Foreign LLC Renewal Fees and Rules by State — Explainer

Matrix explainer. Coverage: the recurring cost of keeping a foreign LLC registered — report requirement, state fee, frequency, due date, franchise tax, and late penalty. Source matrix: foreign-llc-renewal-fees-by-state. 51 jurisdictions (50 states + DC). Fees as of the matrix's last verification. Not legal advice.

Short answer

Registering a foreign LLC is a one-time fee; staying registered is a recurring one. Most states collect it through an annual or biennial report, and the report fee itself is modest almost everywhere — from $9 (New York's biennial statement) up to $500 (Massachusetts). The number that actually decides the cost of staying registered is usually not the report fee but the tax line next to it: California charges $20 for the statement and a minimum $800 annual franchise tax on top. Read the two layers together or the cheap states look expensive and the expensive states look cheap.

What this matrix tracks

• Whether a recurring report is required, where it is filed, how often, and when it is due
• The state fee for the recurring filing, read from the official source
• The franchise-tax line where the state publishes a flat amount or formula alongside the report
• Late-fee exposure — whether a penalty is assessed and its published amount

Key findings

• Massachusetts is the highest flat report fee at $500 per year. The District of Columbia ($300, biennial) and Oregon ($275 annual renewal) follow, with Mississippi at $250 and North Carolina at $200.
• Tennessee prices by member count: $300 minimum, plus $50 per member over six, capped at $3,000 — the same formula shape it applies at registration, so large multi-member LLCs pay the formula twice: once to enter, then every year.
• The report fee is not the cost — the overlay is. California's statement is $20 every two years, against an $800 minimum annual franchise tax. Delaware collects no annual report from LLCs but a flat $300 annual tax. Rhode Island's $50 report rides with a $400 minimum annual tax; Kentucky's $15 report with a $175 minimum limited-liability-entity tax; Nevada's $150 annual list with a $200 state business license.
• Cheap on paper exists: New York's biennial statement is $9, Idaho's online annual report is $0, Hawaii's is $15, and Utah's is $18 — none of which carry a published flat franchise-tax line in the matrix.
• Late fees range two orders of magnitude where published: Georgia $500 and Florida $400 at the top; Hawaii $10, Missouri $10, and Wisconsin $10 per month at the bottom. Persistent non-filing risks revocation of the registration, not just a penalty.
• Frequency and due-date regimes differ structurally. Some states run biennial cycles (New York, California, Iowa, Indiana, Kansas, Alaska), some fix a calendar date for everyone (Florida's May 1, Wisconsin's March 31), and others key to each LLC's anniversary month — three different compliance-calendar shapes that don't transfer between states.

What the matrix does not prove

• Does not total the true cost of staying registered. Gross-receipts regimes (like Washington's B&O tax) and income-based add-ons are noted where the source published them but are not computed into any per-state total.
• Does not determine whether an LLC must remain registered in a state — the transacting-business analysis is out of scope.
• Arizona, New Mexico, and Ohio require no recurring report from foreign LLCs at all — their fee cells read not-applicable, with each state's one-time registration fee ($150, $100, and $99 respectively) noted for context. Those one-time fees are not renewal costs (re-verified against official sources 2026-07-16).
• Does not cover the initial registration fee — that lives in the foreign registration fees explainer.
• Does not prove late-fee enforcement practice, only the published amounts.

Methodology

Each row is read from the state's official source — Secretary of State, revenue department, or licensing agency as applicable — with the source URL and last-checked date recorded per row. Where a state publishes a formula instead of a flat amount (Tennessee's per-member fee, Wyoming's license tax at the greater of $60 or an asset-based mill rate), the formula is recorded verbatim. Cells the source did not establish are recorded as not observed, not guessed. Full methodology at /about/methodology/; source taxonomy at /about/source-registry/.

Not legal advice

Recurring state costs interact with tax elections, apportionment, and where the LLC actually operates. This page is structured reference, not counsel. Verify current fees and due dates against the state's linked source before budgeting or filing.

See also: Foreign LLC Renewal Fees & Rules by State (matrix) · Foreign LLC Annual Report Rules by State · Foreign LLC Registration Fees by State — Explainer · What is foreign qualification?