The full Texas LLC cost table
| Cost | Amount | Required? |
|---|---|---|
| Texas state filing fee | $300 one-time | Yes |
| Recurring state cost | Franchise Tax (most small LLCs owe $0) | 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 | $300 as your own agent · $425 with a service | — |
| Five-year total | $300 as your own agent · $925 with a service | — |
No franchise tax due below the revenue threshold ($2,650,000 for 2026 reports), but a Public Information Report must still be filed each year.
The $300 is real, and for most LLCs it is the whole entry price
Texas's $300 Certificate of Formation fee is one of the steepest in the country — six times what neighbouring New Mexico charges. But it buys an unusual deal: Texas has no annual report fee to the Secretary of State and no state income tax. Once you're in, the recurring state bill for a typical small LLC is $0. Compare that with North Carolina, where the filing is cheaper ($125) but the state then bills $203 every single year — by year three, the Texas LLC is the cheaper company.
Pay online and the state adds a 2.7% card-processing fee (about $8 on the $300) — file by mail with a check if that offends you; the trade is several days of processing time. And if your LLC will be owned entirely by honorably discharged veterans, skip ahead: Texas charges you nothing at all.
The $300 becomes $0 if every owner is a veteran
This is the most valuable fact on this page, and it was missing from every competing Texas cost guide we checked. A new veteran-owned business — formed in Texas on or after 1 January 2022 and owned 100% by honorably discharged veterans — is exempt from the formation filing fee and the franchise tax, and does not have to file the Public Information Report, for its first five years. The Secretary of State puts it plainly: a new veteran-owned business “is not subject to certain filing fees and the Texas franchise tax until the earlier of the fifth anniversary of the entity's existence or the date the business ceases to qualify.”
The trap worth knowing: this exemption was legislated to end on 1 January 2026 — and then House Bill 346, effective 1 September 2025, repealed that sunset, so it continues. Any guide written from pre-2025 sources will tell a veteran the benefit has expired. It has not. Qualifying takes three steps with the Comptroller, including a Letter of Verification of Veteran's Employment from the Texas Veterans Commission, filed alongside your formation documents.
The franchise tax most Texas LLCs never pay — but must report
Texas funds itself partly through a franchise (margin) tax, and this is where new owners get confused. The tax only applies above a no-tax-due threshold — $2.65 million in annualized revenue for 2026 reports — so the overwhelming majority of small LLCs owe exactly $0. What they still owe is paperwork: a Public Information Report (PIR), due to the Comptroller by May 15 every year. Since 2024 the separate No Tax Due Report is gone; the PIR alone keeps you compliant below the threshold. Miss it and the Comptroller forfeits your right to do business — a status that also strips your liability shield in Texas courts. The report is free and takes ten minutes; put May 15 in your calendar the day you form.
Every other Texas LLC fee, from the official schedule
The $300 is the only fee most LLCs ever pay the Secretary of State. These are the ones that catch people afterwards — a bank asking for a certificate of status, a name change, a rushed filing. Every figure below comes from the state's own fee schedule, checked 31 August 2026.
| Filing | Fee | When you'd need it |
|---|---|---|
| Certificate of formation (Form 205) | $300 | Forming the LLC — the one unavoidable fee |
| Name reservation, 120 days (Form 501) | $40 | Holding a name before you're ready to file |
| Assumed name / DBA (Form 503) | $25 | Trading under a name other than the LLC's |
| Certificate of fact or status | $15 | Banks, lenders and landlords often ask for one |
| Certified copy | $1 per page + $15 per certificate | Loan closings, foreign registration |
| Change of registered agent or office (Form 401) | $15 | Switching agent, or your agent moves |
| Registered agent resignation (Form 402) | $0 | Your agent quits — no fee to record it |
| Expedited: standard / next-day / same-day | $50 / $500 / $750 per document | Tiered Texas Express pricing — the old flat $25 is gone |
| Foreign LLC registration (Form 301) | $750 | An out-of-state LLC doing business in Texas |
| Certificate of termination (Form 651) | $40 | Closing the LLC properly |
| Reinstatement after tax forfeiture (Form 801) | $75 | Restoring an LLC the state forfeited |
Two of these deserve a second look. Expedited filing has been repriced: Texas now runs tiered express service at $50 for 2–3 business days, $500 next-day and $750 same-day, per document, on top of that document's own fee. Guides still quoting a flat $25 are years out of date.
And $750 to register a foreign LLC is the number that settles the “should I just form in Wyoming?” question for anyone actually operating in Texas: forming elsewhere and registering here costs two and a half times the $300 you were avoiding — before the other state's fees and a second registered agent. And an entity that has transacted business in Texas for more than 90 days without registering owes a late fee equal to the full registration fee for every year it went unregistered.
Our LLC cost calculator computes first-year and five-year totals for all 51 jurisdictions from the same verified dataset as this page — including Texas — and the full table is downloadable as CSV.