How Much Does It Cost to Start an LLC?

Search this question and you will get a lot of ranges and very few numbers, usually because the page is written by a company that would rather sell you a package than tell you what the state actually charges. So here is the plain version.

Every figure below was checked against the state’s own filing office or the IRS on 2 August 2026, and each one links to the page that publishes it. Filing fees change, so confirm before you budget.

The only cost you cannot avoid

Forming an LLC requires filing one document with one state agency and paying that state’s fee. That is the entire mandatory cost. Everything else in a typical “LLC cost” list is either optional, recurring, or free.

Here is what five commonly searched states charge to file, as published by each agency:

State	To file	What it covers
California	$70	Articles of Organization, Form LLC-1
Maryland	$100	Articles of Organization; +$50 for 7-10 day expedite
Florida	$125	Articles $100 plus the mandatory $25 registered agent designation
Illinois	$150	Articles of Organization, 10 business days; $250 for 24-hour
Texas	$300	Certificate of formation, Form 205

Two details worth pulling out, because they are easy to misread.

Florida’s own page shows a total of $160, but that figure includes a $30 certified copy and a $5 certificate of status that are both marked optional. The required minimum is the $100 filing fee plus the $25 registered agent designation, so $125.

Illinois and Maryland both sell speed rather than access. Illinois charges $150 for standard ten-business-day processing and $250 for 24-hour service. Maryland charges $100 standard, $50 more for review inside 7 to 10 business days, and $325 more for same-day filing online. If your timeline is flexible, the standard tier is the honest default.

We have not put numbers here for Delaware or New York. Their fee pages did not confirm a current figure at the time of writing, and a plausible number is worse than no number on a page like this. Check Delaware’s Division of Corporations and New York’s Department of State directly. New York in particular has a publication requirement that can cost more than the filing fee itself, especially in downstate counties, so do not budget for New York from a filing fee alone.

The cost that actually hurts is recurring

Setup is a one-time number. What determines whether an LLC is cheap or expensive to own is what the state charges every year afterwards, and this is where the ranking flips completely.

California is the clearest example. It is one of the cheapest states to open at $70 and one of the most expensive to keep. The Franchise Tax Board is explicit: every LLC that is doing business or organized in California must pay an annual tax of $800. That is owed whether the business made a profit, made nothing, or never traded at all. On top of it sits a $20 Statement of Information, and once gross receipts pass $250,000 an additional fee kicks in:

California gross receipts	Additional annual fee
$250,000 – $499,999	$900
$500,000 – $999,999	$2,500
$1,000,000 – $4,999,999	$6,000
$5,000,000 or more	$11,790

So a California LLC that earns nothing still costs $820 in its second year, against $70 in its first filing. Anyone comparing states on filing fee alone is comparing the wrong number.

Elsewhere the recurring cost is smaller but real. Florida charges $138.75 for the LLC annual report, and the late penalty is severe: miss 1 May and it becomes $538.75. Illinois charges $75 annually. Texas has no LLC annual report fee, though most Texas LLCs still file a franchise tax report with the Comptroller even when nothing is owed.

Three things you do not have to pay for

An EIN. The IRS says it on the application page itself: you never have to pay a fee for an EIN. Apply online, get it immediately. Every site charging $50 to $300 for “EIN registration” is charging for a free federal form, and it is the single most common way people overpay forming a company.

A registered agent. Every state permits you to serve as your own, provided you have a physical street address in the state of formation and are reachable during business hours. We go through the requirements and the four cases where paying is genuinely worth it in can you be your own registered agent. Services charge roughly $100 to $300 a year. That is money well spent in three specific situations: you formed in a state you do not live in, you work from home and do not want your address in a public database, or you are frequently unreachable during the day. Outside those, it is optional.

A formation service. What these companies sell is form-filling and an address, not legal advice. Filing directly with your state means completing one form and paying one fee. If you also want registered agent service, a bundled price can genuinely be cheaper than buying the two separately, and that is a legitimate reason to use one. Paying a markup purely to have someone else submit a form you could submit yourself is not.

A realistic budget

For a straightforward LLC formed in the state you actually live in, filing yourself:

• Year one: the state filing fee. $70 to $300 in the states above.
• Year two onward: annual report plus any franchise or privilege tax. Anywhere from $0 in Texas to $820 in California.
• Optional: registered agent, $100 to $300 a year, if one of the three situations above applies to you.

The honest summary is that forming an LLC is cheap almost everywhere, and owning one ranges from free to expensive depending entirely on which state you picked. If you are choosing a state, weigh the recurring number, not the headline filing fee.

Before you file

Confirm the current fee on your state’s own page. That is not a disclaimer for its own sake: California waived the LLC-1 filing fee entirely for new filings between 2021 and 2023 and then restored it, Illinois and Maryland both restructured expedite pricing in recent years, and Florida’s late-filing penalty has changed more than once. The agency page is the only authoritative source, and it takes one minute to check.