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Common questions about the doola Partner API and Partner Portal. For endpoint-level request and response detail, see the API reference tab and the guides.
Don’t have access yet? Get API access. Already a partner and can’t find your answer here? Email engineering@doola.com.

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What you can do today

  • Form US companies (LLC or C-Corp) for your users. Submit a formation request via the API; doola handles state filing, registered agent, and EIN. Your user never has to interact with doola directly.
  • Register and manage your customers. Create customers (idempotent) and attach one or more companies to each.
  • Track formation status in real time. Poll the API or receive webhook events as a company moves through formation.
  • Download company documents. Articles of Organization, EIN letter, and forwarded mail, via temporary signed links.
  • Self-manage your API keys and webhook endpoint in the Partner Portal, including reviewing delivery logs.
  • Browse everything in the Partner Portal, a ready-made web dashboard for your team.

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Access and authentication

Request API access and the doola team provisions your account, issues your first API key (dk_live_...) and webhook signing secret, and creates Partner Portal logins for anyone on your team who needs dashboard access.
Once your agreement is signed, you get sandbox access and production keys, a direct line to our engineering team for integration and API questions, and implementation support from sandbox through go-live and beyond.
API keys follow the format dk_live_.... They are long, unique, and scoped to your account only, so your key can never see another partner’s data. Keys don’t expire by default, and if one is ever compromised it can be revoked and replaced without losing any of your customer or company data.
Yes. The Partner Portal uses a standard email and password login. A JWT sign-in flow is also available if you want to build your own UI on top of the API.API key vs. Partner Portal: the API key (dk_live_...) is for machine-to-machine calls such as creating customers, forming companies, and reading status. Anything else, such as managing API keys, setting your webhook URL, or reviewing delivery logs, lives in the Partner Portal.
Yes. Manage your API keys (create, list, revoke, delete) in the Partner Portal. Two intentional guardrails: an existing API key can’t mint new keys (only a signed-in user can), and “revoke all keys at once” stays a doola-assisted action to avoid accidental lockouts.
Yes. Each person gets their own email and password login, and all logins see the same company and customer data scoped to your account.
Completely. Your account is a fully isolated tenant, so your API key only ever has access to companies and customers that belong to you. There is no way to see, or be seen by, another partner through the API or the portal.

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Forming companies

Every formation includes:
  • Entity filing — the LLC or C-Corp filed with the state authority
  • EIN (Employer Identification Number) from the IRS
  • Registered Agent service for the first year, in the formation state
  • Governance document — an Operating Agreement for an LLC, Corporate Bylaws for a C-Corp
  • US business address — the Registered Agent address doubles as a US mailing address. Incoming mail is opened, scanned, and delivered to you through the document_mail_uploaded webhook, within these limits:
    • All State and government notices are included, with no cap
    • Plus the first 5 pieces of non-official mail
    • No packages — the address accepts letter mail only
    • Physical mail forwarding is available for an additional fee
The first three arrive as the three services attached to every company (Formation, EinCreation, RegisteredAgent), so you can track each one independently — see Company services. The governance document lands as a document_operatingagreement_uploaded or document_corporatebylaws_uploaded webhook shortly after the Articles of Organization are processed.The only per-company charge on the base formation is the state filing fee, which varies by state and entity type — look it up from the state-fees reference endpoint.
LLC and C-Corp. Set the optional entityType field on the create-company request to LLC (the default when omitted) or CCorp. The two differ in who you list: an LLC takes members with ownership percentages, while a CCorp takes executiveMembers (officers and directors) and a ccorpValuation (authorized shares and par value per share).
  • The customer the company belongs to (doolaCustomerId)
  • The entity type, LLC (default) or CCorp
  • The US state to form in
  • Up to 3 preferred company names, in order. doola uses the first one that clears the state’s availability check
  • The industry (NAICS code)
  • A business description
  • The responsible party (the person legally responsible for the EIN application)
  • For an LLC: company members and their ownership percentages (must total exactly 100%)
  • For a C-Corp: executive members (at least one President, Secretary, Treasurer, and Director; President, Secretary, and Treasurer may each appear once, Director may repeat) plus the share structure (number of authorized shares and par value per share)
doola auto-assigns the registered agent based on the chosen state, so you don’t supply that.
Yes. doola forms US companies for founders anywhere in the world. When no one on the company has a US tax ID (SSN or ITIN), the IRS requires the founder to sign an SS-4 before it issues the EIN. The create-company response flags this with a pending signatureRequirements entry, and you collect the signature through a fully whitelabeled doola signing link. See Non-US founders for the end-to-end flow.
Yes, for non-US founders (no member, executive member, or responsible party has an SSN or ITIN). Expedited processing is available for an additional fee, billed per use. Contact our team for pricing details.Request it at company creation by adding requestedServices: [{ "service": "EinCreation", "variant": "Expedite" }] to the create-company payload. See Expedited EIN for the full guide.
All 50 US states plus Washington DC. Query /v1/partner/references/states for the live list, so you never hardcode anything in your onboarding forms.For current state filing fees by state and entity type, see the doola state fees spreadsheet.
Your API call returns immediately (usually within a second) with a PENDING status. The actual formation work happens asynchronously in the background. Timelines vary by state and current volume. You are notified by webhook the moment the status changes, and you can check status any time via the API or the portal.The end-to-end journey your customer experiences, from submission to a ready-to-use company, typically runs as follows. Share this timeline with your clients to set expectations.
1

Submit the formation request

You collect the company details (name options, entity type, state) and member / responsible-party details, then submit them via the API. The call returns immediately with a PENDING status.
2

