How to start an LLC — every state's fee, tax and filing portal on one page
Forming an LLC is six steps and about an hour, in every state. What differs is the price — $35 in Montana, $520 in Massachusetts — and what the state wants from you every year after. This page has all fifty on one table, a calculator for the real first-year cost, and the traps that only show up when the bill arrives.
An LLC is a container. It holds the business's contracts, its bank account and its debts, so that if the business is sued or can't pay, what's at risk is what's in the container and not your house. That is the whole reason to form one. It does not lower your taxes — a one-owner LLC is taxed exactly like a sole proprietorship until you elect otherwise — and it does not make the business look bigger than it is.
So the first question is whether you need the container yet. If you're selling a service to the public, taking deposits, signing leases or hiring, you do: the risk is real and the cost is small. If you're testing an idea with a waitlist and haven't taken a dollar, you can wait — nothing about an LLC helps you find out whether anyone will pay, and forming one in the wrong state or the wrong month costs money you don't get back.
The six steps, the same in every state
Every state's process is the same shape. The form has a different name in a few of them — Texas, Delaware and Washington call it a Certificate of Formation, Massachusetts a Certificate of Organization — and the fee, the portal and the processing time differ, but the sequence below is the sequence everywhere.
Choose a name, then check it
Search the business registry on your state's portal (linked for every state in the table below) before you fall in love with a name. It has to be distinguishable from every entity already on file — "Northline Bike Repair LLC" fails if "Northline Bikes LLC" exists — and it must end in LLC, L.L.C. or Limited Liability Company. Words like Bank, Insurance or University need permission.
Most states let you reserve a name for a small fee while you get organised. Usually unnecessary — if you're filing this week, just file — except in Alabama, where a $28 reservation is compulsory before the articles.
Choose a registered agent
Someone with a street address in the state, available in business hours, to receive lawsuits and official mail. You can be your own agent if you live in the state — it's free, and the only cost is that the address goes on the public record, and that you have to be reachable there. A service charges $50–$300 a year and is the usual choice for founders working from home or out of state. Delaware requires an in-state agent, which is one reason Delaware costs more than its fee suggests.
File the Articles of Organization
Online, on the state's own portal. The form asks for the name, the registered agent, a business address, whether the LLC is managed by its members or by managers, and an organiser's signature. It takes fifteen minutes. The fee is the first column of the table below.
Processing is minutes to a few days online in most states — Indiana, Colorado and Florida are usually same day or next; New York and Massachusetts can take longer. Paper filings take weeks everywhere. You get a stamped copy back; keep it, because the bank will ask for it.
Write an operating agreement
The state doesn't file it and most don't require it, so people skip it, and then a bank asks for it, or a partner leaves, or a court looks at whether the LLC was run as a separate thing at all. It records ownership percentages, how profits are split, who can sign for the business, what happens if a member dies or wants out, and how the LLC is dissolved. For a single member it's a page or two and it still matters — it's part of the evidence that the business is separate from you.
Get an EIN — free, from the IRS, in ten minutes
The Employer Identification Number is the business's tax ID. You'll need it to open the bank account, to run payroll, and for Stripe and most payment processors. The IRS issues it online, immediately, for nothing. There is an industry of websites that charge $50–$300 to fill in the same form; they are not the IRS. Go to irs.gov directly, apply after the LLC is approved (the application asks for its formation date), and download the confirmation letter when it appears on screen.
Open the bank account, register for taxes, check licences
The LLC only protects you if it's run as a separate thing, and the bank account is where that starts: the business's money in, the business's costs out, your pay as a transfer. Mixing the two — paying rent from the business card, taking customer payments into your personal account — is the most common reason a court ignores an LLC ("piercing the veil").
Then the registrations the state and city want: a sales-tax permit if you sell goods (free in most states), a general business licence where the city requires one, and any trade licence for your work. Several states — Indiana, Washington, Nevada — handle these on the same portal as the formation.
