State-by-state LLC guides · every figure dated
Filing fees, annual reports, privacy and taxes change at every state line, and the wrong pick bills you every year. We read the statutes, file the paperwork ourselves, and put a date on every number.
Start here
Eight states covered in depth so far: what it costs to file, what it costs to stay alive, and the rule most guides skip.
No state matches that search. We cover eight states so far; the cost table lists what to check for the others.
The real decision
You pay the state once to form the LLC, then every year to keep it alive. The second number is the one that should drive your choice, and it is the one most guides get wrong.
Full cost comparison
| State | To file | Every year | Due |
|---|---|---|---|
| WY Wyoming | $100 | $60 floor, or 0.02% of WY assets | 1st of anniversary month |
| DE Delaware | $110 | $400 flat franchise tax | June 1 |
| FL Florida | $125 | $138.75 annual report | May 1 |
| TX Texas | $300 | $0 tax under $2.65M revenue; report still due | May 15 |
| NV Nevada | $425 | $350 (list + business license) | Last day of anniversary month |
| CA California | $70 | $800 minimum franchise tax | 15th of 4th month |
| GA Georgia | $105 | $60 annual registration | Jan 1 – Apr 1 |
| NM New Mexico | $50 | None confirmed; possible triennial report | Not stated |
State fees only, verified Aug 2026 against each state guide. * Texas owes $0 tax under the revenue threshold but the report is still mandatory; New Mexico has no confirmed recurring filing (a triennial report may apply). Registered agent, licenses and taxes where you actually operate come on top.
Pick a path
Filing fee, annual obligation, privacy and real processing time, state by state, each with the date we last checked.
What happens after formation: annual reports, franchise taxes, the deadlines with real penalties. This is where most owners get caught.
EIN without an SSN, Form 5472, banking and state choice for founders outside the US.
Registered agents, articles of organization, certificates of good standing: what the paperwork is and what it costs to outsource.
Sole proprietorship vs LLC, single vs multi-member, the S corp election: the decisions that come before the state.
Founders outside the US
Non-residents form US LLCs every day. The EIN workaround, the information return whose omission costs $25,000 a year, and what changed with beneficial ownership reporting: this is where published advice is weakest, so it is where we spend the most effort.
How we work
Most LLC guides copy each other until nobody knows which state raised its fee last year. Ours start from the law and from filings we paid for ourselves.
When a claim matters, we cite the section of the state code or the IRS instruction it comes from, so you can check it yourself.
Services we compare are bought with our own money. Until we have done that for a category, we publish no ranking for it.
Fees change. Each guide shows when we last verified it, and we say plainly when sources disagree instead of picking one at random.
Fresh
LLC vs corporation comes down to taxes, paperwork, and investors. Here is what actually differs, what does not, and where the IRS election blurs…
A California Statement of Information costs $20, is due every two years, and carries a $250 penalty with no grace period if you miss…
Stopping payments doesn't dissolve an LLC. Here's the filing states actually require, why the name changes state to state, and the IRS step most…
A DBA doesn't create a business or protect you from a lawsuit. It just registers a name. Here's what it actually does, and why…
Almost every guide calls this filing "articles of organization," but eight states use a different name for the exact same document. Here's what it…
Almost every guide quotes a flat $60 for the Wyoming annual report. That number is only the floor. Here's how the actual license tax…
Before you file
Short answers here, the long ones in the guides.
No, but if you live and operate in one state and form in another, you usually have to register the LLC in your home state as well, and pay its fees and taxes anyway. Forming elsewhere rarely makes those go away. The state guides spell out when it does and does not help.
It is cheap to file and cheap to keep, but the annual figure everyone quotes is a floor, not the formula, and Wyoming does nothing about the taxes of the state where you actually do business. Our Wyoming guide and annual report guide give the exact rule.
Yes. The IRS issues an EIN to foreign owners without an SSN, just not through the online form. What trips people up is the yearly information return a foreign-owned single-member LLC must file even with zero income. The non-resident guides cover both.
Not published yet, on purpose. Our method requires buying and using each service before comparing them. Until those orders are complete, we would rather show you nothing than a table copied from the providers' own websites.
Through affiliate commissions on some links, disclosed at the top of every page that carries one. Commissions never decide what we recommend, and we tell you when filing directly with the state is the better deal, even though it pays us nothing.
The service matters less than the state. Start with the state comparison: it is the decision you cannot cheaply undo.
Compare states
