Forming a US LLC costs $50 to $300 in state filing fees. That’s the whole mandatory price to get the company on the books. Everything you’ve heard about LLCs being expensive is about the ongoing costs, and that’s where founders get caught out.
This post breaks the real number into two buckets: what you pay once to form, and what you pay every year to keep the thing alive and compliant.
The one-time cost to form
There’s exactly one charge you can’t avoid to create an LLC: the state filing fee for your Articles of Organization. States set their own price and it ranges from about $50 to $300.
A few line items people expect to pay but often don’t have to:
- EIN. The IRS charges nothing. If you have an SSN you can get one online in minutes. If you don’t, you file Form SS-4 by fax or mail, and that’s the step most non-residents pay a service to handle correctly.
- Operating agreement. No state charges for this and you don’t file it with anyone. A template is fine for a single-member LLC.
- “Certificate of formation” upsells. Certified copies and certificates of good standing are real documents, but you rarely need them on day one. Skip them until a bank or processor actually asks.
So the honest formation number for most non-resident founders is the state fee plus whatever you pay to have the filing and EIN done for you. Call it a couple hundred dollars all-in.
Where the price climbs is when a service bundles things you didn’t ask for: expedited processing you don’t need, a “compliance package” sold on top of the registered agent you’re already paying for, or a marked-up EIN that the IRS hands out for free. Read what’s actually in a formation quote before you compare two of them. A $39 headline rate and a $299 headline rate often deliver the same filed company once the add-ons line up.
Where the fees actually differ by state
The filing fee is the headline, but the annual cost is what you live with. Here’s how a few popular non-resident states compare. Treat these as ranges — states adjust fees, so we keep the live numbers current for you rather than asking you to track them.
| New Mexico | Wyoming | Florida | Delaware | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Filing fee | ~$50 | ~$100 | ~$125 | ~$110 |
| Annual report / tax | None | ~$60 min | ~$139 | ~$300 flat |
| State income tax | ||||
| Member names public |
New Mexico stands out because it has no annual report at all, which is why it’s a favorite for founders who want the lowest standing cost. Wyoming charges a small annual fee tied to in-state assets. Delaware’s flat $300 franchise tax surprises people who picked it for prestige. And California, not in the table, levies an $800 minimum franchise tax whether or not you make a dollar, so think twice before forming there without a real California presence.
If you live in or actively run the business from California, that state can treat your LLC as “doing business” there and bill the $800 minimum franchise tax, even if you formed in Wyoming. Picking a cheap state doesn’t override where you actually operate.
What you pay every year
This is the part the “form an LLC for $50!” ads leave out. Once the company exists, a handful of recurring costs keep it in good standing.
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Registered agent
Every state requires a registered agent with a physical in-state address to receive legal and government mail. Standalone agents run roughly $50–$300 a year. With Taxly it’s bundled, and your mail is scanned to your dashboard the day it lands.
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Annual report or franchise fee
Most states want a yearly filing to confirm your details and, usually, a payment. It ranges from $0 (New Mexico) to a few hundred dollars. Miss it and the state adds penalties, then eventually dissolves the company.
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Federal tax filings
A foreign-owned single-member LLC has to file Form 5472 with a pro-forma 1120 every year, even with zero US income. The penalty for missing it is $25,000. If the LLC earns US-connected income, a 1040-NR comes into play too.
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Bookkeeping and prep
You don’t legally need an accountant, but someone has to keep the records and prepare those filings. This is the line that varies most by how active the business is.
The federal filing is the one that hurts when ignored. Form 5472 applies to most non-resident-owned LLCs, and at $25,000 a miss, its penalty dwarfs every state fee on this page combined. A $50 New Mexico LLC that forgets one federal form is suddenly a $25,000 problem, which is the whole reason “cheap to form” is a misleading way to think about cost.
If you want the deadline mechanics behind these, see LLC annual report deadlines and Form 5472 for foreign-owned LLCs.
The honest math
Forming is cheap and fast. A non-resident can stand up a Wyoming or New Mexico LLC for a few hundred dollars all-in, EIN included. The cost that matters is year two and beyond: a registered agent, one or two state filings, and the federal 5472 that nobody warns you about until there’s a penalty letter.
Budget for the year, not the day. A realistic running cost for a simple, low-activity non-resident LLC is a few hundred dollars a year in fees plus tax prep, and the single biggest risk to that budget is forgetting a deadline.
To put rough numbers on a full first year: figure the state filing fee to form, plus a registered agent for twelve months, plus your first annual report where the state charges one, plus federal tax prep for the 5472. For a quiet single-member LLC in a low-fee state, that lands in the low hundreds of dollars, not the thousands the prestige states imply. The figure balloons only when you add a state like California or Delaware, or when a missed filing turns into penalties. Most of what people call “the cost of an LLC” is really the cost of running it wrong.
That’s the part we price flat and handle end to end, so the surprise letters stop. Compare Wyoming, New Mexico, and Florida if you haven’t picked a state yet.
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