Updated September 3, 2026. Quick answer: South Carolina does not let an LLC formed there convert or domesticate into another state’s LLC while remaining the same legal entity: there is no such route anywhere in the LLC Act. The chapter’s only cross-jurisdiction mechanism for LLCs is merger, under S.C. Code Ann. § 33-44-904, which produces a surviving entity rather than a continuation. South Carolina does have a statute captioned ‘Domestication’ (Title 33, Chapter 9), but by its own definitions that chapter reaches corporations only, not LLCs.
Why the answer is no
The full South Carolina LLC Act, Title 33 Chapter 44 Article 9 (§§ 33-44-901 to -914, ‘Conversions and Mergers’), was read in full and searched for ‘domesticat’, ‘redomestica’, ‘transfer of domicile’, ‘continuance’, ‘foreign limited liability’, and ‘another jurisdiction’ used as a jurisdiction-change trigger. Every ‘foreign limited liability’ hit concerns a foreign LLC’s registration to transact business in SC (Article 10) or a foreign LLC as a merger party: never a foreign LLC becoming a domestic one. Article 9’s own conversion sections only convert an SC partnership or limited partnership into an SC LLC, or an SC LLC into an SC corporation, limited partnership, or partnership: entity-TYPE conversion within South Carolina only, never a same-type jurisdiction change. This is a confirmed absence over a corpus read in full. South Carolina’s only genuine domestication statute, Title 33 Chapter 9 (‘Domestication of a Foreign Corporation,’ §§ 33-9-100 to -180), is captioned and defined for corporations; nothing in the LLC Act has an equivalent provision.
The route that does work
The substitute is merger under S.C. Code Ann. § 33-44-904(a), which expressly allows a South Carolina LLC to ‘be merged with or into one or more limited liability companies, foreign limited liability companies, corporations, foreign corporations, partnerships, foreign partnerships, limited partnerships, foreign limited partnerships, or other domestic or foreign entities’: confirmed independently this session by direct fetch of the official chapter page, which also confirms the section’s caption is ‘Merger of entities.’ The practical route is to form the destination-state LLC and merge the South Carolina LLC into it. This is not the same thing as domestication: the survivor is a newly formed or continuing separate entity, so formation date, EIN treatment, and contract continuity pass by operation of law through the merger, not by a jurisdiction-change filing.
What is commonly published about South Carolina
Aggregated formation-service and relocation content lists South Carolina among states that currently allow LLC domestication or conversion, without qualification. This conflates SC’s corporation-only domestication chapter (Title 33 Ch. 9) with a nonexistent LLC equivalent.
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.
- South Carolina: https://www.scstatehouse.gov/code/t33c044.php. Statutory text, Dataset retrieved 2026-08-12 from the official chapter page (scstatehouse.gov/code/t33c044.php)..