Anonymous LLC States: What Each State's Public Formation Record Actually Requires
Statute-cited synthesis of member-name-visibility-by-state and privacy-ranking data across all 51 U.S. jurisdictions. Not legal advice.
What "anonymous LLC" means here — and what it does not
On this page, an "anonymous LLC state" means a state whose Secretary of State formation filing does not require the LLC's member (owner) or manager to be named on the public record. That is a narrow, specific claim about one government filing — it is not anonymity from tax authorities, banks, or courts. The IRS and state tax agencies get a responsible party from the EIN application and tax returns regardless of formation state. Banks must identify beneficial owners under federal customer-identification rules before opening an account. Courts can compel disclosure through discovery or subpoena. And U.S.-formed LLCs are currently exempt from federal Corporate Transparency Act beneficial-ownership reporting, but that exemption is a separate, non-public federal question — not evidence either way about what a state publishes. For the full picture of who can identify an LLC's owner and through which channel, see Who Still Knows the Beneficial Owner of an LLC? and Does an Anonymous LLC Hide the Owner from the State?
Formation privacy is not permanent — it has a lifecycle
A state's privacy posture at the moment of formation is not the whole story. Some states that require no member name on the Articles of Organization still require one later, on a recurring report — a biennial information report, an annual list, or a periodic filing with a different state agency entirely. A single privacy ranking that scores each state with one number can flatten this timing question out of view entirely: a state can look identical to another on a composite score while diverging completely on when, or whether, member names actually reach the public record. Kansas and Texas are the clearest example. Kansas requires no member name at formation but exposes 5%-plus owners two years later, on a completely separate filing (K.S.A. 17-76,139). Texas can require member names directly on the formation document itself, depending on management structure — but nothing filed with the Texas Secretary of State afterward adds to that exposure (a separate Comptroller filing does, covered below). Formation-stage privacy and recurring-filing exposure are two different questions, and treating them as one number answers neither well.
State-by-state: formation vs. later report
| State | Required at formation | Required on a later report | Statute |
|---|---|---|---|
| Delaware | Not required | No annual report exists (franchise tax only) | 6 Del. C. §18-201 |
| Indiana | Not required | Governing-person section optional for LLCs (required only of corporations); a name reaches the record only via the mandatory signature — which may be the registered agent — or if the optional section is completed. Verify. | IC 23-0.5-2-13(a) (as of 2026) |
| Kansas | Not required | Conditional — members owning 5%+ of capital named on the biennial Information Report | K.S.A. 17-76,139 |
| Nevada | Conditional — manager (if manager-managed) or member (if member-managed) | Same conditional group, re-filed annually | NRS 86.161; NRS 86.263 |
| New Mexico | Not required | No annual report requirement | NMSA §53-19-7, §53-19-8 |
| Texas | Conditional — manager (if manager-managed) or member (if member-managed) | No Secretary of State report names members | Tex. Bus. Orgs. Code §3.010(3) |
| Wyoming | Not required | Annual report requires registered agent and principal office only, no member name | Wyo. Stat. §17-29-201 |
New Mexico's underlying LLC Act is hosted behind a subscription paywall with no public government mirror; the values above are statute-plus-mirror-confirmed (cross-checked against the New Mexico Secretary of State's own formation page and a secondary law reporter), not a direct .gov snapshot. Every other row resolves to an on-disk primary-source snapshot. Full per-cell citations and source dates live in member-name-visibility-by-state.
Texas: a clean Secretary of State record is not the whole record
Texas's Certificate of Formation requires the name and address of each initial governing person — managers if the LLC is manager-managed, members if it is not (Tex. Bus. Orgs. Code §3.010(3)). No Texas Secretary of State report afterward adds member names to the record. But the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts — a different agency than the Secretary of State — requires a Franchise Tax Public Information Report naming officers, directors, or members every year, and that filing is its own separate public record. A Texas LLC can have a genuinely clean Secretary of State file and still have member names public through the Comptroller.
Kansas and Indiana: private at formation, conditional later
Kansas requires no member or manager name on its Articles of Organization (Form DL). Two years later, its biennial LLC Information Report requires naming every member who owns 5% or more of the LLC's capital, with a mailing address (K.S.A. 17-76,139) — a public Secretary of State filing. Indiana's Articles of Organization likewise require no member name, and on its biennial Business Entity Report the "governing person" section is optional for LLCs — Indiana requires that section's officer and director names only from corporations and nonprofit corporations, not from LLCs (IC 23-0.5-2-13(a)(4)-(5) as of 2026, previously codified at IC 23-18-12-13 before Indiana's recodification of its business-entity statutes; State Form 48725 marks the section "optional for Limited Liability Companies"). What the report does require of every LLC is a signature and the signer's printed name — and that signer may be the LLC's registered agent rather than a member or manager. So Indiana does not force a member's name onto the public report the way corporations are; but a member or manager who signs, or an LLC that completes the optional section, does become public, and the form carries a "you must have at least one governing person on the record" line in tension with the "optional" marking. Read neither Kansas nor Indiana as an anonymous-LLC state without that qualifier: Kansas names any member owning 5% or more, and Indiana can still surface a member's or manager's name through the required signature or the optional section. Confirm the current filing requirements — including who will sign — before relying on either.
