All 14 Upper Cumberland counties
How to start a business here.
What it costs, what you have to file, and in what order. Written for Tennessee, checked against the county clerks themselves, and honest about the bits that catch people out. If you would rather just talk to somebody, that is free and it is at the bottom.
What it costs
County business licence
Set by state law, not by your county, so nobody charges more or less. Required once you expect more than $3,000 a year.
City licence, again
A second licence, for the same business, if you are inside the limits of a city that levies the tax. Most of ours do.
An LLC, minimum
$50 per member with a $300 floor, and the annual report after that carries the same floor. Not the hundred dollars people expect.
The one most people get wrong
Inside city limits, it is two licences, not one.
The county licence and the city licence are separate things. You buy both, from two different offices, for the same business. So in Cookeville, Livingston, Crossville, McMinnville, Carthage or Lafayette it is $30, not $15, and the second one is the one people find out about in a letter.
It is genuinely one licence in Auburntown, Celina, Byrdstown, Spencer, because those towns do not levy the city tax. That is the only real cost difference across the fourteen counties.
The order to do it in
Decide what you are, legally
Sole proprietor, LLC, or corporation. Most people here start as a sole proprietor, and plenty should. An LLC is not automatically the right answer, and it is the single most expensive assumption on this list.
Register the name, if you need to
Trading under your own name needs nothing. Trading under a different one usually means registering it. An LLC registers with the Secretary of State; a sole proprietor filing a fictitious name does it at the county.
Get the county business licence
From your county clerk, once you expect more than $3,000 a year. Every county in Tennessee requires it. This is the step people skip, because nothing stops you trading without it until something does.
Get the city one too, if you are inside city limits
A separate licence, from the city, for the same business. This is the part almost nobody knows about, and it is covered properly below.
Register for sales tax if you sell goods
Through the Department of Revenue. Services are mostly exempt, goods mostly are not, and the boundary is less obvious than it sounds.
Then do the actual work
None of the above makes anybody want what you sell. The paperwork is a morning. The business is the rest of it, and it is the part we are useful for.
Which licence you need
Tennessee sorts businesses by what they take in, and the line moved recently enough that older advice and even some county websites still quote the old figure.
- Under $3,000
- No business licence required at all.
- $3,000 to $100,000 · minimal activity
- Renewed each year with the county or city clerk. No business tax return to the Department of Revenue.
- $100,000 and up · standard
- Renews automatically when the business tax is filed. A separate annual business tax is owed to the Department of Revenue, minimum $22, filed through TNTAP.
Find your county
Putnam County
Cookeville
What to do there →Overton County
Livingston
What to do there →White County
Sparta
What to do there →DeKalb County
Smithville
What to do there →Cumberland County
Crossville
What to do there →Warren County
McMinnville
What to do there →Smith County
Carthage
What to do there →Macon County
Lafayette
What to do there →Jackson County
Gainesboro
What to do there →Fentress County
Jamestown
What to do there →Cannon County
Woodbury
What to do there →Clay County
Celina
What to do there →Pickett County
Byrdstown
What to do there →Van Buren County
Spencer
What to do there →Clerk details checked against official county and state sources on September 17, 2026. Offices move and hours change, so call ahead if you are driving a distance.
None of that tells you whether to do it.
The fees are the easy part. Whether the idea holds up, what to charge, whether you need the LLC at all, what happens in month four — that is the conversation, and it is free. About 45 minutes, in person in Cookeville or over video, anywhere in the fourteen counties.
Book a free session