Updated August 17, 2026. Quick answer: yes — an LLC formed in another state can become a Tennessee LLC and stay the same legal entity, keeping its EIN, formation date and contracts. Tennessee’s statute calls the mechanism conversion, at Tenn. Code Ann. § 48-249-703. The filing fee is $20. The catch is at the other end of the move, not this one.
What Tennessee’s statute actually says
The operative provision is Tenn. Code Ann. § 48-249-703, 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.
What the filing is and what it costs
Inbound: Certificate of Conversion to a Domestic LLC (Form SS-4268) plus Articles of Organization (Form SS-4270), both filed with the TN Secretary of State, Business Services Division. Outbound: Certificate of Conversion (LLC into another Business Entity) (Form SS-4269), filed with the TN Secretary of State; no TN-side formation filing/fee applies outbound since the converted entity is organized under the destination state’s law instead.
That is the entity-law filing fee only. Registered agent, foreign qualification in any state where you still do business, and any tax clearance the state you are leaving demands are all separate.
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 Tennessee, and why it is wrong
Aggregated relocation/registered-agent advisory content (surfaced via web search, not cited as a source) states flatly that ‘Tennessee law has no provisions for entity domestication’ and that a Tennessee LLC ‘cannot be domesticated to another state through a formal domestication process,’ leaving foreign qualification or dissolve-and-reform as the only options.
The claim is keyed to the word. Tennessee’s statute never uses domestication, but Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 48-249-703 and -704 do exactly the job under the label conversion — an out-of-state LLC becomes a Tennessee LLC as the same entity, keeping its original formation date under § 703(c).
What this page does not tell you
This is entity law. It does not tell you whether the IRS will treat your Tennessee 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.
- South Carolina — https://www.scstatehouse.gov/code/t33c044.php. Statutory text, read 2026-08-12.
- Tennessee — https://codes.findlaw.com/tn/title-48-corporations-and-associations/tn-code-sect-48-249-703/. 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.