On my journey of setting up my own business, the first stop was getting my business licensing squared away. I live in Washington State and will focus on my process so your mileage will vary depending on the State in which you live.

I initially started researching the application process for Washington so I ended up at the Department of Revenue website application information page. This page was great as it had all the information I needed and a lot of handy links. The best part of the site was the application wizard. The wizard made it extremely easy to get set up. As part of this process I also had to register for a Unified Business Identifier, which was quite simple. One thing to keep in mind, again if you are in Washington, is to identify all of the cities you plan on doing business in the first year. I found it pretty easy to add the city in which I am located and the one I planned on doing most of my business last year.

The next step was to register for a Federal Employer Identifier. This one I was not sure I needed right away as I was not planning on hiring anyone for the business but I decided to go through the process anyway.

All in all the process took about an hour and only cost me about $70 and I got a nice printed license to hang on the wall. I was quite impressed with the simplicity and the helpful information that Washington State provides. I will need to renew the license each year, but again the process was quite simple.