SDCL § 47-1A-1501: Authority to transact business required.

A foreign corporation may not transact business in this state until it obtains a certificate of authority from the Office of the Secretary of State. The following activities, among others, do not constitute transacting business within the meaning of this section:

(1) Maintaining, defending, or settling any proceeding;

(2) Holding meetings of the board of directors or shareholders 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 the corporation's own securities or maintaining trustees or depositories 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 thirty days and that is not one in the course of repeated transactions of a like nature; and

(11) Transacting business in interstate commerce.