Every state, on one table
Fee to file, what the state charges every year after, any tax the state levies on the entity itself regardless of profit, the top marginal personal income-tax rate (an LLC's profit is taxed as your income), and what five years cost if you're your own registered agent and file yourself. The state name links to the official filing portal — the only place to file. Sort it by what matters to you.
| State (links to portal) | To file | Recurring report | Entity tax / other | Top income tax | 5 years |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alabama | $228 | Free a year | Business Privilege Tax — usually $0 | 5.00% | $228 |
| Alaska | $250 | $100 every 2 yrs | $50 a year | None | $700 |
| Arizona | $50 | None | Publication required | 2.50% | $80 |
| Arkansas | $45 | $150 a year | — | 3.90% | $645 |
| California | $70 | $20 every 2 yrs | $800 a year | 13.30% | $4,130 |
| Colorado | $50 | $25 a year | — | 4.40% | $150 |
| Connecticut | $120 | $80 a year | — | 6.99% | $440 |
| Delaware | $110 | None | $400 a year | 6.60% | $2,110 |
| Florida | $125 | $138.75 a year | — | None | $680 |
| Georgia | $110 | $60 a year | — | 5.19% | $350 |
| Hawaii | $50 | $12.5 a year | General excise tax — usually $0 | 11.00% | $100 |
| Idaho | $100 | Free a year | — | 5.30% | $100 |
| Illinois | $150 | $75 a year | — | 4.95% | $450 |
| Indiana | $95 | $32 every 2 yrs | — | 2.95% | $159 |
| Iowa | $50 | $30 every 2 yrs | — | 3.80% | $110 |
| Kansas | $85 | $90 every 2 yrs | — | 5.58% | $265 |
| Kentucky | $40 | $15 a year | $175 a year | 3.50% | $975 |
| Louisiana | $125 | $35 a year | — | 3.00% | $265 |
| Maine | $175 | $85 a year | — | 7.15% | $515 |
| Maryland | $150 | $300 a year | — | 6.50% | $1,350 |
| Massachusetts | $520 | $520 a year | — | 9.00% | $2,600 |
| Michigan | $50 | $25 a year | — | 4.25% | $150 |
| Minnesota | $155 | Free a year | — | 9.85% | $155 |
| Mississippi | $50 | Free a year | — | 4.00% | $50 |
| Missouri | $50 | None | — | 4.70% | $50 |
| Montana | $35 | $20 a year | — | 5.65% | $115 |
| Nebraska | $100 | $25 every 2 yrs | Publication required | 4.55% | $215 |
| Nevada | $425 | $150 a year | $200 a year | None | $2,025 |
| New Hampshire | $102 | $100 a year | Business Profits and Business Enterprise taxes — usually $0 | None | $502 |
| New Jersey | $100 | $75 a year | Partnership filing fee — usually $0 | 10.75% | $400 |
| New Mexico | $50 | None | — | 5.90% | $50 |
| New York | $200 | $9 every 2 yrs | $25 a year | 10.90% | $738 |
| North Carolina | $125 | $203 a year | — | 3.99% | $937 |
| North Dakota | $135 | $50 a year | — | 2.50% | $335 |
| Ohio | $99 | None | Commercial activity tax — usually $0 | 2.75% | $99 |
| Oklahoma | $100 | $25 a year | — | 4.50% | $200 |
| Oregon | $100 | $100 a year | — | 9.90% | $500 |
| Pennsylvania | $125 | $7 a year | — | 3.07% | $153 |
| Rhode Island | $150 | $50 a year | $400 a year | 5.99% | $2,350 |
| South Carolina | $125 | None | — | 6.00% | $125 |
| South Dakota | $150 | $55 a year | — | None | $370 |
| Tennessee | $300 | $300 a year | $100 a year | None | $2,000 |
| Texas | $300 | Free a year | Franchise tax — usually $0 | None | $300 |
| Utah | $59 | $18 a year | — | 4.55% | $131 |
| Vermont | $155 | $45 a year | Business entity income tax — usually $0 | 8.75% | $335 |
| Virginia | $100 | $50 a year | — | 5.75% | $300 |
| Washington | $200 | $70 a year | Business & occupation tax — usually $0 | None | $490 |
| West Virginia | $100 | $25 a year | — | 4.82% | $230 |
| Wisconsin | $130 | $25 a year | — | 7.65% | $230 |
| Wyoming | $100 | $60 a year | — | None | $340 |
Online filing fees for a domestic LLC. "Entity tax" is a charge on the LLC itself — California's $800 franchise tax, Delaware's $300, Nevada's business licence — not income tax; "usually $0" means the tax exists but only starts above a revenue threshold a new business won't reach. Five-year cost = filing + year-one extras + four years of the recurring report and entity tax, no agent service, no publication where the county sets the price. Income-tax rates are the Tax Foundation's 2026 figures. Fees change; the portal wins.
