How Much Does It Cost to Form an LLC in 2026?

$40 to $500. That's the range for state LLC filing fees alone — and it's the smallest part of your first-year cost if you're not careful about where you form.

This guide covers every cost involved in forming and maintaining an LLC, including the state fees most people find, the ongoing costs most people miss, and which states are genuinely cheap vs. cheap-looking but expensive in practice.

What It Costs to Form an LLC: Full Summary

Cost Item	Low	Mid	High	Notes
State filing fee	$40	$100	$500	One-time; required in all states
Registered agent (annual)	$0	$125	$300	Free if you serve as your own agent
Operating agreement	$0	$0	$500	DIY templates are free and legally sufficient
EIN (federal tax ID)	$0	$0	$0	Always free at IRS.gov
Annual report / franchise tax	$0	$50	$800+	California $800 minimum; varies widely
Formation service (optional)	$0	$79	$300	Not required; pays for itself if it saves time
First-year total	$40	$275	$1,600+	California LLC easily exceeds $1,000

State Filing Fees by State

This is the fee to file your Articles of Organization — the document that legally creates your LLC. It's paid once, at formation.

State	Filing Fee	Annual Report / Fee	Notes
Kentucky	$40	$15/year	Cheapest filing fee in the US
Arkansas	$45	$150/year	Annual franchise tax adds up
Colorado	$50	$10/year	Very low ongoing cost
New Mexico	$50	$0	No annual report — genuinely low-maintenance
Wyoming	$102	$60 min/year	Strong asset protection, popular for holding companies
Florida	$125	$138.75/year	Common for online businesses; no state income tax
Texas	$300	Franchise tax (varies)	0.375% for retail/wholesale LLCs on revenue over $2.47M threshold
Delaware	$90	$300/year flat	Popular for investors; high annual cost for small LLCs
New York	$200	$25/year + publication	NY requires a newspaper publication notice costing $1,000–$2,000
California	$70	$800 minimum/year	Most expensive to maintain; franchise tax applies regardless of profit
Massachusetts	$500	$500/year	Highest base filing fee and high annual cost — Certificate of Organization guide

New York is the trap to watch: the $200 filing fee looks manageable, but state law requires new LLCs to publish a formation notice in two local newspapers for six consecutive weeks. Publication costs $1,000–$2,000 depending on the county. You cannot skip this — failure to publish results in your LLC's authority to operate being suspended.

Registered Agent: $0 or $125/Year

Every LLC needs a registered agent — someone with a physical address in the state who is available during business hours to receive legal documents (lawsuits, government notices, etc.).

You have two options:

Be your own registered agent. Perfectly legal. Costs nothing. Works if you have a physical address in the state and are reliably available during business hours. The downside: your name and address become part of the public record, which some people prefer to avoid.

Use a commercial registered agent service. $50–$300/year depending on the provider. Northwest Registered Agent is the best value at $125/year — good service, they don't upsell aggressively. ZenBusiness bundles this with their formation packages. Incfile (now Bizee) offers the first year free, then $119/year.

For a home-based business where you already have a public address, being your own agent is fine. For a service business where clients might sue you, using a service keeps the lawsuit paperwork from arriving at your home address.

Operating Agreement: Free to $500

An operating agreement defines how your LLC is run: ownership percentages, voting rights, profit distributions, what happens if a member leaves. It's not legally required in most states, but you should have one regardless.

DIY templates from LegalZoom, Rocket Lawyer, or your state's Secretary of State website are free and work for most single-member LLCs and simple multi-member LLCs. An attorney will charge $200–$500 to draft one tailored to your specific situation — worth it if you have multiple members with unequal ownership, complex profit-sharing arrangements, or significant assets going into the LLC.

For a solo LLC with standard needs: use a free template. For a two-person LLC with $500,000 in contributed capital: pay the attorney.

EIN (Employer Identification Number): Always Free

An EIN is your LLC's federal tax ID — required to open a business bank account, hire employees, and file taxes. Apply at IRS.gov. Takes 5 minutes online and you get your number immediately.

