Stock certificate guides

Start with the question you actually have

The store sells the paper. These pages explain which paper, and which words on it, match a question a buyer already has. If you are staring at a blank certificate and asking what has to be filled in, you want the face guide. If the board has approved an issuance and you are trying not to botch the signatures and the ledger, you want the issuance guide. If the company is a limited liability company and someone called the document a unit certificate or a membership certificate, you want the LLC guide.

None of the three is a formation service, and none of them is a substitute for reading the statute they cite. Each page shows the official link and the date the text was checked: November 3, 2026. General information, not legal advice, applies to every page, including this index.

Three guides, three jobs

The face guide is the longest comparison. It uses RCW 23B.06.250 only as an MBCA-style example of minimum face content and two executing officers, with an optional seal. It then shows where Delaware, Texas, Florida, Nevada, and Ohio depart from that shape. The departures are the reason the guide exists. A statute page online will quote one section. It will not tell you that Texas wants par value on the front and Ohio will not release a certificate against unpaid shares.

The issuance guide assumes you have picked a state, or that you will open one before you sign. It still repeats the order of operations, because buyers who are ready to purchase a set of 20 are usually past the comparison stage. They need the resolution, the legend, the second signature, and the ledger line.

The LLC guide refuses to treat a membership certificate as corporate stock with the word "member" swapped in. 6 Del. C. § 18-702(c) is an agreement clause. Tex. Bus. Orgs. Code § 3.202 is a domestic-entity rule. Those are different tools, and the catalog's LLC, version 2, Texas LLC, and PLLC sets are different paper for that reason.

State pages when the statute is the question

Five states have their own pages. Use them when the company is already formed there, or when you are deciding whether that state's certificate habit fits the way you want to issue equity.

• Delaware for the two-officer rule, the board's power to take a class off paper, and the ban on bearer form.
• Texas for the front-of-certificate list, including par value, and for the restriction you cannot enforce.
• Florida for a statute that lets shares be certificated or not, and for a written statement if you skip paper.
• Nevada for the stockholder's entitlement, void bearer certificates, and the 10-day confirmation.
• Ohio for the named officer pair, full payment before any certificate moves, and facsimile signatures only with a transfer agent.

The index of those five, with a short difference table, is stock certificates by state. If your state is not on that list, start with the face guide's MBCA-style example and then read your own statute. This set does not pretend to cover every code.

How the printed catalog maps to those questions

The Standard Certificates collection is the shelf for corporation sets, including the Eagle border if you want it. LLC sets live in the LLC collection linked from the header. Prices above are the live product prices used when these pages were built. The order button on each guide adds the guide as the source of the visit so the store can see which explanation sent you.

Read this before you order

Match the set to the issuer. A corporation with one class does not need a Texas LLC certificate, and a Texas LLC should not use a generic corporate face that omits the Texas organization line. A company that has not decided whether shares will be certificated should read the state page before buying 20 blanks and then deciding the board prefers no paper.

Match the signers to the statute before the names are typeset under the lines. Reprinting is cheap compared with a certificate the wrong people signed. Delaware's count is two authorized officers. Ohio's pair is specific titles, not any two people who work there. Texas looks at the governing documents. Florida looks at a bylaw or board designation. Nevada looks at the officers or agents that statute designates.

Match the timing to the statute when timing is part of the confirmed text. Ohio is the clear case: fully paid, then executed, then delivered. Nevada's numeric clock is the 10-day confirmation after a written request on uncertificated shares, not a deadline for printing the first certificate. Florida's uncertificated statement is owed within a reasonable time. Those clocks are not interchangeable, which is why they live on separate pages.

If you only remember one habit, remember the ledger. The holder takes the certificate. The company keeps the stub and the list. Replacements, later transfers, and the simple question "how many shares are out" all start from that list.

Nine more tasks, each with its own statute

The first three guides answer the questions people ask before they buy a set. The pages below answer the questions that show up after the certificate exists, or when the issuer is not an ordinary business corporation. Each one is tied to a statute fetched from an official source. If a state is missing, that state's certificate section was not in the text we could verify.

• Lost stock certificate replacement compares Delaware, Nevada, California, and Michigan on a new certificate and a bond, and it does not invent a bond price.
• Stock ledger and transfer ledger uses the Delaware definition of the stock ledger and the written statements other states require when there is no paper.
• S corp stock certificates starts from the federal one-class-of-stock limit and the state legends that keep a transfer from breaking it.
• How to transfer shares treats shares as personal property and shows when a buyer takes free of a restriction.
• Stock certificate legends separates a class-rights disclosure from a real transfer restriction, including the California close-corporation face legend.
• Par value and no-par stock shows the one certificate statute in this set that forces par, or a no-par statement, onto the front.
• Void or cancel a certificate explains surrender, replacement, and the one fetched sentence that calls a transfer void.
• Digital and paper certificates separates uncertificated shares, a machine-readable card, and California's approved electronic system.
• Nonprofit membership certificates starts from the Virginia rule that a nonstock corporation shall not issue shares.

What this index will not do

It will not quote a fee for filing, because no filing fee was part of the checked material. It will not tell you that every state bans bearer certificates, because only some of the confirmed rows say that. It will not tell you a seal is mandatory, because every confirmed mention of a seal in this set is optional. It will not send you to a state page we have not written.

When you are ready to look at paper, use the collection link above or the printed set in the quick answer. When you are ready to read, start with the guide that matches the question, then open the state page if one exists.

Questions

Which guide should I read first?

If you are choosing a form, start with what must appear on a stock certificate. If the board is issuing shares this week, start with how to issue stock certificates. If the company is an LLC, start with LLC membership certificates.

Do the guides cover every state?

No. There are full pages for Delaware, Texas, Florida, Nevada, and Ohio. RCW 23B.06.250 appears only as an MBCA-style example of minimum face content and two officers.

Where do I buy the certificates these guides describe?

On this store. A printed single-class set of 20 is $56.00. The Standard Certificates collection is linked from this page and from the header.

How much is a corporate seal?

The corporate seal is $40.00. The guides that mention it treat the seal as optional under the statutes that discuss it.

Is the print utility actually almost free?

It is $0.99. You still fill in the face and obtain the signatures your state requires. It is a file, not a filled-in legal conclusion.

Are these pages legal advice?

No. They are general information tied to statutes checked on November 3, 2026. Each guide links the official text it relies on.

Statutes last checked November 3, 2026. Official text: RCW 23B.06.250; DGCL 8 Del. C. § 158; Tex. Bus. Orgs. Code § 3.202; Fla. Stat. § 607.0625(1); NRS 78.235; Ohio Rev. Code § 1701.24(B).