Your first 30 days: what to actually do first when starting a business

A four week launch timeline showing entity formation, banking, customer systems and operations in dependency order

By Mariam Raouf. Published 2026-06-28. 7 min read.

Most launch checklists are ordered by what is easy. Logo, name, Instagram handle, then around item fourteen, "register your business".

That ordering feels productive and wastes about two weeks, because what to do first when starting a business is not a question about priorities. It is a question about dependencies. You cannot open a business bank account without an EIN, cannot sensibly get an EIN without an entity, and cannot take a card payment into an account that does not exist. Four of your first steps are locked behind each other. The rest are not.

So here is a four week plan ordered by what unblocks the next thing, with the real US figures attached. Fair warning: a good chunk of week one is waiting on other people, and that is normal rather than a sign you did something wrong.

What to do first when starting a business, week by week

Week	Focus	The step that unblocks the next week
1	Entity and EIN	The EIN, which the bank will ask for
2	Banking and money in	A working account and a way to invoice
3	The customer facing layer	Somewhere enquiries land and get answered
4	The operating layer	Written process, so you can hand work over

The dependency chain is entirely in weeks one and two. Once you are through it, the rest can happen in any order or in parallel.

Week 1: entity, agent, EIN

Day 1 to 2: pick the state and file

Filing fees run from $50 in New Mexico and Colorado to $425 in Nevada, and the annual cost from nothing in Ohio to $800 a year in California. Delaware's annual LLC tax rose to $400 in 2026, due June 1, which most comparison articles still have as $300.

State	Formation fee	Recurring state cost
New Mexico	$50	$0 reported, see caveat
Ohio	$99	$0
Wyoming	$100	$60 a year minimum
Delaware	$110	$400 a year, due June 1
California	$70	$800 a year plus $20 statement
Nevada	$425 total	$350 a year

Sources: Delaware fee schedule, Wyoming business fees, California Franchise Tax Board, Nevada Revised Statutes Chapter 86. Checked September 2026. The other four states are in the full table.

If you already know where you operate, form there. The full comparison, including why forming in Wyoming while living in California usually costs more rather than less, is in our state by state breakdown.

Two things to diarise now. If you formed in New York, you have 120 days to publish notice in two newspapers designated by the county clerk for six consecutive weeks, then file a Certificate of Publication for $50, and missing it suspends your authority to do business. If you formed in Delaware, diarise June 1 for the $400.

Day 1 to 2, in parallel: appoint a registered agent

Mandatory in every state. A physical street address in the state of formation with someone there during business hours to accept legal service. A PO box does not count. Do it alongside the filing, because the filing asks for it.

Day 3 to 7: apply for the EIN

The EIN is free. The IRS is unusually direct about it: "Beware of websites that charge for an EIN. You never have to pay a fee for an EIN."

Method	Time to receive it
Online	Immediate, issued at the end of the session
Fax	Generally within 4 business days
Mail	Approximately 4 weeks
Phone, international applicants	Same call

Source: IRS instructions for the EIN application.

Have every answer ready before you open the online application, because the session expires after 15 minutes of inactivity and restarts from the beginning. And if you have no legal residence, principal place of business or principal office in the United States, the online tool is closed to you. You apply by phone on 267 941 1099, not toll free, open 6:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. Eastern, Monday to Friday.

You do not need a Social Security Number for any of this. The IRS instructions say to enter "foreign" or N/A on line 7b when the responsible party has no SSN or ITIN and cannot get one. The common advice to obtain an ITIN first is wrong and costs people months, and we wrote it up in getting an EIN without an SSN.

The honest bit about week 1

Some of this week is dead time. State processing takes what it takes, mailed EIN applications take about four weeks, and no amount of energy changes either. Use the gap to draft your service descriptions and pricing, which nobody is holding up.

Week 2: banking and getting paid

Open the business account

Bring the formation documents, the EIN letter and your identification. For US owners this is routine.

