LLC Cost by State, Advertised Fee vs True First Year Cost

Here is the formula in full, so you can check our arithmetic against your own state.

Year one total equals the state filing fee, plus any charge the state requires only in the first year, plus the flat annual state tax where one exists, plus the first recurring report fee.

Four things sit outside it on purpose. Newspaper publication, because the three states that require it do not set the price. Registered agent fees, because you can act as your own. Anything a formation company adds. And income tax, which depends on what you earn rather than on where you filed.

One wrinkle worth saying out loud. Several states do not bill the first report until month thirteen or fourteen. We still count it. A founder budgeting a first year needs the number the state will actually ask for, not the one that happens to land inside twelve calendar months.

Seven states charge a flat tax, not a fee

The distinction matters and most comparison tables get it wrong. A fee buys you a filing. A tax is owed because the company exists.

Seven states levy a flat amount every LLC owes. It is due whatever you earn. California charges $800 a year, Rhode Island and Delaware $400 each, Vermont $250, Kentucky $175, Arkansas $150 and Tennessee $100. California calls its $800 an annual tax, and calling it a fee is how a $70 state ends up described as cheap.

California is the sharpest example. The advertised fee is $70. The first year costs $890. That is 12.7 times the number on the label, and the widest gap of any state.

How this was verified

Every figure was read at a state government source, a Secretary of State fee schedule, a statute, or a department of revenue page. Each row links to the source it came from and carries the date we last read it there.

Forty five of the fifty states are fully verified. Five are not, and they say so. Idaho publishes no fee for its annual report at all, and Montana's annual report is free only because the state waives it year by year, so both are marked partial rather than verified. Three more carry a flag. Delaware's flat tax is being checked against a rate change the state published after we last read its schedule. Illinois and Ohio put their fee schedules on pages our checker cannot read at all, so neither has been re confirmed since July. We would rather show you that than imply a fresh check we did not make.

Where online and paper rates differ the table shows the online rate, because that is what most founders pay. Optional expedite charges are excluded everywhere.

Arizona, Nebraska and New York require public notice of a new LLC in a newspaper. New York asks for six consecutive weeks in two papers picked by the county clerk. Nebraska asks for three successive weeks. Arizona lets you skip it if your statutory agent sits in Maricopa or Pima county, because the state posts the notice itself.

None of the three publishes a price. Newspapers set their own rates, and rates in downstate New York run far above rates upstate. So the table flags the requirement and leaves the cost out of the total. We would rather show a hole than fill it with a number no state stands behind.