The full Washington LLC cost table
| Cost | Amount | Required? |
|---|---|---|
| Washington state filing fee | $200 one-time | Yes |
| Recurring state cost | $70/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 | $270 as your own agent · $395 with a service | — |
| Five-year total | $550 as your own agent · $1,175 with a service | — |
$200 online formation = $180 fee + $20 processing; annual report $70 (delinquent $95) re-verified 2026-09-01 against the SoS fee schedule and WAC 434-112-085. Optional expedite +$100.
The B&O tax: paying on revenue, not profit
Washington has no personal or corporate income tax, and it funds that absence with the Business & Occupation (B&O) tax — a gross-receipts tax run by the Department of Revenue. The major rates, from the state's own classification table (checked 1 September 2026): 0.471% on retailing, 0.484% on wholesaling and manufacturing, and a tiered Service & Other Activities rate keyed to the prior year's gross: 1.5% under $1M, 1.75% from $1M–$5M, 2.1% at $5M+. The structural point matters more than the rates: it's charged on revenue with no deduction for expenses, so an LLC grossing $200,000 in service revenue owes about $3,000 (1.5%) whether its actual profit was $100,000 or zero. A small-business B&O credit shields genuinely tiny operations, but for a real service business the B&O — not the Secretary of State's fees — is the number that belongs in the budget.
Two reports in year one — the Initial Report ambush
The Secretary of State's side of the ledger: $200 to form online ($180 fee plus the online processing charge), then an Annual Report of $70 — recently raised from $60 — due by the last day of your formation-anniversary month. New LLCs also owe the filing almost nobody warns them about: an Initial Report, due within 120 days of formation. Here's the detail even the guides that mention it get wrong: filed together with your online Certificate of Formation it is free — the state's own filing flow bundles it — and only a deferred initial report costs $10 (WAC 434-112-085). File the annual report late and a $25 delinquency fee makes it $95; ignore it long enough and administrative dissolution follows, with reinstatement at $140 plus every missed $70 report. Moderate fees, wrapped around a tax structure that deserves more attention than the fees do.
Every other Washington LLC fee, from the state's own rule book
Washington is unusual in publishing its complete corporate fee schedule as a regulation — WAC 434-112-085 — so these figures aren't scraped from a help page; they're the law, cross-checked against the Secretary of State's fee schedule and per-filing instructions on 1 September 2026.
| Filing | Fee | When you'd need it |
|---|---|---|
| Certificate of Formation | $180 paper · $200 online (incl. processing) | Forming the LLC — the one unavoidable fee |
| Initial Report | $0 with formation · $10 deferred | Due within 120 days; free if filed with the online formation |
| Annual Report | $70 ($95 if delinquent) | Every year, by the end of your anniversary month |
| Amendment (Certificate of Formation) | $30 | Name changes and other charter edits |
| Name reservation, 180 days | $30 — paper only | Holding a name; oddly, one of the few filings you can't do online |
| Statement of change of registered agent | $0 | Switching agents costs nothing in Washington |
| Registered agent resignation | $0 | Your agent quits — no fee to record it |
| Certificate of existence / good standing | $20 (long form $30) | Banks, lenders and foreign registrations ask for one |
| Certified copy | $20 charter documents · $10 other | Loan closings, registering in another state |
| Articles of dissolution | $0 | Closing the LLC properly is free |
| Reinstatement | $140 + all missed annual reports | Restoring an administratively dissolved LLC |
| Foreign LLC registration | $180 paper · $200 online | An out-of-state LLC doing business in Washington |
| Expedited service | +$100 (~3 business days) · same-day $150 | Per entity, on top of the filing's own fee |
Two rows are quietly excellent. Changing your registered agent is free — WAC 434-112-085 lists the statement of change at “no fee,” where Texas charges $15 and Nevada $60 — so switching from being your own agent to a service (or between services) never costs a state fee. And dissolving properly is free, which removes the usual excuse for letting an unused LLC lapse into delinquency: walking away costs $0 now, but coming back later costs $140 plus every $70 report you skipped.
The $50 license bill almost every Washington LLC pays — and competitors misquote
Forming the LLC doesn't finish your state paperwork. Washington routes nearly every real business into a state Business License Application with the Department of Revenue: it's required once your gross income reaches $12,000 a year, or you hire employees, collect sales tax, use a trade name, or need any city or state endorsement — in practice, almost everyone. The processing fee, from DOR's own fee page (checked 1 September 2026): $50 to open or reopen a business, $10 for most later changes, and a $5 renewal processing fee per location each year — plus whatever city or specialty endorsements your trade attracts. A trade name (DBA) rides along for $5 on the same application. Getting the license also opens your accounts with Revenue and Labor & Industries — and if you hire, workers' comp runs through the state's L&I monopoly, not a private insurer.
Worth flagging because the errors are live right now: Google's AI answer for this search was citing a $90 application fee on 1 September 2026 — DOR's fee page says $50 — and Tailor Brands' ranking cost page invents an annual “license fee” of up to $1,600 based on gross income, a fee schedule that does not exist in Washington (the state's revenue-based levy is the B&O tax above), while also quoting the annual report at $60 (it's $70) and name reservation at $20 (it's $30).
Our LLC cost calculator computes first-year and five-year totals for all 51 jurisdictions from the same verified dataset as this page — including Washington — and the full table is downloadable as CSV.
The registered agent is the recurring cost most Washington 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.