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

Locksmith

Some setup

Lockouts, rekeys and new locks, mostly mobile. Steady work in a city of rentals, and the call always comes at a bad hour.

$5,000 – $25,000rough, to open the doors — not counting what you live on until it pays

What you need

Ohio does not license or register locksmiths. There is no exam and no board. Working on vehicle locks needs a vendor's license; building locks do not.
No Ohio licence — Ohio Attorney General, Consumer Protection Section
No licence does not mean no rules. Ohio's Repairs and Services Rule and the Home Solicitation Sales Act govern estimates, written authorisation and pricing, and the Attorney General enforces them. And if you also install alarms, the City of Columbus licenses alarm dealers separately.
Open the official page ↗
Columbus licenses specific trades rather than businesses in general. The list includes mobile food vending, itinerant vendors, massage and bath establishments, vehicle for hire, scrap metal dealers, short-term rentals, alarm dealers and hotel operations.
City of Columbus — License Section
Your street decides this, not your mailing address. Whitehall, Reynoldsburg, Gahanna and Blacklick all use Columbus postal addresses and none of them are the City of Columbus for licensing. Check which city your address is actually in before you pay any fee.
Open the official page ↗

What to buy

A key machine and pick set
A van fitted out so the stock is findable at 2am
Blank keys and cylinders in the sizes this city actually uses
The permit, carried on you

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