Company filed with the state — ~1 week on average

doola files the formation, prepares the Articles of Organization, and assigns the Registered Agent. Timing varies by state and current volume.
3

Business documents secured

The EIN and the essential business documents needed for banking, hiring, and taxes are issued.
  • US founder: 1–2 business days
  • Non-US founder: 4–6 weeks on average
Non-US founders also sign an SS-4 as part of this step — see Non-US founders.
4

US bank account opened — 3–5 business days

Once the business documents are ready, your customer can apply for a US bank account through the partner portal. International clients need a passport.
5

Run & grow the business

The company is fully set up and compliant. Optional bookkeeping and tax services support ongoing operations.
These are typical estimates, not guarantees. State filing time varies by state and current volume, and EIN issuance follows the IRS’s own timeline. The last two steps (bank account, ongoing operations) sit outside the Partner API and are shown only so you can share the full client journey.
Yes. Develop and test against https://api.test.doola.com before going to production (https://api.doola.com). Sandbox keys never trigger real state filings or charges. Sandbox also includes a playground that triggers the formation and EIN webhooks on demand.
Yes. A mailing address is included as part of the registered agent service. Incoming mail is opened, scanned, uploaded, and delivered to you through the document_mail_uploaded webhook — all State and government notices are included, plus the first 5 pieces of non-official mail. The address accepts letter mail only, so no packages. Physical mail forwarding, when you need it, carries a separate fee.
The formation charge applies at submission, so you are charged when the API request is made. doola then processes the formation and checks name availability. If all of your submitted names are unavailable, doola reaches out (Slack or email) for an updated name and works with you to complete the formation; the charge stays in place while this is resolved.Fewer than 5% of formations hit a name conflict, and name-availability checking is coming to the API. Until then, submit all three name options to minimize the chance of a conflict.
doola follows up directly with webhook reminders ahead of the renewal date, so you have time to act before it lapses.

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Tracking status and documents

There are two separate signals, and they answer different questions:formationSubmissionStatus only tracks the request handoff and never reaches a “completed” value, so don’t poll it to detect a formed company. Watch the company_formation_completed webhook or the Formation service status instead. The adminNotes field carries any flags from the doola operations team (for example filing delays); check it first if something is taking longer than expected.
If doola’s system can’t complete the formation (for example a state filing issue), it retries automatically up to 4 times, at 5, 15, 30, and 60 minutes, before marking the company FAILED. When that happens:
  • The company status is set to FAILED
  • You receive a company_formation_failed webhook
  • The doola team is alerted internally
From there, reach your doola account contact to resolve it.
Subscribe to the company_ein_issued webhook, then fetch the company to read the ein field. The IRS confirmation letter follows separately via document_einletter_uploaded once it is ready to download. The two events arrive independently, so don’t assume an order.
After a document_* webhook fires, call the documents endpoints to list a company’s documents and fetch a temporary signed download URL (valid about 1 hour). Don’t cache the URL; request a fresh one each time you need to download.

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Webhooks

Webhooks are HTTP notifications doola sends to your server whenever something meaningful happens, so you don’t have to keep polling “is it done yet?”. doola sends a POST with a JSON payload to your HTTPS endpoint, and your server responds 200 OK.
Use the Sandbox playground. Two sandbox-only endpoints complete a test company’s formation and EIN issuance on demand, firing company_formation_completed, document_aoo_uploaded, company_ein_issued, and document_einletter_uploaded through the normal delivery pipeline: signed, subscription-filtered, and logged in the Partner Portal.
The three SS-4 events fire only for non-US founders; the three Form 8821 events fire only for non-US founders who also requested an expedited EIN. See Non-US founders.
If a delivery fails, doola retries up to 5 times, at 1 minute, 15 minutes, 1 hour, 12 hours, and 24 hours.
After all retries are exhausted, doola automatically disables your webhook endpoint and sends a final partner_webhook_disabled event. Once you have fixed your endpoint, re-enable delivery in the Partner Portal.
Yes. Set your webhook URL in the Partner Portal. Generating or rotating the webhook signing secret stays a doola step, since it is a one-time-view value and rotating it is a cutover for your signature verification.
Yes. Every delivery attempt is visible in the Partner Portal (timestamp, event name, HTTP status, attempt number).
Each delivery is signed with an x-doola-signature header, an HMAC-SHA256 hex digest of the raw request body, keyed with your webhook signing secret. Recompute it on your side and compare using a constant-time comparison (for example timingSafeEqual or compare_digest), never plain string equality.
In rare cases you may receive a duplicate document_* event for the same document (for example when ops re-issues a document after an IRS correction). Handle document events idempotently using documentId.

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Partner Portal

The Partner Portal (partners-portal.doola.com) is a ready-to-use web dashboard for your team, with no technical setup, just log in. It shows a searchable list of all your companies and customers, full company details (status, EIN, filing date, state, entity type, members, addresses), a Formation / EIN / Registered Agent status stepper, downloadable documents, and any notes left by the doola team. It is also where you self-manage your API keys and webhook URL, and review delivery logs.Company and customer data is read-only in the portal. To create or change those, use the API.
The portal currently shows doola branding. White-labeling is not a standard offering today, but can be discussed for enterprise partners case by case. If you want a fully custom experience, build your own UI on top of the API.
Not directly. doola does not host a customer-facing interface for partner-created companies. You build whatever your end-users see, pulling current status from the API and displaying it in your own product.

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Data and privacy

doola stores the registration info you submit (email, first name, last name, country of residence, and optionally phone number) plus the company formation details. SSNs, when submitted as part of responsible-party or member information, are masked in all API responses. Only a redacted version is ever returned (for example ****-**-1234). The raw value is stored securely and used only for formation.

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Quick reference: available vs not