What year one really costs
The filing fee is the number everyone quotes and it's rarely the number you pay. Pick a state and the two choices that are yours to make — whether to pay for a registered agent, whether to pay a formation company — and this adds up the first year and every year after from the state's own fee schedule, including the things the state bills later.
- First year, CA
- $890 State filing fee $70 · Statement of Information $20 · Annual franchise tax $800
- Each year after
- $810 Statement of Information $10 ($20 every two years) · Annual franchise tax $800
- Five years
- $4,130 Among the ten most expensive states · cheapest is Mississippi at $50, dearest California at $4,130
One of the cheapest states to file in and the most expensive to stay in. Recurring filing: Statement of Information, $20, due the end of the anniversary month, every two years. Annual franchise tax: $800 every year from the first, due by the 15th day of the 4th month of the tax year. The first-year waiver for new LLCs ended for LLCs formed on or after 1 January 2024. Above $250,000 of gross receipts a further LLC fee applies, from $900. File at California Secretary of State — bizfile Online. Excludes federal and state income tax, local licences and permits, and a DBA if you trade under another name.
Where the money hides
A handful of states are cheap to enter and expensive to stay in, or hide a requirement that doesn't appear on the formation form. These are the ones that generate the "nobody told me" emails.
- California · $800 a year
- The annual franchise tax is due from the first year (the waiver for new LLCs ended for LLCs formed from 2024), on top of a $20 Statement of Information within 90 days. Over $250,000 of revenue there's a second fee. Filing is $70; staying is not.
- New York · publication
- Within 120 days you must run a notice for six weeks in two newspapers chosen by the county clerk, then file a $50 certificate. Upstate that's a few hundred dollars; in Manhattan it can pass $1,500. Skip it and the LLC's authority to do business is suspended.
- Massachusetts · $520, then $520
- The highest fee in the country to form ($500 by post, $520 online), and the same again every year as the annual report. No cheaper path.
- Nevada · $425 in, $350 a year
- No income tax, but the articles, the initial list and the state business licence are three separate fees at formation, and the list and licence come back every year.
- Delaware · agent + $400
- The franchise tax is flat — $400 a year from 2026, up from $300 — and a Delaware-address registered agent is compulsory, so an out-of-state founder pays for both, plus a foreign registration at home. Almost never worth it for a small business.
- Tennessee, Kentucky, Rhode Island · entity taxes
- Tennessee charges a franchise tax (minimum $100) and 6.5% excise on profit; Kentucky's LLET has a $175 minimum; Rhode Island's minimum tax on an LLC is $400. All three apply whether or not you made money.
- Florida · the $400 late fee
- The annual report is $138.75, due by May 1. Miss it by a day and the state adds a flat $400; miss it to September and the LLC is dissolved. Set the reminder the day you file.
- Pennsylvania · the new annual report
- From 2025 every Pennsylvania LLC files a $7 annual report by September 30, where before there was nothing for a decade. Cheap, easy to forget — and from the 2027 report on, a missed one dissolves the entity six months later.
