Best LLC Formation Services in Hawaii

Hawaii's General Excise Tax is not a sales tax under a different name. It lands on gross receipts. You owe it on revenue you already spent on rent, stock and wages. The rate is 4%, and all four Hawaii counties now add a 0.5% surcharge, Honolulu since 2007, Kauai and Hawaii County since 2019 and 2020, Maui since January 2024. Pass the tax on to a customer and 4.7120% is the most you may show them, anywhere in the state.

The annual report carries two prices, and most guides print only one. DCCA's fee schedule sets it at $15, which is what paper costs. The state portal charges $12.50. Which quarter it falls in depends on when you registered, and no report is due at all in the year you register.

Where you file changed this summer. BREG retired Hawaii Business Express on July 6, 2026 and moved every filing service to a new portal. The old address redirects now. Links to the retired site still sit on DCCA's own pages, so last year's bookmark is not a safe guide.

Hawaii has no anonymous LLC. Form LLC-1 asks for the name and address of every organizer, and members or managers reach the public record too. Forming in Wyoming and registering here as a foreign LLC hides nothing. It adds a second state's paperwork on top.

1. Get your GET license before you take any money. Apply on Form BB-1 at the Hawaii Department of Taxation. The fee is $20 once. Walk it into a district office and you leave with your Hawaii Tax ID that day. Mail it and expect four to six weeks.
2. Get your EIN from the IRS. Free, online, a few minutes. Banks ask for it and payroll needs it.
3. Work out which quarter owns your annual report. Register between January and March and it is due every March 31. April to June means June 30, and so on to December 31. Year one is exempt. A late filing costs $10 extra per year delinquent. DCCA also warns that it uses no third party to collect these reports, so an invoice from a company you have never heard of is not a bill.
4. Keep a registered agent in Hawaii. The agent must be a person living here or an entity authorized to do business here, physically present in the state. A P.O. box does not qualify.
5. Skip the BOI report. FinCEN exempted every company formed in the United States in March 2025, so a domestic Hawaii LLC files nothing. A final rule made that permanent on 14 August 2026. Only companies formed abroad still report. A letter asking you to pay for one is a scam, and FinCEN says so.
6. Write an operating agreement anyway. Hawaii does not require one. Your bank will ask, and it is what separates your money from the company's when somebody disputes it.

• GET license, $20. Nearly every business here needs one before it trades, and it comes from a different department than the one that registered your LLC.
• Expedited review, $25. DCCA charges it on top of the filing fee to move your articles ahead of the queue.
• Correction, $25. One wrong detail on the articles costs half the original filing fee to put right. That is the plainest argument for letting somebody who files in Hawaii every week do it.
• County surcharge, 0.5%. All four counties charge it now, so 4% GET is really 4.5% wherever you work.
• Reinstatement, $25 plus arrears. Coming back after administrative dissolution costs $25 on top of every missed annual report and its $10 late fee.
• Paper instead of the portal, $2.50 a year. Same annual report, $15 by mail against $12.50 online.