LLC Annual Fees Explained: Franchise Tax, Annual Reports & Registered Agent (2026)

Published July 13, 2026 · fees are as of July 2026 and change frequently — verify with the state before relying on them ·

By The Reckix Team, the team behind Reckix — free, transparent calculators that show their formula and cite their 2026 data sources. Fee figures cross-checked against each state's Secretary of State or Department of Revenue and the same dataset that powers our cost calculator. Reviewed — data as of July 2026.

Forming an LLC is a one-time cost. Keeping it alive is the part nobody quotes you up front — and it's where states differ by more than fiftyfold. Owning an LLC in New Mexico costs $0 a year; owning one in California with any real activity costs at least $800. Understanding why comes down to three separate line items.

Every recurring dollar an LLC owes falls into one of three buckets: the annual report, the franchise or privilege tax, and the registered agent. They come from different agencies, they're due on different dates, and a state can charge you all three, some, or none. (A fourth cost — newspaper publication in New York, Arizona, and Nebraska — is almost always a one-time first-year expense, not an annual one, so it's out of scope here.) All figures below are as of July 2026.

1 · The annual (or biennial) report fee

The annual report is a filing with your Secretary of State confirming your LLC's basic details — address, members or managers, registered agent — to keep it in good standing. Most states charge a fee for it; some collect it every year, some every two years (biennial). This is the most common recurring cost, and the range is enormous:

Annual/biennial report fees at the extremes — data as of July 2026.
State	Report fee	Frequency	Note
Massachusetts	$500	Annual	The highest flat report in the country
Maryland	$300	Annual	Personal Property Return — acts like a flat fee
North Carolina	$200	Annual	—
Florida	$138.75	Annual	Due May 1; steep late penalty
Nebraska	$13	Biennial	≈ $6.50/yr
New York	$9	Biennial	≈ $4.50/yr (separate from the IT-204-LL income fee)
Pennsylvania	$7	Annual	New in 2025 — replaced the old once-per-decade report

Massachusetts's $500 every year is the outlier at the top; at the bottom, Pennsylvania's brand-new $7 report (introduced in 2025 to replace a report that used to be filed only once a decade) and New York's $9 biennial statement are almost nominal. Note the frequency trap: a $30 biennial report is cheaper per year than a $20 annual one, so always convert to an annual figure before you compare.

2 · The franchise / privilege tax

A franchise tax (some states call it a privilege or license tax) is a charge for the privilege of operating as an LLC in the state, usually collected by the Department of Revenue rather than the Secretary of State. It is separate from the annual report, and it's where the truly expensive states live. Two kinds exist:

Flat taxes you owe every year regardless of income — the predictable, budgetable kind.
Income- or revenue-based taxes that only kick in above a threshold — these depend on your business, not just your state, so they can't be pinned to a single number.

The flat ones are what to watch when picking a state:

The expensive flat franchise/privilege taxes — data as of July 2026.
State	Flat tax	The detail that stings
California	$800 / year	Minimum franchise tax, due from the first taxable year, no current new-LLC exemption — plus a graduated gross-receipts fee up to $11,790 for bigger businesses
Delaware	$300 / year	Flat, due June 1, every LLC regardless of income; $200 penalty + 1.5%/mo if late
Tennessee	$300 min report	Plus a separate Franchise & Excise tax (6.5% excise + 0.25% on net worth); single-member disregarded LLCs may be exempt
Nevada	$350 / year	$150 annual list + $200 state business license — no income tax, but the flat cost is high
Arkansas	$150 / year	Its "annual report" is the flat franchise tax — the two are merged

California's $800 minimum franchise tax is the single most important number in U.S. LLC costs. It's due in the first taxable year, has no current exemption for new LLCs, and applies whether the business earns $0 or $200,000 — which is why California is routinely the most expensive state to keep an LLC despite its low $70 filing fee. The revenue-based taxes are a different animal: Texas charges no franchise (margin) tax until annualized revenue tops $2.65 million (the 2026–27 threshold), so a typical small Texas LLC owes $0 on it; California layers its graduated fee on top of the $800 only once gross receipts clear $250,000.

Watch the merged and the hidden. A few states fold the tax into the report (Arkansas's $150, Maryland's $300 Personal Property Return), so a single line covers both. Others keep a low flat cost but layer a gross-receipts tax on active businesses — Washington's B&O tax, Ohio's Commercial Activity Tax (above $6M), Oregon's Corporate Activity Tax (above $1M). These depend on your revenue, so they're flagged, not budgeted as a fixed annual fee.

3 · The registered agent

Every state requires your LLC to keep a registered agent — a person or company with a physical street address in the state, available during business hours to receive legal and state notices. This is the one recurring cost you control:

Be your own agent — $0/year. Free if you have a qualifying (non-PO-box) street address in the formation state and can reliably be available during business hours.
Commercial registered agent — about $100–$300/year (roughly $150 typical). Worth it for privacy, reliability, or if you have no physical presence in the state — and mandatory in that last case.

