Updated August 17, 2026. Quick answer: yes — an LLC formed in another state can become a North Carolina LLC and stay the same legal entity, keeping its EIN, formation date and contracts. North Carolina’s statute calls the mechanism conversion, at N.C. Gen. Stat. §§ 57D-9-01, 57D-9-20 to 57D-9-23. There is no single filing fee we can honestly quote — see below. The catch is at the other end of the move, not this one.
What North Carolina’s statute actually says
The operative provision is N.C. Gen. Stat. §§ 57D-9-01, 57D-9-20 to 57D-9-23, and the state’s own term for the transaction is conversion. What makes a provision count for this purpose is narrow and worth stating: the act’s defined “converting entity” or “other entity” has to expressly reach an entity formed under another jurisdiction’s law. An LLC turning into a corporation inside one state is a different transaction that nearly every state allows, and conflating the two is how the published counts drift.
This statute is conditional
North Carolina’s provision is one of the ones that works only if the other jurisdiction’s law also authorises the transaction. In the ordinary case — two states that both permit it — that condition is satisfied and you will never notice it. It matters when the state you are leaving is on the no-route list below, in which case the condition is precisely what fails.
Why there is no single fee to quote
Inbound: ‘Articles of Organization and Conversion’ filed with the NC Secretary of State under G.S. 57D-9-22. Outbound: ‘Articles of Conversion’ filed under G.S. 57D-9-32.
Two different statutory fees apply depending on which direction the conversion runs, so any page giving you one number for “the North Carolina domestication fee” has picked one and dropped the other. We would rather tell you the shape of it and let you read the fee statute than print a figure that is right half the time.
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.
What is commonly published about North Carolina, and why it is wrong
A law-Q&A site (justanswer.com) states: ‘North Carolina permits LLC domestication under N.C. Gen. Stat. S 57D-6-20, allowing an LLC to change its jurisdiction by filing articles of domestication with the Secretary of State.’
The conclusion is right and the citation is invented. There is no § 57D-6-20 anywhere in chapter 57D — Article 6 covers dissolution and does not reach section 20 at all — and chapter 57D has no articles of domestication filing, because that document does not exist in North Carolina law.
What this page does not tell you
This is entity law. It does not tell you whether the IRS will treat your North Carolina LLC as a continuation for federal tax purposes, what happens to your EIN, or what the state you are leaving will want in tax clearance before it lets the entity go. Those are real questions with different sources behind them, and we would rather leave the gap visible than fill it with something we have not read. 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, with the statute behind every cell, is on the domestication states list; the three routes are compared on how to move an LLC to another state.
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.
- Delaware — https://delcode.delaware.gov/title6/c018/sc02/index.html. Statutory text, read 2026-08-12.
- Kentucky — https://apps.legislature.ky.gov/law/statutes/chapter.aspx?id=38578. Statutory text, read 2026-08-12.
- Massachusetts — https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartI/TitleXXII/Chapter156C. Statutory text, read 2026-08-12.
- Missouri — https://revisor.mo.gov/main/OneChapter.aspx?chapter=347. Statutory text, read 2026-08-12.
- New Mexico — https://api.realfile.rtsclients.com/publicfiles/ee3072ab0d43456cb15a51f7d82c77a2/1c940b98-cdb8-45ad-839f-7645c176a0c7/ch53art19.pdf. Statutory text, read 2026-08-12.
- New York — https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/LLC/1001. Statutory text, read 2026-08-12.
- North Carolina — https://www.ncleg.net/EnactedLegislation/Statutes/PDF/ByArticle/Chapter_57D/Article_9.pdf. Statutory text, read 2026-08-12.
- South Carolina — https://www.scstatehouse.gov/code/t33c044.php. Statutory text, read 2026-08-12.
- Washington — https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=25.15.436. Statutory text, read 2026-08-12.
- West Virginia — https://code.wvlegislature.gov/email/31B/. Statutory text, read 2026-08-12.
Where else you can move it: 25 more destination guides, added September 3, 2026, each read from that state’s own statute. Check the destination end before you file at this one.