Anonymous Wyoming and Nevada LLCs: Why They Don’t Protect Californians

By Eric Ridley, attorney, Ridley Law. Updated September 2026.

Part of our money myths series.

This page covers the social media version of the pitch. Our longer guide, why out-of-state LLCs won’t save you in California, goes deeper on charging orders, series LLCs and offshore structures.

Does a Wyoming or Nevada LLC have to register in California?

Yes, if it’s doing business here, and the Franchise Tax Board says an LLC is doing business in California “if any of the LLC’s members, managers, or other agents performs activities in California on behalf of the LLC, regardless of where the LLC otherwise conducts business.”

The FTB’s own example in Publication 3556 is the anonymous-LLC pitch. Paul, a California resident, is a member of a Nevada LLC that owns property in Nevada. He occasionally talks by phone from California with the Nevada management company and oversees it. The FTB’s conclusion: “Paul conducts business in California on behalf of the LLC. The LLC must file Form 568.” The statute is just as broad. “Doing business” means “actively engaging in any transaction for the purpose of financial or pecuniary gain or profit” in California (Rev. & Tax. Code § 23101), and the $800 annual tax applies to any LLC doing business here, whether it was formed “under the law of this state, any other country, or any other state” (Rev. & Tax. Code § 17941). The FTB says the tax is due “even if you are not conducting business, until you cancel your LLC.”

Skipping registration doesn’t save the money and costs you more. An unregistered foreign LLC that transacts intrastate business “shall not maintain an action or proceeding in this state,” so it can’t sue a tenant or a contractor here (Corp. Code § 17708.07). The FTB can add a $2,000 penalty for each year a foreign LLC that fails to qualify keeps doing business here without filing after a demand (Rev. & Tax. Code § 19135). If the LLC doesn’t file or pay, its powers can be “forfeited (foreign LLC),” and contracts it signs during forfeiture are voidable.

The fair exception: a truly passive, minority stake isn’t doing business. In Swart Enterprises, Inc. v. Franchise Tax Board (2017) 7 Cal.App.5th 497, an out-of-state company that held “a 0.2 percent ownership interest, with no right of control” in a California LLC wasn’t doing business here. Owning and running your own LLC from California is the opposite situation.

Does an anonymous LLC keep your name private in California?

No: once a foreign LLC registers here, it must file a statement of information listing “the name and complete business or residence addresses of any manager or managers,” or of its members if it has no manager, and the Secretary of State says those addresses are “a public record, open to all.”

Every foreign LLC registered to do business in California files that statement within 90 days and every two years after (Corp. Code § 17702.09). Nevada’s annual list names managers or managing members with their addresses too, and Nevada law penalizes listing a nominee manager “with the fraudulent intent of concealing the identity” of the people really in charge in furtherance of unlawful conduct. The Wyoming filing may not show your name. California’s will.

Privacy also ends the day someone wins a judgment against you. A creditor can get a court order requiring you to appear and answer questions under oath about what you own, and the order warns that if you don’t appear “you may be subject to arrest and punishment for contempt of court” (Code Civ. Proc. § 708.110). Anyone holding your property worth more than $250, including your own LLC or its agent, can be examined too (Code Civ. Proc. § 708.120). An LLC that hides your name from a stranger browsing a database doesn’t hide anything from a judgment creditor.

Do LLCs still have to file a beneficial ownership report with FinCEN?

Not if they’re U.S. companies: FinCEN’s final rule, effective August 14, 2026, “adopts the blanket exemption approach” of its March 2025 interim rule, so domestic LLCs don’t report their owners under the Corporate Transparency Act.

FinCEN says it issued the final rule on August 11, 2026. A separate FinCEN rule that would have required reports on cash purchases of homes by LLCs and trusts was vacated by a federal court in Texas on March 19, 2026, and is on appeal. None of this makes a Wyoming LLC more private in California, because the disclosure that matters to a Californian is the state filing above. Our BOI report page covers what California trusts and LLCs owe now.

Does a Wyoming or Nevada LLC protect your assets in a California lawsuit?

Not reliably: Wyoming and Nevada make the charging order a creditor’s exclusive remedy and bar foreclosure, but California’s statute lets a court “foreclose the lien and order the sale of the transferable interest,” and no published California appellate decision says a California court must apply the Wyoming or Nevada rule instead.