Because it recurs every year, the agent fee is often the largest recurring cost for an LLC in a cheap state. In Missouri or New Mexico — where the report and franchise tax are both zero — a $150/year commercial agent is essentially your entire ongoing cost. In California, that same $150 is a rounding error next to the $800 tax.

The no-report states (and the $0-report trap)

A handful of states ask for no annual report at all: Missouri, New Mexico, Arizona, Delaware, and Ohio. But read the fine print on two of them — Delaware still charges its flat $300 tax, and Arizona has that one-time publication cost outside Maricopa and Pima counties. Only Missouri, New Mexico, and Ohio are genuinely free of both a report and a flat tax.

Then there's the trap that catches people who assume "no fee" means "no filing": several states require you to file an informational report every year but charge $0 for it. Idaho, Minnesota, Mississippi, and South Carolina (for standard LLCs) are in this group — miss the filing and you can still lose good standing or be administratively dissolved, even though there was never any money to pay. Free to file is not the same as nothing to file.

What you'd actually pay: five states compared

Putting the three buckets together, here's the real annual cost to keep an LLC in five very different states, assuming you act as your own registered agent (add roughly $150/year for a commercial one):

Recurring annual cost to keep an LLC, do-it-yourself agent — data as of July 2026.
State	Report	Flat tax	Yearly total
New Mexico	$0 (none)	$0	$0
Pennsylvania	$7	$0	$7
Florida	$138.75	$0	$138.75
Massachusetts	$500	$0	$500
California	$10 (avg of $20 biennial)	$800	≈ $810

Same legal entity, same paperwork, and the annual cost swings from $0 to $810 purely on which state you picked — before a dollar of income tax. That spread is exactly why the ongoing fee, not the filing fee, should drive the decision. If you're weighing where to form, read our companion guide on the cheapest states to form an LLC, which ranks states by five-year total and debunks the Delaware/Wyoming "tax haven" strategy.

Remember what these figures don't include. Income tax on your profits, self-employment tax, revenue-based state taxes, sales tax, and any local business license are all separate. "Annual fees" here means the cost of existing as an LLC — not the cost of the income the LLC earns.

See your state's annual and 5-year cost

The free calculator combines all three buckets — report, franchise/privilege tax, and registered agent — for all 50 states plus DC, with 2026 figures, and shows your Year-1 and 5-year totals. Nothing you enter leaves your browser.

Open the LLC cost calculator

Frequently asked questions

Which state has the most expensive LLC annual fees in 2026?

For any LLC with real activity, California is the most expensive to keep: an $800 minimum annual franchise tax applies from the first taxable year with no current exemption, on top of a $20 biennial Statement of Information. Massachusetts has the highest flat annual report at $500, and Nevada's ongoing cost is about $350 a year (a $150 annual list plus a $200 business license). Figures are as of July 2026.

Which states have no LLC annual report?

As of 2026, Missouri, New Mexico, Arizona, Delaware, and Ohio require no annual or biennial report. Delaware is the catch: it skips the report but still charges a flat $300 annual tax. A separate group — including Idaho, Minnesota, Mississippi, and South Carolina — requires you to file an informational report every year but charges $0 for it, so you still have to file even though there's nothing to pay.

Is a franchise tax the same as the annual report fee?

No — they are separate obligations, and some states charge both. The annual report is the Secretary of State's filing to keep your company in good standing; the franchise or privilege tax is a Department of Revenue charge for the privilege of operating in the state. California, for example, charges a $20 biennial Statement of Information (the report) and a separate $800 minimum franchise tax. In a few states the two are effectively merged — Arkansas's $150 "annual report" is really its flat franchise tax.

What happens if I don't pay my LLC's annual fees?

Missing the deadline triggers late penalties and interest, then loss of good standing, and eventually administrative dissolution — the state shuts the company down, which can expose you to personal liability and a costly reinstatement. Delaware, for instance, adds a $200 penalty plus 1.5% monthly interest on its late $300 tax. Calendar every report and tax deadline the year you form, and keep the registered agent current so the state's notices actually reach you.

Methodology & sources

Report fees, frequencies, and flat franchise/privilege taxes are the standard online figures as of July 2026, from the same 51-jurisdiction dataset that powers the LLC cost calculator. That dataset was cross-checked across at least two independent sources per state, with primary state-source confirmation (Secretary of State, Department of Revenue, or Comptroller) sampled for California, New York, Texas, Florida, Delaware, Massachusetts, Nevada, Tennessee, Alabama, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Arizona, and Nebraska.

Yearly totals in the comparison table combine the report fee (converted to an annual figure), the flat franchise/privilege tax, and a do-it-yourself registered agent. Income- and revenue-based taxes are described but not added to any total because they depend on your business rather than your state. Fees, thresholds, and requirements change frequently — verify against your state's own schedule before relying on any figure here.

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This guide is educational — not legal or tax advice, and not a substitute for your state's official fee schedule. Fees, thresholds, and requirements change; figures are estimates as of July 2026. Verify current numbers with your Secretary of State (or equivalent agency) and consult a licensed attorney or accountant before relying on them. No liability is accepted for decisions made from this content.