Formation services and legal document sites charge $50–$100 to "help" you get your EIN. Do not pay this. The IRS application is straightforward and completely free. If a service is charging for this, it's pure margin for them.

Annual Reports and Franchise Taxes

This is where ongoing LLC costs vary dramatically by state. The filing fee gets your LLC started — annual reports and franchise taxes are the recurring cost of keeping it alive.

State	Annual Cost	Notes
New Mexico	$0	No annual report required
Colorado	$10	Annual report only; no franchise tax
Wyoming	$60 minimum	Based on assets in state; $60 for most small LLCs
Florida	$138.75	Annual report; straightforward
Delaware	$300 flat	Due June 1; expensive for small LLCs vs. what you get
Texas	Varies	Franchise tax on revenue; 0.375% rate for retail/wholesale
California	$800 minimum	Plus $900–$11,790 LLC fee on revenue over $250K

California is in a category by itself. The $800 annual franchise tax applies to virtually every California LLC and foreign LLC doing business in California — even if you lost money that year. A startup LLC with $0 in revenue still owes $800. That's why many small business owners on the West Coast seriously evaluate Oregon ($100/year), Nevada ($200/year), or Wyoming ($60/year) before defaulting to California filing.

Delaware vs. Wyoming: The "Best State" Question

You'll see a lot of advice telling you to form your LLC in Delaware or Wyoming regardless of where you operate. Here's when that actually makes sense:

Delaware makes sense if you're raising venture capital or have investors. Delaware corporate law is well-developed, investor-friendly, and most VC firms prefer Delaware C-corps anyway. For a single-member LLC with no outside investors, Delaware's $300/year Franchise Tax Report is just overhead. Form in your home state instead.

Wyoming makes sense for holding companies and asset protection. Wyoming has no state income tax, strong charging order protections, and low annual costs. The $60/year minimum fee is attractive. For a straightforward operating business, the benefits are modest — Wyoming LLC law works, but so does most other states' LLC law for normal businesses.

The real cost of forming out of state: if you're operating in, say, Arizona but form your LLC in Wyoming, you'll need to register your Wyoming LLC as a foreign LLC in Arizona. That's an additional $50–$150 Arizona filing fee, plus Wyoming's annual report fee. You've now doubled your compliance costs. Form in your home state unless you have a specific reason not to.

Formation Services: When They're Worth It

DIY filing is free beyond the state fee and takes 30–60 minutes. Formation services like ZenBusiness, Northwest Registered Agent, and Bizee charge $0–$300 on top of state fees. What they actually provide:

• Fill out and file the Articles of Organization for you
• First year of registered agent service (often included)
• Operating agreement templates
• EIN filing (which, again, is free at IRS.gov)
• Compliance reminders for annual reports

Worth paying for if: you have a complex state (New York publication requirement, California franchise tax setup), you want registered agent service bundled, or you want the compliance reminders to avoid forgetting your annual report. Skip it if you're comfortable filing a one-page state form and setting a calendar reminder.

What's Not Included in Formation Costs

Forming the LLC is just the legal structure. Running a business requires more:

• Business bank account: Free at many banks, but requires EIN and LLC documents
• Business licenses: Separate from your LLC; local business permits run $50–$500/year
• Accounting software: QuickBooks or Wave; $0–$80/month
• Attorney review: $150–$500 if you want a legal review of your operating agreement
• Bookkeeping: If you hire a bookkeeper, budget $300–$800/month for basic service

Use our startup cost calculator to model the full cost of launching your business — LLC formation is one line item in a much longer list. If you're hiring employees, the employee cost calculator shows your true cost per hire including employer taxes and state-specific workers' comp rates.

The Cheapest Way to Form an LLC

File directly with your state's Secretary of State website. Pay the state fee. Be your own registered agent. Use a free operating agreement template. Apply for your EIN at IRS.gov.

Total cost in most states: $50–$150. Total time: under an hour.

If your state is California, New York, or Massachusetts, budget significantly more — those states have structural costs that no formation hack eliminates. For Massachusetts specifically, see our Massachusetts LLC Certificate of Organization guide — the $500 filing fee and $500/year annual report make it the highest-cost state for LLC maintenance.