Does an Ohio corporation have to file an annual report?

No. Ohio is one of only 2 states that require no recurring corporation report with the business filing agency at all. That removes a recurring filing, not a tax obligation, any state tax return the corporation owes is separate and still due.

Ohio Corporation Annual Report: Not Required

By Edmond Hui · Facts verified July 29, 2026 against primary state sources

Ohio does not require for-profit corporations to file a recurring report with the state business filing agency. That is unusual: 41 states require an annual corporate report and 7 require one every two years. It removes a filing, not your state tax returns.

Filing for an LLC instead? See the Ohio LLC annual report.

Ohio corporation annual report requirements: Ohio requires no periodic corporate report with the state. Ohio imposes no corporate income tax. — Ohio is one of a small number of states with no recurring corporate report. The corporation may still owe income or franchise tax, covered separately on this page. Source: MyStateLLC 50-state corporation dataset, compiled from state filing offices and revenue departments, July 2026; any figure we could not confirm is labeled on the page.

Filing cadenceNone

Report feeN/A

Corporate income taxNone

What Ohio requires

Ohio does not require for-profit corporations to file a recurring report with the state business filing agency. Ohio does not require for-profit corporations to file annual or periodic reports with the Secretary of State

Ohio is one of only 2 states, with Oklahoma, that require no recurring corporation report with the business filing agency at all. That removes a filing, not a tax obligation: any state tax return the corporation owes is separate and still due.

What the filings cost over five years

State filing charges only, incorporation plus five years of reporting, annualized. Corporate income tax and franchise tax are excluded, because both depend on income or net worth.

Period	State filing charges
Incorporation	from $99
Each year after (report, annualized)	$0
Five-year equivalent (annualized)	$99

That ranks Ohio 3rd cheapest of 49 states on five-year corporate filing charges.

Ohio corporation vs Ohio LLC

State filing charges only. Corporate income tax and franchise tax are excluded because both depend on income or net worth, so no flat figure exists for either entity.

	Corporation	LLC
Formation filing fee	$99	$99
Report cadence	Not required	Not required
Report fee	No report required	No report required
Entity-level tax on the LLC side	N/A	Commercial Activity Tax

Both entities cost $99 to file in Ohio, so the filing fee is not a reason to pick one over the other.

Full Ohio LLC cost breakdown · LLC vs C-corp explained · LLC vs S-corp explained

State taxes an Ohio corporation pays

Corporate income tax

Applies	No corporate income tax
Rate	None, Ohio levies no corporate income tax; entity-level taxation is via the Commercial Activity Tax (gross receipts tax)

Franchise or gross-receipts tax

Ohio has no corporate net-income tax and no corporate franchise tax (the corporate franchise tax was fully phased out after 2013). Instead Ohio imposes the Commercial Activity Tax (CAT), a gross-receipts tax at 0.26% (2.6 mills per dollar) on taxable gross receipts above the annual exclusion amount. The exclusion is $6,000,000 for 2025 and thereafter (including 2026); it was $3,000,000 for 2024. Businesses with taxable gross receipts at or below the exclusion owe no CAT and are not required to register. The former annual minimum tax (AMT) was eliminated effective 2024.

What these totals leave out: the filing-charge figures on this page are what you pay the business filing office. They exclude corporate income tax and any franchise or gross-receipts tax, because both depend on income, net worth or receipts. The section above sets out what Ohio levies, or that it levies neither. Where a state's franchise tax carries a flat minimum, that minimum is an unavoidable annual cost these totals do not include, and over five years it can be the larger number.

Frequently Asked Questions

: No. Ohio is one of only 2 states that require no recurring corporation report with the business filing agency at all. That removes a recurring filing, not a tax obligation, any state tax return the corporation owes is separate and still due.
: Ohio does not require for-profit corporations to file annual or periodic reports with the Secretary of State.

Where these numbers come from

This page covers the recurring report a for-profit corporation files with Ohio. Every figure was checked against Ohio's own published sources on July 29, 2026, the state business filing agency's fee schedule, the governing statute, and where a state tax applies, the state Department of Revenue. Commercial formation-service pages were used as leads only and are never cited. Anything the review could not confirm from an official source is left blank on this page rather than filled with an estimate.

Corporate income tax and franchise tax are quoted as the state publishes them, as rate schedules and thresholds, and are excluded from every dollar total here. They depend on income or net worth, so there is no flat figure that would be true for every corporation.

Primary sources:

https://codes.ohio.gov/ohio-revised-code/section-111.16
https://codes.ohio.gov/ohio-revised-code/section-5751.03
https://codes.ohio.gov/ohio-revised-code/section-5751.01
https://codes.ohio.gov/ohio-revised-code/section-5747.38
Ohio statute: ORC 111.16 (Secretary of State filing fees)
Ohio statute: ORC 5747.02(A)(4)(a) (business income tax rate)

This guide is general information, not legal or tax advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. It describes rules that can differ from state to state, and fees, rates, forms and deadlines can change after we review them. It cannot tell you what applies to your own business: that turns on where the business is formed, where it operates and how it is taxed. Confirm anything you rely on with the state or federal agency concerned, or with a licensed attorney or CPA, before you act on it.

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Edmond Hui · Founder, MyStateLLC

Edmond Hui is a software engineer and serial entrepreneur based in New York who has founded multiple online businesses across e-commerce, media, and information publishing. Before transitioning into tech, he spent years as a commercial real estate professional closing deals totaling over 100,000 square feet, giving him firsthand experience with business formation and entity structuring. He built MyStateLLC to provide the free, state-specific LLC guidance he wished existed when forming his own companies.

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