LLC Formation Fees by State — Explainer

What an LLC formation fee is, what it actually costs, and the domestic-LLC filing fee in every U.S. jurisdiction — in one place. For the structured table with a source link on every row, see LLC Formation Fees by State. Fees verified 2026-05-31 to 2026-07-25. Not legal advice.

Short answer

Forming an LLC means filing one document with the state — articles of organization, or in some states a certificate of formation — and paying a one-time filing fee. That fee runs from $35 in Montana to $500 in Massachusetts, and most states sit between $50 and $150. The median is exactly $100. It is a one-time number, and it is usually the least important dollar figure in the whole decision: what you pay every year afterward — registered agent, the annual report, in some states a franchise tax — adds up to far more over the life of the company. People shop states by the formation fee. That is the wrong number to optimize.

What you actually pay

The figure below is the state filing fee for the formation document itself — nothing bundled in. No registered-agent fee, no name reservation, no publication cost where a state requires one. Montana is the floor at $35. Massachusetts is the ceiling at $500, with Nevada next at $425. Everywhere in between clusters tightly: $100 is the single most common fee (eleven states charge exactly that), and $50 is next (seven states). The spread tells you the fee is rarely worth optimizing — forming in a $50 state instead of a $100 state saves fifty dollars, once, and the recurring costs you carry every year after usually dwarf the difference.

The trap worth naming: no state forms an LLC for free. The lowest filing fee in the country is Montana's $35; the median is $100. When a service advertises a “$0” or “free” LLC, the state's fee has not gone away — it is added at checkout, or rolled into a registered-agent subscription you are signing up for. The free part is the labor, not the filing. The filing always costs what the state charges.

The two states that don't charge a flat fee

Most states quote one fixed number. Two don't, and both are worth understanding before you file.

Indiana charges by filing method. File the articles online and it is $75; file on paper and it is $100. The statute (IC 23-0.5-9-19) sets both — the state is pricing the manual handling of a paper filing. We list $100 as Indiana's headline figure because it is the all-methods default, but file electronically, as almost everyone does, and you pay $75. Same filing, same state, two prices — the only variable is how you submit it.

Tennessee charges by the number of members. It is not a flat fee at all but a per-member calculation with a $300 minimum, so a single-member LLC pays $300 and the number climbs as you add members. The per-member rate is set by statute (Tenn. Code §48-249-1002); we publish the $300 floor and flag the rest rather than print a number we have not re-sourced. If you are forming a Tennessee LLC with several members, get the exact figure from the state — it will be more than $300.

Formation filing fee by state (domestic LLC)

Every state is sourced — including the two with a caveat

Unlike some filings, formation has no blanks here. Every U.S. jurisdiction publishes a formation fee, and all 51 are sourced to a primary state schedule or statute. Two carry a caveat: South Dakota ($150) and Virginia ($100) are correct to our validated formation pilot, but the live page we would re-check them against is a JavaScript shell rather than a clean fee schedule, so we have flagged both for a fresh primary capture. They are marked in the table. Everywhere else, the number is read straight off the state's own published source — a blank would mean “not established” rather than free, and on this page there are none to report.

How these numbers are sourced

Each fee is read off the state's own published fee schedule or filing form and backed by a captured snapshot of that source, so any row can be re-checked rather than taken on faith — with the two exceptions noted above. Where a state lists fees by entity type, we bind to the domestic-LLC line specifically: not the corporation line sitting next to it, and not the foreign-LLC registration line, either of which is close enough to grab by mistake and often carries a different number. Full method at /about/methodology/; the source taxonomy at /about/source-registry/. The structured matrix, with a live source link on every row, is at LLC Formation Fees by State.

What this page does not tell you

• The recurring costs — the annual report or franchise tax you owe every year, which usually matter more than the one-time formation fee. See annual renewal fees by state.
• Registered-agent fees, which every state requires and none of these figures include. See what a registered agent is.
• Publication requirements — a few states make you publish notice of formation in a newspaper, which carries its own separate cost.
• Whether an LLC is even the right structure for you — see LLC vs. corporation formation.
• Name availability and the state's naming rules — check both before you file.

Not legal advice

Fees, forms, and which document a state requires are state-specific and change. This page is structured reference, not counsel. Confirm against the linked state source before you file.

See also: LLC Formation Fees by State (matrix) · LLC vs. corporation formation · Annual renewal fees by state