A company is cheap to start and expensive to forget.
We track what an American company actually costs to keep alive in each state, when every obligation falls due, and how deep the local banking bench is behind the state you picked. The tools below are free and they run on public records.
Live from the cost tool
What it costs to keep, over the horizon you actually plan for
Pick up to four states, set how long you expect to keep the company, and read the total instead of the brochure. Short horizons are decided by the filing fee. Long horizons are decided entirely by the annual obligation, and the ranking flips somewhere in between.
Delaware moved its annual tax this year and the fee schedule shifted again in August. When a filing fee, a due date or a penalty on this file changes, we send the old figure, the new one and the date it took effect.
The year, with your deadlines on it
Most of the money people lose on a company is not the fee, it is the penalty for missing the fee. Pick your state and the month you formed, and the strip below fills in with the obligations that follow from those two facts.
These are the recurring obligations that follow from the state and the formation month. States change dates and fees, so treat this as the shape of your year and confirm the exact date on the state page linked in the index below before you rely on it.
The state index
Eight states now, more each quarter. The last column is ours: how many federally insured institutions actually have their main office in that state, counted from the FDIC register. It is the column that makes the popular formation states look thin.
| State | Filing fee | Annual obligation | When it falls due | Five year total | Insured banks based there | The catch |
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What we published this month
Long pieces built on records we pull ourselves, with the query written down inside each one so that you can rerun it. No sponsored placements and no affiliate links anywhere in the archive.
Is Mercury a bank? The label on its Bank Index card says no, and the cards behind it show where a new LLC’s money actually sits
Mercury’s card labels it an e-money or payment institution, BlueVine’s a fintech. The partner bank cards show the charter, the regulator and the assets behind each app.
Can an LLC open a credit union account: the membership test, the insurance rule and a list that runs 249 long
An LLC can be a credit union member if it fits the field of membership. Check federal insurance in the NCUA Locator, because a directory can still list a credit union that merged weeks ago.
Adding a member is 2 events on the same day, and the bank account the money lands in decides the second one
A silent operating agreement means every existing member must consent. The tax classification changes the same day, and a payment to the owner is treated differently from a contribution to the company.
Five states, five different kinds of annual charge, and the one column that made them look comparable
Five states from their own filing pages: 400 in Delaware with no proration, 800 in California with no free first year, 138.75 in Florida until 1 May, 60 in Wyoming, and New York’s newspaper bill.
Changing your registered agent is not your filing in Delaware, and a resignation costs the agent 2 dollars
Five states from their own filing pages: 400 in Delaware with no proration, 800 in California with no free first year, 138.75 in Florida until 1 May, 60 in Wyoming, and New York’s newspaper bill.
Our DBA column held a fee, and in California the fee is the small half of the bill
Forty days from the day you start trading, 5 years of validity, and 4 weeks of compulsory newspaper advertising. New York charges 25 dollars and forbids Limited and LLC inside the name.
One column for the operating agreement was wrong in every row
Adopt it, write it, by when: three questions, and only New York answers yes to all three with a 90 day clock. Missouri gets stricter with 1 member, Delaware says you already have one.
The S corp election deadline is a formula, not 15 March
Two months and 15 days from the start of your own tax year. Missing it is repairable for 3 years and 75 days. The shareholder tests behind it are repairable never.
How to dissolve an LLC, and why letting it lapse is the expensive option
Filing properly costs about 580 dollars once. Walking away costs 400 a year plus a 200 penalty plus 1.5 per cent a month, and the state cancels the company at year 3 either way.
Can I be my own registered agent, and the residence test that decides it before your company does
Delaware allows it only if the business sits in the state, Wyoming only if you live there, California not at all. The published price I checked is 125 dollars a year, and the fee was never the part worth arguing about.
An LLC not in good standing still exists, and that is exactly what makes it dangerous
Wyoming posts a notice and takes the articles 60 days later. Delaware leaves the company alive for 3 years, refuses every filing in the meantime, and will not issue the certificate a bank asks for.
Do I need to register my LLC in another state, and what the second state charges when you do not
One engineer living in California puts a Delaware company over the payroll threshold. The 800 dollar annual tax is charged for doing business, registered or not, and the unregistered version adds 2,000 a year.
Delaware raised the LLC tax to 400, and two of its own pages still say 300
I published the old figure here in July and left it up for five days. This is the corrected recurring arithmetic against Wyoming, with the registered agent included and the paperwork a bank asks for repriced on the first of August.
The company most complained about for refusing accounts is not a bank
We read a year of federal complaints about opening and closing accounts, then rebuilt the checklist around what actually goes wrong rather than around what providers list on their pages.
How long an EIN really takes when you are outside the country
The online tool is closed to applicants whose principal place of business is abroad. Here is what remains, in the order that works, with the wait attached to each route.
The paid side, in one screen
The tools above stay free because they are how people find us. What we sell is the boring part: watching the dates for a portfolio of entities so that nobody has to remember them.
Every entity you own, every state obligation, one calendar and a reminder before each one rather than a penalty notice after it. We watch the state pages for changes so that your dates stay right.
A quarterly pull on every entity, with a written note the moment one of them slips, because the usual way people find out is a bank telling them mid application.
Our full fee, deadline and penalty dataset as a file you can put in your own systems, refreshed when the states move, with the source page recorded against every field.
Formation Daily is a research desk attached to a paralegal practice in Wilmington, Delaware. We do not file documents for you, we are not a law firm, and nothing on this site is legal or tax advice.