LLC, an EIN, a registered agent — assembled and filed in plain English, by you, in one pass. A flat fee for the act, and every government fee shown at exactly what the state charges. No signature to wait on, because forming a company is an open act, not a reserved one. *Preview build — the formation act is open; entity-choice advice is described, not sold.* - **Start your formation:** POST /form - **See the flat price:** see below `flat formation fee · government fees at cost · no attorney gate · built on api.lawyer` ## One clean open act — no attorney in the loop, so nothing to fake Forming a company is document assembly plus a ministerial filing. You choose the entity, the state, the registered agent; your facts assemble into a certificate, and the certificate is filed with the state. No licensed judgment is exercised anywhere in that path — which is exactly why the law treats it as an open act (the LegalZoom position), not a reserved one. On api.lawyer that is a single ratified row: de_formation_filing, credentialType none, reserved false, gate none. The filing never posts a Gig, so there is no attorney and no signature to wait on — and no reserved layer for anyone to fake. We sell the act itself, at a flat price, and we stop there. We never bolt a human "review" onto an open act to justify a fee. One act, one fee. The moment a decision needs licensed judgment — which entity is right for you — we say so, and we hand you to an independent attorney instead of charging you for a review that is really just advice wearing a costume. ## A flat fee for the act. Government fees at cost — every line shown. You pay one flat fee for the formation act. Every fee the government or a third party charges is passed through at exactly what it costs — itemized, never marked up, never bundled into the price to hide a margin. What the state charges is what you pay. ### Formation act — $349 (flat, per formation) Assemble the certificate, file it with the state, obtain the EIN, name the registered agent for the first year. One act, one fee — no per-hour billing, no percentage of anything, no surprise review line. #### Pass-through — at cost, itemized, never marked up - **Delaware filing fee** — _State of Delaware, Division of Corporations_ You pay the state exactly what the state charges to file the certificate. We collect it as agent for you and remit it in full. - **Registered agent (year one)** — _Third-party registered-agent provider_ A Delaware entity must name a registered agent. The provider’s own annual fee is passed through at cost; renewal in later years is billed by the provider directly. - **EIN (federal)** — _Internal Revenue Service_ The IRS charges nothing for an EIN, so there is nothing to pass through — obtaining it is part of the flat act, at no added cost. - **Annual franchise tax / report** — _State of Delaware (recurring)_ Paid directly by you to the state each year at the state’s cost. It never touches us as a fee — we only watch the deadline (see below). Pass-Through means at cost. If our own error ever causes a government fee, we bear it — you never pay for our mistake. ## What you can do here today — and the one thing we won’t sell you Everything green is an open act: no credential, no attorney, no gate — assembled and filed for the flat fee. The one amber row is a reserved act. It is real, and you may want it — so we describe it honestly and route you to an independent attorney instead of dressing it up as a "review". ### Form a Delaware or state entity — Open act · sold today `form-delaware-entity` · `gate: none · reserved: false` The certificate of incorporation (C-corp) or formation (LLC) is assembled from your facts and filed with the state. Same open path for either entity kind — the only difference is which template your facts fill. Mints the entity as a watched Asset the moment it files. ### Assemble the formation documents — Open act · sold today `assemble-formation-docs` · `gate: none · reserved: false` Bylaws or an operating agreement, the initial consent, a founder stock or membership ledger — assembled from the same intake facts. Document prep, no licensed judgment. Part of the flat act. Nothing here needs a signature you have to wait on. ### EIN & registered agent — Open act · sold today `ein · registered-agent` · `gate: none · pass-through at cost` Obtain the federal EIN and name a registered agent for year one. Ministerial adjacent acts the catalog already backs — folded into the flat fee, with the agent’s own cost passed through unchanged. No markup on the pass-through. The IRS charges nothing for the EIN. ### Annual franchise-tax & report watch — Open act · watched, not billed `RecurringObligation` · `gate: none · minted on the Asset` When the entity files, a recurring annual franchise-tax / report obligation is minted on its Asset — a watch, not a bill. It hands to docketing.legal so the deadline always has an owner. You pay the state directly, at cost. We watch the clock. ### Advice on which entity to choose — Reserved act · described, never sold `advise_entity_choice` · `requiresSigner: state-bar (your state)` C-corp or LLC? S-election? An 83(b) filing? That is legal advice — a reserved utterance-class act only a licensed attorney may speak. We do not narrate it, and we never charge a "review" fee that is really this advice in disguise. Want it? We route you to an independent attorney barred in your state. It is not part of the formation fee, and it is not for sale here. ## Start your formation Four facts open the formation as one clean Matter on api.lawyer and mint your entity as a watched Asset. You choose the entity yourself — we don’t advise the choice — and nothing here posts a Gig or waits on a signature. Open a formation with a POST to /form: { founder, company, entityKind: ccorp|llc, homeState }. It mints a Matter and a watched entity Asset and posts no Gig. ```json { "founder": "Dana Okafor", "company": "Northstar Labs, Inc.", "entityKind": "ccorp", "homeState": "CA" } ``` Opening a formation records a Matter and mints your entity Asset. It is not legal advice and does not, by itself, file anything with the state. ## Every formation mints a watched Asset A company is not a document you file and forget — it is a live Asset with a recurring clock. The moment your entity forms, it carries an annual franchise-tax and report obligation. We mint that as a watch on the Asset and hand it to docketing.legal, so the deadline always has an owner and never falls into dead air. 1. **The entity is an Asset** Not a one-time filing — a perpetual noun with a docket and a status history that accumulates over the company’s life. 2. **The clock is minted, not sold** The annual franchise-tax / report obligation attaches to the Asset at formation as a RecurringObligation. It is a watch, not a fee. 3. **The deadline has an owner** docketing.legal takes the watch so the recurring deadline is acknowledged and rolls forward — you pay the state directly, at cost. - [See docketing.legal](https://docketing.legal) ## A founder in plain English — or a machine at the same open act This page is the consumer door: you, a founder, forming your own company in plain English for a flat finished price. The same open formation act is also a programmatic endpoint on api.lawyer — machine-speed formation under a Client Mandate, for builders embedding it in their own product. Same open row, two doors. ### incorporations.legal — This door · the founder _A human, in plain English_ You fill four facts, pick your entity, and get a flat finished price. Human intake, no code, no API key. ### api.lawyer — The other door · the builder _A programmatic call_ POST the formation under a Client Mandate and get a typed Matter back. Machine-speed, metered like compute, for a product you are building. It is the same consumer-vs-builder split gigs.lawyer and api.lawyer draw everywhere in this family: one open act, a human door and a machine door over it. - [Get an API key on api.lawyer](https://api.lawyer/#get-key) ## Form it as one clean act. A flat fee, government fees at cost, no signature to wait on, and a watched Asset the day it forms. Start your formation, or take the same open act as an API. - POST /form — Start your formation - [Build it with the API](https://api.lawyer/#get-key) ## Machine-legible This same page is served as markdown to any client whose Accept header does not explicitly ask for text/html — the same copy objects, spoken as markdown. To open a formation programmatically, POST /form (or call api.lawyer directly for the raw open act). --- incorporations.legal is a preview build over api.lawyer. The formation act is open and posts no attorney work; advice on which entity to choose is a reserved act described here, not offered for sale. Nothing on this page is a live-service guarantee, and nothing on it is legal advice. incorporations.legal — built on api.lawyer · [api.lawyer](https://api.lawyer) · [docketing.legal](https://docketing.legal) · [gigs.lawyer](https://gigs.lawyer)