If you do business in California with a FL-registered LLC, all that you have accomplished is that you now pay $130 to Florida once to register plus $200/year, then another $20+ to CA to register as a foreign LLC plus $800/year.

What does “do business in California” mean? If my LLC opens up a shop on Etsy and I ship to California customers am I supposed to register as a foreign LLC and pay $800/year?

If so, that’s nuts and we need some beefier Commerce Clause jurisprudence.

No of course not. They mostly mean you literally are doing business in CA. Usually for small businesses it’s because you are living there.

This right here. Office in California, business assets in California, etc will trigger the tax on profits generated from those assets. Shipping goods to California doesn’t.

You can actually skirt them a bit as well even with employees or offices in CA, as long as they fall under certain defined thresholds.