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Practice across states as "Foreign Entity" and Business license

  • 1.  Practice across states as "Foreign Entity" and Business license

    Posted 11-17-2025 01:46 PM

    Curious what the community does when practicing in another state, whether you reside or just take on a project in another state where you are required to seal the drawings. The situation is that my base license is in one state, have set up the LLC in that base state and practicing under my firm in that locale as a sole practitioner.  When getting a personal license via reciprocity in another state,  with the license  transmittal to me the board in that state made certain to make sure that I also secure a firm license once I begin to practice in that state.  While this can get expensive due to the multiple licenses and multiple tax filings,  what is the Communities experience solely sealing the drawings with your personal license ONLY as long as your name is not placed on the permit application or any correspondence as the AOR?  I realize the personal exposure apart from the protection of the firm license by only individually sealing.  Thoughts?   Thank you all in advance for your feedback.



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    Maury S. Saunders, AIA | NCARB
    Founding Principal
    MSStudioarchitecture LLC
    Reston, Virginia
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  • 2.  RE: Practice across states as "Foreign Entity" and Business license

    Posted 11-25-2025 11:13 AM

    Maury,

    Great question! I would be curious to see how others do it as well! I am also a sole practitioner with multiple states in which I do business. I haven't really questioned the firm registration question because I thought I need it as much as I do an individual license. My fear is that my insurance may not cover just one. It is costly though, so I usually ensure I hit a baseline amount of work before doing business in those states. I set a hardline of 1 year of not doing business in a state or having future prospects, before shutting down and not renewing those reoccurring costs. It gets complicated so I use an excel spreadsheet to track it all. 

    How have you been tackling the permitting in other states? How many other states are you working in? 



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    Michael Perez AIA
    PMKC Leadership Group
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