For everyone else, the regulation is on your side even when the bank is not. Under FinCEN's Customer Identification Program rule, 31 CFR 1020.220, a bank may accept from a non US person a taxpayer identification number, or a passport number and country of issuance, or an alien identification card number, or another government issued document evidencing nationality or residence and bearing a photograph. A passport is legally sufficient. What blocks people is bank policy, not the rule, so the fix is choosing the right bank rather than chasing an SSN. Details in opening a US bank account as a non resident.

One filing to understand before money moves

If your LLC has a single owner who is not a US person, read this twice. Form 5472 applies to a foreign owned US disregarded entity that had any reportable transaction in the tax year, and that includes amounts paid or received in connection with the formation of the entity, including contributions to it. Funding your own account counts. The IRS instructions state that a penalty of $25,000 will be assessed on any reporting corporation that fails to file when due, with a further $25,000 for each 30 day period beyond 90 days after IRS notification. A dormant LLC almost always still has to file. Walkthrough in our Form 5472 guide.

One thing you can stop worrying about

Beneficial ownership reporting. FinCEN's final rule of 11 August 2026 permanently removed the requirement for US companies and US persons to report beneficial ownership under the Corporate Transparency Act, and is deleting information already reported by US persons. Most launch checklists still list it as a step. It is not one, unless you are a foreign company registering to do business in a US state.

Set up invoicing before you need it

Pick something that produces a numbered invoice and takes a card. Do it this week rather than in the hour a client asks how to pay you.

Week 3: the customer facing layer

Now the website, and only the parts that matter in month one: what you do, who it is for, proof you exist, and a contact route that goes somewhere you check daily.

Then decide where an enquiry lives after it arrives. A spreadsheet is a legitimate answer for the first fifty leads. Enquiries sitting in an inbox with no owner and no next step are not. Our CRM comparison walks the options without pretending one tool wins, and website development is what we do when someone would rather not build it themselves.

Week 4: the operating layer

Write down the three things you will do most often. Not a manual, just the steps in order, with the link or template each one needs.

This is the week that decides whether the business can run without you at three months. It also makes the first hire survivable, because you hand over a document rather than a vibe. Worked examples in SOPs for small businesses.

Then look at what you repeated most this month and ask whether it needs a person at all.

The honest version of what to do first when starting a business

It is less dramatic than you expect and involves more waiting. A day on decisions, a week on forms, then several days refreshing an inbox for a letter from a state office.

The people who come out of month one in good shape are not the ones who worked hardest. They did the four locked steps in order, early, and used the dead time for the work nobody was blocking.

At Calpir we pick things up around week three, the website, the CRM, the operations layer, once the paperwork is done and there is a business to build systems around. If you want to know which of those you actually need first, the free assessment is a straight answer, and getting in touch costs nothing.

Frequently asked questions

What should I do first when starting a business?

Form the entity and appoint a registered agent, because everything else is locked behind it. The EIN application asks for the legal entity name, and the bank asks for the EIN. Branding or a website first is not wrong, it just unblocks nothing, so it can happen while you wait on filings.

How long does it take to get an EIN?

Online it is immediate, issued at the end of the session. By fax it is generally within four business days. By mail it is approximately four weeks. International applicants who cannot use the online tool apply by phone and get it on the same call. Those are the IRS's published timelines.

Can I open a business bank account without an SSN?

Yes. The FinCEN customer identification rule allows a bank to accept a passport number and country of issuance from a non US person, among other documents. An SSN is not legally required. Banks apply stricter policies than the regulation demands, so the practical task is finding one whose policy is workable.

How much does the first month cost?

The unavoidable parts are small. A state filing fee between $50 and $425, a registered agent fee, and nothing for the EIN. Annual state costs start the clock immediately in some states, notably $800 a year in California and $400 in Delaware. Everything else is optional in month one.

What can I safely skip in the first 30 days?

The logo, the brand guidelines, the second landing page, and any tool you have not felt the absence of. None unblock anything. Skip them until something is actually waiting on them, which is usually later than it feels.