Wyoming’s statute says the charging order is the exclusive remedy “including any judgment debtor who may be the sole member,” and that foreclosure isn’t available. Nevada’s says much the same. California’s rule is different (Corp. Code § 17705.03). California law does let the formation state govern an LLC’s internal affairs and a member’s liability for the LLC’s debts (Corp. Code § 17708.01), but a creditor collecting your personal debt from your LLC interest isn’t trying to hold you liable for the LLC’s debts. Neither the statute nor any published California case we found settles which state’s charging-order rule a California court applies. Don’t bet your house on it.

In Curci v. Baldwin (2017) 14 Cal.App.5th 214, the creditor held a judgment of about $7.2 million and had collected nothing through a charging order on a Delaware LLC, even though the LLC “distribute[d] approximately $178 million” to the debtor and his wife between 2006 and 2012. The court of appeal held that California law allows reverse veil piercing, “a means of reaching the LLC’s assets, not the debtor’s transferable interest.” In Blizzard Energy, Inc. v. Schaefers (2021) 71 Cal.App.5th 832, after a $3.825 million Kansas fraud verdict, a California court added the debtor’s LLC, which held land near Cambria, as a judgment debtor on an alter ego finding the court of appeal upheld. Courts elsewhere have refused charging-order protection for single-member LLCs entirely: Florida’s Supreme Court in Olmstead v. FTC (2010) and a Colorado bankruptcy court in In re Albright (2003), which said the limit “serves no purpose in a single member limited liability company.”

Can you move assets into an LLC after you’re sued?

You can, and a court can undo it: under California’s Uniform Voidable Transactions Act, a transfer made to hinder, delay or defraud creditors is voidable “whether the creditor’s claim arose before or after the transfer was made” (Civ. Code § 3439.04).

The statute lists signs of fraudulent intent, and the anonymous-LLC playbook hits several: a transfer to an insider, keeping control of the property after the transfer, and a transfer made after you’d “been sued or threatened with suit.” The remedy is to avoid the transfer and, after judgment, levy on the asset as if it never moved (Civ. Code § 3439.07). The creditor generally has four years, or one year after discovering the transfer if later, and the outside limit is seven years (Civ. Code § 3439.09). Moving assets after a problem appears is the version that fails; our asset protection guide explains what holds up.

Have regulators gone after “asset protection” sellers?

Yes: the FTC banned one in 2007, and the Justice Department has obtained injunctions against promoters who used nominee entities to hide clients’ assets.

Besides the Nevada-corporation case described above, the Justice Department in 2009 permanently enjoined the founder of a Utah “asset-protection business” from helping customers file fraudulent liens and set up hidden nominee bank accounts. In another 2009 civil suit in Florida, the government alleged that customers of a husband-and-wife “asset protection” business funneled about $28 million through the scheme, causing an estimated $4.3 million tax loss; those are allegations from the complaint.

When does an out-of-state LLC make sense?

When the business really operates in that state and isn’t managed from California, or when you hold a passive minority stake with no control, as in Swart.

A Californian who owns rental property in Nevada and manages it through a local company still has to watch the Paul example in Publication 3556. If you live here and run it from here, expect to pay California’s tax and register here. For California rentals, see whether your California rental property should be in an LLC; for the home you live in, see why your house doesn’t belong in an LLC.

What should you do instead?

1. Form the LLC where you live and work

   If you need an LLC for a real business or rental, a California LLC costs less than a Wyoming or Nevada LLC registered here and avoids the registration traps.

2. Insure first

   Liability coverage and an umbrella policy pay claims. An LLC only changes who the claim is against.

3. Use the protections California already gives you

   The homestead exemption protects home equity, and retirement accounts have their own protections.

4. Plan before there’s a claim

   Transfers made after you’ve been sued or threatened are the ones courts undo.

Frequently asked questions

Can a California resident use a Wyoming LLC?

Yes, but if you manage it from California it’s doing business here, so it owes the $800 California tax and has to register with the Secretary of State.

Do I have to pay California’s $800 tax on a Wyoming or Nevada LLC?

If it’s doing business in California or registered here, yes. The tax applies to LLCs formed under the law of “any other state.”

Is a Wyoming LLC anonymous?

Its Wyoming filings may not show your name, but its California statement of information will once it registers here, and a judgment creditor can make you disclose everything under oath.

Do I need to file a BOI report for my LLC in 2026?

Not for a U.S. company. FinCEN’s final rule, effective August 14, 2026, keeps the exemption for domestic companies.

Are anonymous LLCs illegal?

No. Using one to conceal who controls a business in furtherance of unlawful conduct, or to hide assets from creditors or the IRS, is where people get into trouble.

What is a charging order?

A court order that gives a member’s creditor a lien on the member’s share of LLC distributions. In California, if distributions won’t pay the judgment in a reasonable time, the court can order the interest sold.