Same business, same paperwork, two very different bills: file for an LLC in Kentucky and the state asks for $40. File in Massachusetts and the state asks for $500. Nothing about your business changed — only your ZIP code did. So when people ask what an LLC costs to register, the only honest first answer is: which state are you standing in?
The short answer
The state filing fee — the one unavoidable charge — runs from $40 to $500 depending on the state, with most states somewhere between $50 and $200. On top of that sit a handful of smaller costs, some optional and two genuinely sneaky, that decide what you actually spend in year one. Budget $100 to $300 all-in for a typical DIY filing in a typical state, and read the California and New York warnings below before assuming yours is typical.
The filing fee, state by state
Every LLC begins with one document — usually called Articles of Organization — filed with the state, and the fee is the headline cost. The cheap seats: Kentucky at $40, Arkansas at $45, Colorado at $50. The middle of the pack is crowded: Florida at $125, New York at $200, and most states somewhere in that $50-to-$200 band. The expensive end: Texas at $300 and Massachusetts at the top at $500.
Notice what the fee does not buy you: more protection. A $40 Kentucky LLC separates your business from your personal assets exactly as well as a $500 Massachusetts one. The price reflects state policy, not quality — which also means forming your LLC in a cheap faraway state is usually a false economy, since you must still register and pay in the state where you actually operate. The SBA’s guide to registering your business walks through where your business legally lives, and it is nearly always home.
The costs attached to the filing
Four smaller items ride along. A registered agent — the official address in the state that receives legal mail — is required everywhere. Serving as your own costs $0, with one real catch: your address becomes public record, which is why many home-based owners pay a service $100 to $300 a year to lend theirs. An EIN, the tax ID number you will need for banking and taxes, is free from the IRS — anyone charging you for one is selling you a form the government gives away. An operating agreement, the internal rulebook for the business, costs nothing if you write it from a template and a few hundred if a lawyer drafts it; single-owner businesses in most states can start simple. And local business licenses, where required, run roughly $50 to $400 depending on your city and trade.
Then there are formation services — companies like ZenBusiness, LegalZoom, and Northwest charge $0 to $300 plus the state fee to handle the paperwork. That buys convenience, not magic: filing yourself online takes about 20 to 30 minutes in most states, following the state’s own checklist. Pay the service if your time is genuinely worth more than the fee; skip it if money is tighter than time, which for most new businesses it is.
The two traps: California and New York
California wears a disguise. Its filing fee is a modest $70, which lulls people — and then the state charges an $800 annual franchise tax, every year, even if your LLC earns nothing at all. A California LLC that never trades still owes $800 a year until it is formally dissolved. It is the most expensive “cheap” LLC in America, and it catches transplants and online advice-readers every year.
New York’s trap is stranger: the state requires new LLCs to publish their formation in two newspapers and file proof of it. Depending on the county, that costs from $200 to over $1,500 — New York City being, as in most things, the brutal end. It is an old law, widely grumbled about, and entirely real. If you are forming in either state, these costs are not footnotes; they are the budget.
The costs that come back every year
Registration is not the last time the state asks for money. Many states require an annual report (or a biennial one) to keep the LLC in good standing, priced anywhere from $0 to $800 a year depending on the state — California’s figure being, again, its franchise tax rather than a report fee. Miss these filings and the state can dissolve your LLC administratively, quietly removing the liability protection the whole exercise bought, sometimes without much warning. Put the renewal date in your calendar the day you file; it is the cheapest insurance in this entire article.
After the filing: the first week’s small jobs
Registration day is not the finish line; it is the start of a short list of small, free-or-cheap tasks that make the LLC usable. Open a business bank account in the LLC’s name — banks will ask for your formation documents and EIN, and this account is the wall between business and personal money that the liability protection depends on. Register for whatever state and local tax accounts your trade requires, and get any local business license sorted in the same week while the paperwork is out. None of this is expensive; all of it is the difference between an LLC that exists on a certificate and one that would actually hold up as a separate business if anyone ever asked. Do it while the filing confirmation email is still near the top of your inbox.
Working across a state line
One more cost ambushes people who operate in two states — the online seller with a small warehouse next door, the contractor who works both sides of a river. If your LLC has a physical presence, employees, or regular operations in a second state, that state usually wants you registered there too, as a “foreign” LLC, with its own filing fee and annual report. It is not the end of the world — commonly another $100 to $300 to set up and a second renewal to track — but discovering it late, with penalties attached, is how an affordable structure stops being one. If your business is purely online with customers everywhere but a physical footprint in one state, you are generally only filing at home; customers in other states do not, by themselves, drag their states’ fees behind them.
Common questions
How long does registration take from start to approved? Online filings in most states are processed within a few business days, and some are effectively instant; paper filings and the busiest states can take a few weeks. Add a day for the EIN, which is issued online immediately, and a few days for the bank to open the business account. Realistically, most people go from deciding to fully registered inside two weeks without paying anyone for speed — the state’s regular queue is rarely the slow part of starting a business.
Can I register before I start trading — or switch later? Yes to both, and both are normal. Plenty of people register a few weeks before launch so the bank account, contracts, and licenses are all in the business’s name from the first dollar. Others start as sole proprietors and form the LLC the quarter the business turns real — the costs in this article are identical whenever you pay them, though the moving of accounts and contracts is easier the earlier the tangle is prevented. The wrong time to form is only ever “after the problem the LLC would have contained.”
Do I need a lawyer to register an LLC? No. The filing is a form, and most states designed it for owners to complete directly. A lawyer earns their fee on the questions around the filing — partnerships, investors, tricky tax choices — not on the form itself. If it is just you and a straightforward business, DIY with care is the normal route.
Should I form in a cheap state like Kentucky if I live elsewhere? Almost never. You would owe foreign-LLC registration and fees in your home state anyway, doubling the paperwork to save a difference that usually does not exist. Form where you operate.
Is the filing fee tax-deductible? Generally, yes — formation fees and most startup costs are treated as business expenses, subject to the usual limits on how much can be deducted in the first year versus spread over time. Keep every receipt from the process in one folder; the amounts are small, but they are legitimately part of what starting cost you, and your tax software or preparer will want them in one place rather than reconstructed from a card statement next spring.
What does it cost to close an LLC? Usually a final filing and fee in the same state system, modest in most states — but in California, remember the $800 keeps accruing until the dissolution is official, which is a strong argument for closing promptly a business you have truly finished with.
Add it up and the picture is friendlier than the ads suggest: a few hundred dollars, half an hour of forms, and one calendar reminder a year. The bigger decision hiding under the cost question is whether an LLC is even the right structure for you yet — our comparison of LLC versus sole proprietorship works through that honestly before you spend the first $40.
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