Vt. Stat. tit. 11B § 15.01 : NONPROFIT CORPORATIONS — FOREIGN CORPORATIONS — CERTIFICATE OF AUTHORITY — Authority to transact business required TEXT PDF (a) A foreign corporation may not transact business in this State until it obtains a certificate of authority from the Secretary of State. (b) The following activities, among others, do not constitute transacting business within the meaning of subsection (a) of this section: (1) maintaining, defending, or settling any proceeding; (2) holding meetings of the board of directors or members or carrying on other activities concerning internal corporate affairs; (3) maintaining bank accounts; (4) maintaining offices or agencies for the transfer, exchange, and registration of memberships or securities or maintaining trustees or depositaries with respect to those securities; (5) selling through independent contractors; (6) soliciting or obtaining orders, whether by mail or through employees or agents or otherwise, if the orders require acceptance outside this State before they become contracts; (7) creating or acquiring indebtedness, mortgages, and security interests in real or personal property; (8) securing or collecting debts or enforcing mortgages and security interests in property securing the debts; (9) owning, without more, real or personal property; (10) conducting an isolated transaction that is completed within 30 days and that is not one in the course of repeated transactions of a like nature; (11) transacting business in interstate commerce. 11B V.S.A. § 15.01 Added 1995, No. 179 (Adj. Sess.), § 1, eff. 1/1/1997.