What happens if I miss the April 15th biennial report deadline in Kansas?

Kansas charges a $10 late fee, set by K.A.R. 7-16-1, if you file the information report after April 15 of your reporting year. A three-month delinquency period runs from that date, and during it the report can still be filed, but the entity is limited in what other documents it may file with the Secretary of State. Once the three-month interval passes, the business forfeits: it cannot file any other document with the Secretary of State until it is reinstated, and it is no longer an entity in good standing, which lenders and counterparties check before they sign. Getting back is expensive relative to the report. Reinstatement is filed on Form RL and costs a $35 filing fee plus an $85 forfeiture penalty plus $110 for each past-due information report, up to $670 for five reports. File the report online through the Kansas Business Center at sos.ks.gov, or by mail on Form ILC, before April 15 of your reporting year to avoid all of it.

Can I file my Kansas LLC biennial report by mail or must I use the online system?

You can do either. Kansas accepts the information report online through the Kansas Business Center at sos.ks.gov for $90, or on the paper Form ILC mailed to the Secretary of State for $110, so filing offline costs $20 more. The deadline is the same on both routes: April 15 of your reporting year, with businesses forming in even years filing in each succeeding even year and businesses forming in odd years filing in each succeeding odd year. An LLC organized in 2026 therefore owes its first information report by April 15, 2028. Online is the faster route and returns an immediate confirmation, which removes any doubt about whether the state received the filing; mail requires you to allow delivery and processing time before the deadline. The practical stakes are the same either way. Miss April 15 and you owe a $10 late fee, and if the report is still unfiled once the three-month delinquency period passes, the business forfeits and can file nothing else with the Secretary of State until it is reinstated.

How does Kansas's $85 filing fee compare to neighboring states?

Kansas is cheap to enter and cheap to keep. The Kansas Secretary of State charges $85 to file Articles of Organization online ($90 on the paper Form DL), which sits between Missouri and Colorado at $50 each and Oklahoma and Nebraska at $100 each. Where Kansas pulls ahead is the recurring side: its information report is $90 online ($110 by paper) but only every two years, and there is no Kansas franchise tax for tax year 2011 and after. Colorado charges a $25 periodic report every year and Oklahoma a $25 annual certificate, while Nebraska's biennial report is $25 online ($30 by paper) and Missouri requires no LLC report at all. Annualized, Kansas ongoing cost works out to about $45 a year, and the first year lands near $130 counting the report on that basis, roughly $102 below the national average. File your Articles of Organization online through the Kansas Secretary of State at sos.ks.gov to pay the lower of the two formation fees.

What specific information do I need to complete my Kansas LLC biennial report?

You need your LLC's current resident agent information, principal office address, and manager or member details to complete the information report required by the Kansas Secretary of State's Business Services Division. Specifically, provide the LLC's legal name exactly as filed, its Kansas business address, the resident agent's name and Kansas street address (a PO box alone is not enough), and the current managers or members. The Kansas Business Center uses this to verify your LLC's active status and keep the state's records matched to your actual operations, so missing or inaccurate details can hold up processing. File every two years by April 15 of your reporting year, online through the Kansas Business Center at sos.ks.gov for $90 or on the paper Form ILC for $110. Check the details against your Articles of Organization before you submit, and confirm which year you file in: businesses forming in even years file in each succeeding even year and businesses forming in odd years file in each succeeding odd year, so an LLC organized in 2026 owes its first report by April 15, 2028.

Compliance · KS

Kansas LLC Annual Compliance Requirements (2026)

Everything your Kansas LLC must do to stay in good standing, annual report deadlines, registered agent rules, and state-specific obligations.

First-Year Total$130

Annual Ongoing$45/yr

vs National Avg- $102.13

By Edmond Hui · Last updated: August 22, 2026

Kansas is one of the cheapest states to start and keep an LLC after the Secretary of State's 2026 fee overhaul, its first comprehensive fee update since 2008. Articles of Organization are $85 online and $90 on the paper Form DL, and the state's periodic filing is unusually light: an information report every two years rather than every year, $90 online or $110 by paper, due April 15 of the odd or even year that matches the year the business was formed. Counted with the report on an annualized basis, a Kansas LLC runs about $130 in its first year, roughly $102 below the national average. There is no Kansas franchise tax for tax year 2011 and after, so the biennial information report is the only recurring Secretary of State charge. The penalty for filing it late is modest, a $10 fee set by K.A.R. 7-16-1, but the real cost risk sits just past it: once the three-month delinquency period after April 15 runs out, the business forfeits and cannot file any other document with the Secretary of State until it is reinstated, and reinstatement on Form RL costs $35 plus an $85 forfeiture penalty plus $110 per past-due report, up to $670. The Kansas Business Center handles online filing and returns an immediate confirmation, and paper filers can still mail Form ILC. Between the low fees, the every-other-year cadence, and no franchise tax, the compliance burden on a Kansas LLC is one of the lightest in the country, provided the owner does not lose track of which year the report is due.

Stat card for Kansas LLC compliance costs: $130 in unavoidable first-year charges and $45 a year after that, −$102.13 against the $232.13 national first-year average. Its biennial report costs $90. — First-year total bundles the state filing fee with any report or entity tax due in year one; the recurring figure is what Kansas costs every year after that. Source: Kansas's published filing requirements and fee schedule, verified July 2026; national average from MyStateLLC's 50-state compliance dataset.

