The LLC Fee Change Wire

The old flat $25 expedite no longer exists. Texas now runs tiered Texas Express service: $50 for two to three business days, $500 next-day and $750 same-day, each charged per document on top of that document's own filing fee. Same-day and next-day must be requested in person or by email before your courier arrives. Most published guides still quote the retired $25.

A new veteran-owned business — formed in Texas on or after 1 January 2022 and owned 100% by honorably discharged veterans — pays no formation filing fee and no franchise tax, and files no Public Information Report, for five years. That benefit was legislated to end on 1 January 2026. House Bill 346 repealed the sunset, so it continues. Any guide written from pre-2025 sources is telling veterans a live benefit has expired.

LLCs that registered for tax years beginning between 1 January 2021 and 1 January 2024 skipped the $800 annual tax in year one. That window has closed: an LLC formed today owes the $800 in its first year, due by the 15th day of the 4th month after registering. A great many guides still promise a free first year. One genuine exception survives — cancel within a year of organising using Short Form Cancellation LLC-4/8 and the first-year tax does not apply.

Delaware's flat annual tax on LLCs rose by a third. The timing catches people out: the payment due 1 June 2026 was for tax year 2025 and stayed at $300, so the first $400 bill lands on 1 June 2027. The late penalty is unchanged at $200 plus 1.5% a month. We had this wrong ourselves at $300 and corrected it — the error is disclosed in our fee audit.

Two corrections in one. Online formation costs $100, not the $110 that applies to paper filings — a distinction most guides flatten. And the annual registration is now $60 in total: the $50 fee plus a $10 service charge Georgia added in September 2025. We had quoted the paper price and misplaced the service charge; both are fixed.

From tax year 2024, Alabama exempts the Business Privilege Tax where the amount due is $100 or less, which covers the minimum-tax small LLCs the tax used to catch — no tax, and no return to file. Only corporations still file the Secretary of State annual report. Every national guide we audited was still telling readers to budget $50 to $165 a year for it, two years on.

One of the largest state fee cuts in the country, and one of the least noticed. Kansas dropped formation from $160 to $85 online, and the report moved to a biennial $90. When we audited five of the biggest national fee guides months later, four still quoted the old $160.

For decades Pennsylvania asked LLCs to file once every ten years. Since January 2025 every LLC files an annual report by 30 September for $7. The transition carries a grace period — no penalties for 2025 and 2026 — but from the 2027 report onward, sustained non-filing leads to administrative dissolution about six months after the deadline. Any guide still describing a decennial report is describing a filing that no longer exists.

A small increase that is easy to miss and widely mis-stated: the annual report is $70, not the $60 several guides still print. It is due by the last day of your formation-anniversary month, and new LLCs owe a separate Initial Report within 120 days of forming.

Montana waives the $20 annual report fee for LLCs that file by 15 April, and has renewed the waiver every year since 2024 — currently through 2027. File late and it is $35. Worth budgeting $20 a year anyway: a waiver renewed annually is a waiver that can lapse annually.