Is it better to form the holding company first?

Holding first. If you do operating first you have to do a membership transfer and possibly amend stuff. Why create extra paperwork?

Eh, it's not that serious either way. I did operating first and then formed the holdco a month later. Nobody cared. Just make sure the operating LLC's operating agreement allows the transfer and you update the registered agent records. Took me maybe 20 min.

Holdco first is cleaner for liability separation from day one. But what actually matters is that you don't commingle funds and you keep the ownership chain documented. The order of formation is secondary to that.

Form the holdco in WY, get the EIN, then form the NM LLC and list your WY entity as the member. Done. If you do it backwards you're just making yourself fill out a transfer form later. Also, curious why NM for the operating company? Nothing wrong with it, just nosy.

Before, ideally. Your operating LLC's formation docs will ask for the member's info (the holdco) and you'll want its EIN handy for banking and tax stuff anyway

Realistically, the order matters way less than people make it out to. Neither the IRS nor the state cares if you formed the holding company two weeks before or after. It's just cleaner. But the bigger question: are you actually gonna maintain the separation or is this just a paperwork exercise? Asking because I know people who set up these structures and then run everything through one bank account anyway, which defeats the whole point.

@NotMyCircus big facts. Half the anonymous LLC crowd is just paying filing fees for the vibes.

To answer your question: yes,EIN first. And agreed with the above—the anonymity stuff is what you make of it. A holding company doesn't magically hide you if you file an operating agreement that names you personally as manager somewhere. Ask me how I know.

Haha, sounds like there's a story there. But yeah, I'd also say: don't overthink the formation order. Get the holdco formed and its its EIN. Then the operating LLC. Then open bank accounts for each. The sequence is the easy part; the maintenance is where people fall off.