The full North Carolina LLC cost table
| Cost | Amount | Required? |
|---|---|---|
| North Carolina state filing fee | $128 one-time | Yes |
| Recurring state cost | $203/yr — Annual Report | 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 | $331 as your own agent · $456 with a service | — |
| Five-year total | $1,143 as your own agent · $1,768 with a service | — |
Online totals include NC's $3 electronic filing fee for card payments ($2 by ACH): $128 to form and $203 for the annual report, $125 and $200 on paper. Optional expedite $100 for 24-hour or $200 same day.
The $203 annual report is the headline number
Forming costs $128 online, including the $3 electronic fee, or $125 on paper — unremarkable. Then every year, starting the year after formation, the Annual Report bill arrives: $203 filed online ($200 by paper plus the odd inversion that the electronic 'convenience' costs $3 more). Only a handful of states charge more to simply remain registered, and none of North Carolina's neighbors come close — Georgia keeps an LLC for $60, Virginia for $50. It's due April 15, same day as your taxes, filed with the Secretary of State (not the Department of Revenue, a distinction that misroutes a surprising number of filings). Miss it and the state mails a 60-day notice before administrative dissolution — more warning than Florida gives, but the meter is real.
What you're not paying
The recurring sting is softened by what's absent: no franchise tax on a standard LLC — North Carolina's franchise tax reaches corporations and only touches an LLC that elects C-corp treatment — and a flat personal income tax of 3.99% (2026) on pass-through profits, one of the lowest rates in the Southeast and still scheduled to step down. So the five-year arithmetic reads: $128 + four reports ≈ $940 in state fees, expensive as big states go, in exchange for one of the region's lightest income-tax touches on the profits themselves. Whether that trade flatters your LLC depends on whether it's earning yet.
Our LLC cost calculator computes first-year and five-year totals for all 51 jurisdictions from the same verified dataset as this page — including North Carolina — and the full table is downloadable as CSV.
The registered agent is the recurring cost most North Carolina fee tables leave out, and it is the one line on this page you actually choose. What a registered agent costs covers how the pricing works; the cheapest option in your state covers where the floor really sits, which is lower than most tables say.