Starting a business here

Most people who want to start something are not short of money or of will. They are short of knowing which office issues what. This says who issues it, and where to ask.

This is not legal or tax advice. Every requirement below names the office that issues it and links to that office's own page, with the date we last checked. Rules change — check the page before you rely on it.

The four steps every business takes

Decide whether you need to form a company. If you will trade under your own legal name as a sole proprietor, you register nothing here. If you want an LLC or a corporation, or want to trade under a different name, that is filed with the Secretary of State.
Ohio Secretary of State
Ohio has no state business licence to buy or renew. If you have been told to get one, you have been told about another state. What Ohio has instead is the vendor's license in step three and the city income tax in step four, and neither is what people mean by a business licence.
Open the official page ↗
Get an EIN — the federal tax number for the business. It is free, it is online, and it usually takes minutes.
Internal Revenue Service
Free
Open the official page ↗
If you will make taxable sales, get a vendor's license. In Ohio this IS your sales tax account — there is no separate sales tax permit. It costs $50, it comes from the county auditor where your location sits, and you need one for each fixed location.
Franklin County Auditor
$50
The fee rose from $25 to $50 in April 2025, so older advice and older relatives are wrong about the number. And do not assume a service business is exempt: Ohio taxes fewer services than goods, but landscaping and lawn care, building maintenance and janitorial work, and employment services are all taxable here — trades this community works in.
Open the official page ↗
Work the city income tax into your prices before you quote anybody. Columbus charges 2.5% on the net profit of a business operating in the city, and every suburb charges its own at its own rate.
City of Columbus Income Tax Division
This is the step people from Nevada skip entirely. Ohio has a state income tax and a city income tax on top of it. If you live in Whitehall and work in Columbus you will file two municipal returns, not one. Finding this out in April, after a year of pricing as though it did not exist, is the expensive way to learn it.
Open the official page ↗

Where people here have started

← All trades

Traditional clothing

Some setup

Hand-woven kemis, netela and modern pieces, brought in directly from weavers at home and sold at pop-ups and online.

$3,000 – $25,000rough, to open the doors — not counting what you live on until it pays

What you need

Register your tax accounts through OH|TAX eServices with an OH|ID. If you make taxable sales you need a vendor's license, which IS your sales tax account — Ohio does not issue a separate sales tax permit. It comes from the Franklin County Auditor, costs $50, and is per fixed location.
Ohio Department of Taxation — OH|TAX eServices
The vendor's license fee rose from $25 to $50 in April 2025, so older advice is wrong about the number. And Ohio has both a state income tax and a municipal income tax — Columbus takes 2.5% of business net profits. Somebody arriving from Nevada expecting no income tax is wrong twice.
Open the official page ↗
Customs duty and import rules on anything you bring in commercially.
US Customs and Border Protection
Bringing clothes in for a shop is not the same as bringing them in a suitcase for the family, and the difference is decided by what you do with them, not by how they arrived. Textiles also carry labelling rules. Ask CBP before the first commercial shipment, not after it is held.
Open the official page ↗

What to buy

Stock, and the money tied up in it while it sits
A rail, a mirror and a table for pop-ups
Good photographs, because most of the selling happens on a phone
Shipping and customs costs, budgeted before the first order

Checked September 3, 2026

Or look at another trade:

People here who do this work

Members of this board who file these forms for a living. Sefer has not checked their credentials — ask them directly.

Already running one? List it