Florida doesn’t charge LLCs a franchise tax or a state income tax, which trips people up. No ongoing state tax gets read as no ongoing state paperwork. There is paperwork: every Florida LLC has to file an annual report with the Division of Corporations, due by May 1 with a $138.75 fee. Miss the deadline and Florida adds a flat $400 late fee the very next day, no matter how late you actually are.
What the annual report actually covers
The annual report isn’t a tax return. It doesn’t ask about revenue, profit, or anything financial. It’s a records update: Florida wants to confirm who’s running the LLC, where the registered agent sits, and where official mail should go. You have to list at least one principal (a manager or authorized member), and while you’re at it you can update the registered agent, the principal address, the mailing address, and the FEIN.
The one thing you can’t do on the annual report is change the LLC’s legal name. That needs a separate amendment, filed and paid for on its own.
Here’s the part that catches people off guard: you have to file it even if nothing changed since last year. Same address, same manager, same everything. Skipping it because "there’s nothing to report" is exactly how LLCs end up paying $400 to report no changes.
If a bank or a lender ever asks for proof the LLC is in good standing, you can add a certificate of status to the same filing for $5. It gets emailed once the report posts, which is the cheapest way to get that proof without ordering it separately later.
The deadline and the fee, in plain numbers
- Fee: $138.75 for an LLC (corporations and limited partnerships pay different amounts)
- Deadline: 11:59 p.m. Eastern, May 1, filed through Sunbiz.org
- Late fee: a flat $400, added starting May 2
The Division of Corporations calls the $400 fee non-waivable, and it doesn’t scale with how late you are. File on May 2 and you owe the same $400 as someone who files in August. There’s no partial credit for being one day behind.
Non-profit corporations are the one category exempt from the $400 late fee. LLCs, profit corporations, limited partnerships, and limited liability limited partnerships all get hit with it equally.
What happens if you don’t file at all
The $400 late fee is the first consequence, not the last one. If the annual report still isn’t filed by the third Friday in September (September 18, 2026), Florida administratively dissolves the LLC at the close of business on the fourth Friday, September 25, 2026.
Once that happens, the entity’s active status is gone. Getting it back means filing a reinstatement application and paying the reinstatement fee plus every annual report fee still owed, all at once rather than spread out. Whatever got saved by skipping the $138.75 in May comes back due, with a reinstatement fee stacked on top.
Practically, an administratively dissolved LLC can also complicate business banking and contracts. Anyone running a quick business search on the company would see "administratively dissolved" or "revoked" immediately, the same kind of public status check we’ve broken down for other states.
Ignore the filing service letters
If your LLC is registered in Florida, expect mail and email from companies offering to file the annual report for you, at a price well above $138.75. Florida’s own Secretary of State has publicly called this out. In an April 2026 press release, Secretary of State Cord Byrd told businesses to "beware of third-party companies offering filing services for a fee," adding that the solicitations "can be misleading" and that "Florida businesses do not require third-party assistance." Legitimate Division of Corporations mail carries the state seal and the Sunbiz logo. Anything else asking for a bigger check is a markup, not a requirement.
The filing window opens January 1 each year, so there’s no reason to wait for deadline week. Filing in February takes the same few minutes as filing on April 30, just without the stress. Done online with a card, the report is processed and posted immediately.
How Florida stacks up against the states we’ve already covered
None of the states on this site are cheap or expensive across the board, they just spend the money in different places. Florida’s $138.75 sits above Wyoming’s $60 annual report, well below the real ongoing cost of a California LLC (an $800 minimum franchise tax dwarfs its $20 Statement of Information fee), and it works nothing like Delaware, where an LLC never files an annual report at all and just pays a flat yearly tax instead.
The closest match is Texas: LLCs there file a Public Information Report every year regardless of whether any franchise tax is owed, the same "file no matter what" logic Florida applies to its annual report.
FAQ
Does a Florida LLC have to file an annual report even if nothing changed?
Yes. The filing confirms the LLC’s information is current and is required every year regardless of whether anything actually changed. There’s no exemption for a quiet year.
What happens if I pay one day after the May 1 deadline?
The flat $400 late fee applies starting May 2, and it’s the same $400 whether the filing is one day late or several months late. The state describes it as non-waivable, so there’s no built-in appeal for "I forgot."
Can I file a Florida LLC annual report by mail instead of online?
Yes, by check or money order with the required payment voucher, but it has to be postmarked by May 1 to avoid the late fee. Filing online is faster since it posts immediately, while mailed payments are processed in the order they arrive.
Will one missed annual report get my LLC dissolved?
Not immediately. Florida allows until the fourth Friday in September before administrative dissolution takes effect, months past the May 1 deadline. The $400 late fee still applies the moment May 1 passes, and reinstating a dissolved LLC later costs more than paying on time would have.
We checked every figure above against the Division of Corporations’ own filing pages rather than a summary written by someone else, the same standard we hold every guide on this site to.