The organizer is a different question than the member
Everything above concerns the LLC's member — the owner. A separate field on most states' formation documents asks for the organizer — whoever signs and delivers the filing — and most states require that name regardless of what they require for members. Texas, Wyoming, Delaware, and New Mexico all require an organizer name on the public filing. Kansas is the exception in this cohort: its current Articles of Organization (Form DL) carries only a bare signature line with no printed-name field, so the organizer's printed name specifically is not a required content field there. Everywhere else in this cohort, if you file your own LLC rather than using a formation service as organizer of record, your name reaches the public record through that field even in a state where members are never named. See organizer-name-visibility-by-state for the full per-state detail — a separate matrix from the member-name data this page covers.
Forming anonymously does not travel with you
These matrices measure the formation state's own record. A member-managed Wyoming or New Mexico LLC that stays entirely within its formation state can keep the member's name off every public filing described above. The same LLC foreign-qualifying to operate in a state that requires manager or member disclosure on its foreign-registration filing can surface the name there instead — the formation state's rules apply to the formation state's own record, not to every state the LLC later operates in.
Not legal advice
Private Pierce is not a law firm.
Private Pierce does not provide legal advice.
This page is not a substitute for the advice of an attorney. Which filings expose which names is state-specific, changes with legislation, and can turn on facts specific to your LLC (management structure, ownership percentages, where you operate). Confirm against the linked primary sources before relying on any figure here, and consult counsel for advice on your specific situation.
Sources
Every state-specific claim above resolves to a cited cell in member-name-visibility-by-state (member-specific claims) or the privacy-ranking dataset behind most-private-states-to-form-an-llc (overall-verdict claims) — see that page for a ranked comparison across the headline private-formation states. Full source taxonomy at /about/source-registry/.
Frequently asked questions
Is Texas an anonymous LLC state?
Conditionally, and only at formation. Texas's Certificate of Formation requires the name and address of each initial governing person — managers if the LLC is manager-managed, or members if it is member-managed (Tex. Bus. Orgs. Code §3.010(3)). A manager-managed Texas LLC keeps member names off the Articles; a member-managed one does not. Separately, the Texas Comptroller's Franchise Tax Public Information Report — a different agency filing than the Secretary of State record — requires member or manager names annually and is its own public, searchable record. A clean Secretary of State filing does not mean no public exposure in Texas.
Is Kansas an anonymous LLC state?
At formation, yes — the Kansas Articles of Organization (Form DL) require only the LLC name, resident agent, and registered office; no member or manager name. But Kansas requires a biennial LLC Information Report (K.S.A. 17-76,139) naming every member who owns 5% or more of the LLC's capital, with their mailing address, filed with the Secretary of State and publicly searchable. A Kansas LLC can be fully private at formation and still have owner names surface two years later, on a completely different filing.
Is Indiana an anonymous LLC state?
No member names are required on Indiana's Articles of Organization. On Indiana's biennial Business Entity Report, the "governing person" section is optional for LLCs — Indiana requires directors' and officers' names only from corporations and nonprofit corporations, not from LLCs (IC 23-0.5-2-13(a)(4)-(5); the state's own Business Entity Report, State Form 48725, marks that section "optional for Limited Liability Companies"). What the report requires of every LLC is a signature with the signer's printed name — and that signer can be the LLC's registered agent, not just a member or manager. So Indiana does not force a member's name onto the public report the way it forces one from a corporation. But if a member or manager signs, or if the LLC completes the optional governing-person section, that name becomes part of the public record — and Indiana's form carries a "you must have at least one governing person on the record" line that sits in tension with the "optional" marking. Treat Indiana as a verify-before-you-rely state, not a reliably anonymous one: confirm the current filing requirements and who will sign before relying on it. (As of 2026 this requirement lives at IC 23-0.5-2-13, under Indiana's recodified Uniform Business Organizations Code; the older IC 23-18-12-13 citation predates that recodification.)
Does forming an anonymous LLC protect me from lawsuits or creditors?
That is a different question from public-record privacy, and this page does not answer it. Keeping your name off a state's public formation filing is about who can look you up in a business registry — it has no bearing on litigation, judgment enforcement, or creditor claims, which reach an LLC's owner through court process regardless of what the Secretary of State's filing says. For asset-protection structures specifically, see /asset-protection/why-would-you-want-an-anonymous-llc/.
If I form anonymously in Wyoming or New Mexico, am I anonymous everywhere I operate?
No. These matrices measure only the state where you form. If you foreign-qualify to do business in a state that requires member or manager disclosure on its foreign-registration filing, your name can surface there even though your home formation record stays clean — the formation state's rules do not travel with you.
Does the organizer's name appear on the public record even in an anonymous LLC state?
Often, yes — and this is a different question from member privacy. The organizer is whoever signs and files the formation document; in Texas, Kansas, Wyoming, Delaware, and New Mexico alike, most states require the organizer's name on the public filing regardless of whether member names are required. If you file your own LLC rather than using a formation service, you are typically the organizer, and your name goes on the public record even in a state where members are never named. See /business-formation/organizer-name-visibility-by-state/ for the per-state detail — it is a separate matrix from the member-name data this page covers.
Go deeper with source-backed research
Explore methodology, datasets, and related matrices cited on this page.