Updated September 3, 2026. Quick answer: Washington does not let a Washington LLC convert into another state’s LLC while remaining the same legal entity. There is no domestication section, and no outbound-reaching conversion route, anywhere in RCW 25.15: the Washington Secretary of State’s own LLC filing catalog offers only entity-TYPE conversion destinations (corporation, LP/LLLP, LLP), never an out-of-state LLC. What works instead is a merger: form a new LLC in the destination state and merge the Washington LLC into it under RCW 25.15.416–.431.
Why the answer is no
RCW 25.15.436(1) governs conversion, and its first clause bars any LLC (foreign or domestic) from using the section to become a Washington LLC, since RCW 25.15.411(7) defines ‘organization’ to expressly include LLCs and .436(1) only reaches an ‘organization OTHER THAN a limited liability company.’ Two independent checks reinforce this: the Uniform Law Commission’s official comment to the model provision Washington’s statute mirrors treats ‘conversion’ as an entity-TYPE change and ‘domestication’ as the separate, jurisdiction-only part, a part Washington’s 2015 recodification (2015 c 188) never enacted, and Washington’s own Secretary of State ‘Domestic LLC Conversions’ filing-resource table lists only entity-type destinations for a converting LLC, with no LLC-to-out-of-state-LLC option. Re-fetched RCW 25.15.436 directly on 2026-09-03: the section text matches the dataset exactly, and no ‘Domestication’ section is visible anywhere in the chapter’s conversion/merger sequence.
The route that does work
The substitute is a merger into a newly formed out-of-state LLC. RCW 25.15.416(1) lets a Washington LLC ‘merge with one or more other constituent organizations,’ and RCW 25.15.411(2) defines ‘constituent organization’ broadly enough to include a foreign LLC: merger, unlike conversion, is not restricted by entity type. Practically: form the destination-state LLC first, then merge the Washington LLC into it under RCW 25.15.416–.431 with the surviving entity being the new out-of-state LLC. This is not a continuation of the same legal entity, which is exactly the distinction that makes it a workaround rather than domestication. Simple foreign qualification (RCW 25.15.310 et seq.) and dissolve-and-reform are the other two practical options.
What is commonly published about Washington
Washington’s own Secretary of State glossary states ‘Conversion (any profit business entity type): to either change the type of business entity or to change the jurisdiction of the business entity’: read alone, this implies an LLC can use conversion to change its jurisdiction. The same agency’s own itemized ‘Domestic LLC Conversions’ filing catalog contradicts it: it lists only entity-type destinations for an LLC and offers no jurisdiction-only filing option.
Check both ends of the move, not just the destination
A move needs two things to be true: your destination has to let the entity in, and your current state has to let it out. Nine states have no statutory route out, so an LLC formed in one of them cannot domesticate anywhere, however welcoming the destination is. That is where most published advice goes wrong; it checks one end.
| State you would be leaving | Why there is no route out | What the code offers instead |
|---|---|---|
| Delaware | the statute affirmatively limits it | 6 Del. C. § 18-209 |
| Kentucky | nothing in the code permits it | KRS 275.345 to 275.365 |
| Massachusetts | the statute affirmatively limits it | Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 156C, § 59(b) |
| Missouri | nothing in the code permits it | Mo. Rev. Stat. §§ 347.127 to 347.135 |
| New Mexico | nothing in the code permits it | NMSA 1978 § 53-19-62 |
| New York | nothing in the code permits it | NY LLC Law § 1001(b), certificate of merger under § 1003 |
| South Carolina | the statute affirmatively limits it | S.C. Code Ann. § 33-44-904 |
| Washington | the statute affirmatively limits it | RCW 25.15.416 to 25.15.431 |
| West Virginia | nothing in the code permits it | W. Va. Code § 31B-9-904, articles of merger under § 31B-9-905 |
Delaware is the surprise on that list and it is not a mistake; see the Delaware page. For the other eight, the substitute is a merger, not a dissolution: form the new entity in the destination state and merge the old one into it. Merger produces a surviving entity rather than a continuation, so it is genuinely not the same thing as domestication, but it keeps far more alive than dissolving does.
This page sells nothing and links to no filing service. Moving an LLC is a filing-desk task with a statutory answer, and the answer is either in your two states’ codes or it is not.
The full 51-jurisdiction table is on the domestication states list.
Sources
Every row on this page is statutory text. No formation service, no registered-agent marketing page and no aggregator is cited anywhere in this cluster; those are the only publishers of the competing versions.
- Washington: https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=25.15.436. Statutory text, Dataset retrieved 2026-08-12 from app.leg.wa.gov, statute tier..