Which state? Almost always your own
The advice to form in Delaware, Wyoming or Nevada is aimed at a different kind of company than the one most people reading this are starting. Here is the maths for everyone else. An LLC that does business in a state has to be registered in that state. If you form it somewhere else, you register your out-of-state LLC at home as a "foreign" LLC — a second filing, a second fee, a second annual report, and a registered agent in both places — and you still pay home-state income tax on the profit, because the profit is yours and you live there. Nothing is saved; a second set of bills is added.
Wyoming's $100 formation and $60 annual report look good until you add the foreign registration in, say, California ($70, then the $800 anyway, because the tax follows where the business is done). Nevada's privacy is real but so is its $350 a year. Delaware's courts and case law matter to a company raising venture capital — and that company forms a Delaware C-corporation, not an LLC.
The one honest exception: a business with no physical presence anywhere — a founder who genuinely moves between states, or an online business whose owner lives abroad — can reasonably pick a cheap, quiet state, and Wyoming is the usual choice. If you have an address, a shop, a van or a client you visit, form where you are.
What a one-person LLC does and doesn't do
It protects your personal assets from the business's debts and lawsuits, as long as you keep the two apart: separate bank account, contracts signed in the LLC's name, an operating agreement, the annual report filed. It does not protect you from your own negligence (a court can reach you personally for something you did), and it does not protect you from a personal guarantee — which every landlord, lender and equipment lessor will ask a new LLC's owner to sign. Read for those words before signing anything.
On tax, a single-member LLC is "disregarded": the profit goes on your personal return on Schedule C, with self-employment tax on all of it, exactly as it would without the LLC. The tax benefit people talk about comes later, from electing S-corporation treatment once profit is high enough that paying yourself a salary plus distributions beats paying self-employment tax on everything — commonly somewhere past $60,000–$80,000 of profit, and only worth it with a payroll service and an accountant. Forming the LLC is what makes that election possible; it doesn't make it happen.
Common questions
How long does it take to form an LLC?
Filing the form takes about fifteen minutes. Approval is minutes to a few days for online filings in most states — Indiana, Colorado, Florida and Texas are typically same day to a few days — and one to three weeks in slower states or by post. Expedited processing is available for an extra fee almost everywhere.
Can I be my own registered agent?
Yes, in every state, if you have a street address there (not a PO box) and can receive mail in business hours. The trade-off is that the address becomes public record, and that a process server may arrive at your home or shop. A service costs $50–$300 a year. Delaware requires an agent physically in Delaware.
Do I need a lawyer to form an LLC?
Not for a one- or two-owner business with a simple structure. The state form is designed to be filed by the owner, and the operating agreement for a small LLC is a standard document. A lawyer is worth it when there are several owners with unequal contributions, outside investors, or a licensed profession with its own entity rules.
Do I need an LLC to take payments online?
No. Stripe, Square and PayPal all open accounts for sole proprietors using your name and Social Security number. An LLC with an EIN lets the account be in the business's name and keeps the money separate, which you'll want soon — but nothing about taking a card payment requires it on day one.
Articles of Organization or Certificate of Formation — which do I file?
The same document under a different name. Most states say Articles of Organization; Texas, Delaware, Washington and a few others say Certificate of Formation; Massachusetts says Certificate of Organization. Your state's portal only offers one, so you can't file the wrong thing.
What happens if I miss the annual report?
A late fee first — from a few dollars to Florida's flat $400 — and then, after a grace period that varies by state, administrative dissolution: the LLC stops existing and its protection with it. Reinstatement is possible but costs more than the report did. Put the due date from the table above in your calendar the day you file.
Can I move an LLC to another state later?
Most states allow 'domestication' — converting the LLC into one of theirs while keeping its history — and the rest require forming a new LLC and dissolving the old one. Either way it's a second filing fee and a bit of paperwork, not a disaster. Forming at home to begin with avoids it.
Do I also need a DBA?
Only if you'll trade under a name that isn't the LLC's legal name — 'Northline Bike Repair LLC' operating as 'Northline' needs one in most states, filed with the state or county for $10–$100. Trading under the exact registered name needs nothing extra.
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