The full California LLC cost table
| Cost | Amount | Required? |
|---|---|---|
| California state filing fee | $70 one-time | Yes |
| Recurring state cost | $800/yr — Annual Franchise Tax ($800 minimum) | Yes |
| Registered agent | $0 as your own agent, or ~$125/yr for a service | Yes (one or the other) |
| EIN (federal tax ID) | $0 direct from the IRS | Usually |
| First-year total | $870 as your own agent · $995 with a service | — |
| Five-year total | $4,070 as your own agent · $4,695 with a service | — |
$800/yr minimum franchise tax owed regardless of income (rises with revenue over $250k); plus a separate $20 Statement of Information due within 90 days of forming, then every 2 years.
The $800 franchise tax is the real price of a California LLC
The Articles of Organization cost $70 — among the cheapest in the country. Then the Franchise Tax Board bills you $800 a year, every year, minimum, regardless of income. A California LLC that earns nothing still owes $800. One that tops $250,000 in gross receipts owes more, on a sliding scale. Over five years, the state collects at least $4,000 from every LLC — more than 13 times what a Texas LLC pays the state in the same period.
There's also a smaller filing people miss precisely because the $800 gets all the attention: the Statement of Information (Form LLC-12, $20), due within 90 days of forming and every two years after. It's cheap, but it's the one that triggers penalties and eventual suspension when forgotten.
Can you escape the $800 by forming elsewhere? No — and trying costs more
The most-Googled California LLC question has a one-word answer. If your business operates in California — you live there, work there, take meetings there — a Wyoming or Nevada LLC must register as a foreign LLC in California and pays the same $800 franchise tax, plus the other state's fees, plus two registered agents. The cheap-state strategy doesn't dodge the tax; it adds overhead on top of it. The $800 is simply the cost of doing business as a California entity. The one genuine consolation: the first-year exemption that existed for LLCs formed 2021–2023 is gone, but the tax isn't due until the 15th day of the 4th month after forming — so an LLC formed late in the year still gets its months of runway before the first bill.
The first-year $800 waiver is gone — and the one escape hatch that remains
A lot of California guides still promise that your first year is free. That was true, and it isn't any more. The Franchise Tax Board is explicit: the exemption applied to LLCs that registered “for tax years beginning on or after January 1, 2021, and before January 1, 2024.” Form an LLC today and the $800 is due in your first year — specifically by the 15th day of the 4th month after you register, so a June filing owes it by September 15.
There is one genuine escape, and it's the least-known number in California formation: if you cancel the LLC within one year of organising, using the Short Form Cancellation (Form LLC-4/8), the LLC is not subject to the $800 for its first tax year. That matters for anyone who formed an entity for a deal that fell through — the difference between cancelling promptly and letting it sit is $800 a year, every year, until you cancel. An abandoned California LLC quietly accrues tax debt; it does not lapse quietly like an unfiled annual report in other states.
Source: the FTB's LLC guidance, checked 31 August 2026.
The two California costs that scale — and the one penalty nobody mentions
Above $250,000 in California income, the state charges a second, separate fee on top of the $800. It is not a percentage — it's a bracket, and it steps up hard:
| California income | LLC fee (on top of the $800) | Total minimum state tax |
|---|---|---|
| Under $250,000 | $0 | $800 |
| $250,000 – $499,999 | $900 | $1,700 |
| $500,000 – $999,999 | $2,500 | $3,300 |
| $1,000,000 – $4,999,999 | $6,000 | $6,800 |
| $5,000,000 or more | $11,790 | $12,590 |
The bracket is a cliff, not a slope: one dollar over $250,000 costs $900, and one dollar over $500,000 costs $2,500. The fee is estimated and paid by the 15th day of the 6th month of the tax year (Form FTB 3536), and underpaying it draws penalties and interest.
And the penalty almost no cost guide mentions: failing to file the $20 Statement of Information triggers a $250 penalty, imposed by the Secretary of State and collected by the FTB. It is twelve times the cost of the filing you skipped — a $20 form that becomes $270 if you forget it.
Every other California LLC fee, from the official schedule
Beyond the $70 and the $800, these are the filings that actually come up. Figures from the Secretary of State's service options and the FTB, checked 31 August 2026.
| Filing or service | Fee | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Articles of Organization (LLC-1) | $70 | Online only, via bizfile Online |
| Statement of Information (LLC-12) | $20 | Within 90 days of registering, then every 2 years |
| Statement of No Change | $20 | Only after an initial full statement has been filed |
| Missed Statement of Information | $250 penalty | SoS penalty, collected by the FTB |
| Annual franchise tax | $800/yr | Owed even at a loss, until the LLC is cancelled |
| Termination (dissolution / cancellation) | No fee | Filing online is free — cancelling promptly is what saves the $800 |
| Conversion to LLC (LLC-1A) | $150 | Converting a stock corporation into an LLC |
| 24-hour expedited filing | $350 | Online or Sacramento drop-off |
| Same-day filing | $750 | Must be received by 9:30 a.m. |
| 4-hour filing | $500 | Drop-off only, and the document must be precleared first |
| 24-hour preclearance | $500 | Sacramento drop-off only |
| Drop-off special handling | $15 | Per filing request, in person |
Note what is not on this list: California charges nothing to dissolve an LLC. Every other state on this site charges $25–$100 to close a company; California makes leaving free and arriving expensive.
Our LLC cost calculator computes first-year and five-year totals for all 51 jurisdictions from the same verified dataset as this page — including California — and the full table is downloadable as CSV.