Business formation · 51 jurisdictions
What does an LLC really cost in your state?
Not the filing fee everyone quotes. The whole first year — formation, annual report, minimum state tax, and the requirements that catch people out. Every number links to the state agency that set it.
The spread
The same LLC costs 20× more in one state than another
Most expensive first year
- Massachusetts $1,000
- California $890
- Tennessee $700
Cheapest first year
- Montana $35
- New Mexico $50
- Missouri $50
6 states require no annual report at all for a standard LLC — Arizona, Delaware, Missouri, New Mexico, Ohio, South Carolina. Nobody tells you that when you're choosing where to file.
Why trust these numbers
Three things most guides get wrong
They quote the filing fee and stop
California's filing fee is $70. Your first year is $890, because the $800 minimum franchise tax hits in year one. The temporary exemption expired — plenty of pages still say it hasn't.
They go stale and nobody notices
Delaware raised its annual LLC tax from $300 to $400 on 1 August 2026. Pennsylvania replaced its ten-year report with an annual one. We publish a changelog so you can see what moved and when.
They hide the requirement that costs most
New York makes you publish notice in two newspapers for six weeks. In Manhattan that runs past $2,000, and the clock starts the day you file. It is not on the fee schedule.
Every jurisdiction
First-year cost, state by state
Start here
The things people get wrong most often
Almost every guide quotes the filing fee and stops. The filing fee is rarely the number that decides anything — these are the pages where the gap is widest.
- First-year cost calculatorEvery line item, sourced to the agency that charges it
- Filing deadline lookupThe dates that dissolve an LLC if you miss them
- Full reference, all 51 jurisdictionsEvery field we hold, with every source URL
- Why Nevada is not the cheap option$75 to form, $350 a year to keep — the highest recurring cost in the dataset
- The New York publication requirementA statutory cost that appears on no fee schedule
- California’s $800 minimum taxEleven times the filing fee, owed whether you trade or not
- What changed and whenLouisiana rises on 1 October 2026 — three weeks out
- How we verify every figureThe standard, published before the data was
- How we make moneyAnd what it does not buy
Primary sources
The two federal pages worth reading first
Everything we publish is what a state charges. These cover what the federal government does, which no state fee schedule mentions.
- IRS — how an LLC is taxed federallyirs.govState fees are only half the bill. This is the federal side: default classification, disregarded entities, and Form 8832.
- SBA — choosing a business structuresba.govWhether an LLC is even the right entity for you. We only price LLCs; this covers the alternatives.