Wisconsin Corporation Annual Report
By Edmond Hui · Facts verified July 29, 2026 against primary state sources
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.
What Wisconsin requires
Annual Report
| Frequency | every year |
| Due | Due each year by the end of the calendar quarter in which the corporation was organized (its anniversary quarter); filed online at dfi.wi.gov |
| Fee | $25 |
| Form | Annual Report (filed online through the DFI; no separately numbered paper form) |
Wisconsin is one of 41 states on an annual corporate reporting cycle. Nationally, 41 states require an annual corporate report, 7 require one every two years, and 2 require none.
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 | $100 |
| Each year after (report, annualized) | $25 |
| Five-year equivalent (annualized) | $225 |
That ranks Wisconsin 21st cheapest of 49 states on five-year corporate filing charges.
Wisconsin corporation vs Wisconsin 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 | $100 | $130 |
| Report cadence | Every year | Every year |
| Report fee | $25 | $25 |
Worth noticing: a corporation is $30 cheaper to file here than an LLC. That is the exception nationally — corporations are the cheaper filing in only 15 of the 50 states, the two entities cost the same in 25, and the LLC is cheaper in 10.
Full Wisconsin LLC cost breakdown · LLC vs C-corp explained · LLC vs S-corp explained
State taxes a Wisconsin corporation pays
Corporate income tax
| Applies | Yes |
| Rate | 7.9% flat corporation franchise or income tax on Wisconsin net income |
Franchise or gross-receipts tax
Wisconsin's corporate tax is a franchise tax measured by net income at a flat 7.9% (a 7.9% income tax applies instead to corporations not subject to the franchise tax). It is NOT calculated on net worth and has no minimum or maximum dollar cap.
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 Wisconsinlevies — 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.
C-corp return: Form 4 (Wisconsin Corporation Franchise or Income Tax Return)
Frequently Asked Questions
Where these numbers come from
This page covers the recurring report a for-profit corporation files with Wisconsin. Every figure was checked against Wisconsin'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.