Annual Report Requirements

Due: April 15 of your reporting year (biennial)

Fee: $90 online / $110 paper

Frequency: biennial

How: Online or mail

Full Kansas Annual Report Guide →

Registered Agent Requirements

Every Kansas LLC must keep a resident agent with a Kansas street address on file with the Secretary of State, and the agent's details are one of the items your biennial information report confirms. Understand the rules, costs, and options so your LLC stays compliant and your home address stays off the public record.

Before you compare paid services: in most states the LLC's owner, or another individual who qualifies, may serve as its registered agent themselves, generally subject to that state's rules on keeping a street address in the state and being available there during normal business hours. A paid service is one way to meet the requirement and not the only one. The Kansas registered agent requirements set out what Kansas itself asks.

Registered agent services for Kansas LLCs

Affiliate disclosure: Northwest Registered Agent, Bizee, ZenBusiness and LegalZoom pay us a commission if you sign up through our link, at no extra cost to you. We list only the registered agent services we have an affiliate relationship with, so this is not a survey of the whole market.

This list is not scored. The four are listed cheapest annual renewal first, and every claim below is about the services listed here rather than the whole market.

Northwest Registered Agent$125/yr renewal
Best for: Privacy-focused owners and anyone who just needs an agent, not a formation bundle
Bizee$149/yr renewal
Best for: A free first year on every plan, renewing at $149/yr, if you're comfortable with the BBB caveat
ZenBusiness$199/yr renewal
Best for: First-time founders forming a new LLC who want phone, email and chat support
LegalZoom$249/yr renewal
Best for: Complex structures that want attorney consultations, which come with LegalZoom's Pro and Premium formation plans rather than this renewal price

Note: Bizee holds a C rating from the BBB and is not accredited. BBB's profile carries a live alert describing a pattern of complaints about unexpected charges, difficulty canceling and filing delays, and Bizee has posted a response to it. We flag this so you can make an informed choice.

Annual renewal is each provider's own standard published rate. Check the current terms at each provider before you buy. The scored ranking, and the formula behind it, is in our full formation services review →

Kansas Registered Agent Requirements →

Late Filing Penalties

Penalty: $10 late fee after the April 15 deadline

Kansas Late Fee Guide →

Kansas-Specific Compliance Considerations

April 15 Biennial Report Deadline

Kansas requires an LLC information report every two years by April 15 of the odd or even year matching the year the business was formed, which lands on the same date as the federal individual tax deadline. That timing lets owners handle both at once, though it also makes April a crowded month. Because the report only comes around every other year, it is the deadline Kansas owners most often forget.

Kansas Business Center Online Portal

Information reports can be filed through the Kansas Business Center's online system for $90, and the online route returns an immediate confirmation. Paper is still accepted: the same report on Form ILC costs $110 by mail, a $20 premium for filing offline.

Small Late Fee, Expensive Forfeiture

Kansas charges only a $10 penalty on a late information report under K.A.R. 7-16-1, and a three-month delinquency period after April 15 still lets you file it. What follows is not forgiving. Once that interval passes, the business forfeits and can file nothing else with the Secretary of State until reinstated, and reinstatement on Form RL costs $35 plus an $85 forfeiture penalty plus $110 for each past-due report, up to $670 for five reports.

No Publication Requirements

Unlike some states, Kansas does not require an LLC to publish a formation notice in a newspaper. The Secretary of State's Articles of Organization instructions (Form DL) list no publication step, which saves Kansas owners both the delay and the newspaper charges that owners in publication states have to budget for.

This guide is general information, not legal or tax advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. It reports what each state publishes about filing deadlines, fees, and the consequences of missing them, with the sources this page cites. It cannot tell you what your own company owes: the date turns on when and where you formed, states change these rules between our reviews, and in several states an entity-level tax falls due in a year when no report does. Confirm your own dates with the filing office named on this page before you rely on one here, because the penalty for missing a deadline can be administrative dissolution of the company.

Frequently Asked Questions

: Kansas charges a $10 late fee, set by K.A.R. 7-16-1, if you file the information report after April 15 of your reporting year. A three-month delinquency period runs from that date, and during it the report can still be filed, but the entity is limited in what other documents it may file with the Secretary of State. Once the three-month interval passes, the business forfeits: it cannot file any other document with the Secretary of State until it is reinstated, and it is no longer an entity in good standing, which lenders and counterparties check before they sign. Getting back is expensive relative to the report. Reinstatement is filed on Form RL and costs a $35 filing fee plus an $85 forfeiture penalty plus $110 for each past-due information report, up to $670 for five reports. File the report online through the Kansas Business Center at sos.ks.gov, or by mail on Form ILC, before April 15 of your reporting year to avoid all of it.
: You can do either. Kansas accepts the information report online through the Kansas Business Center at sos.ks.gov for $90, or on the paper Form ILC mailed to the Secretary of State for $110, so filing offline costs $20 more. The deadline is the same on both routes: April 15 of your reporting year, with businesses forming in even years filing in each succeeding even year and businesses forming in odd years filing in each succeeding odd year. An LLC organized in 2026 therefore owes its first information report by April 15, 2028. Online is the faster route and returns an immediate confirmation, which removes any doubt about whether the state received the filing; mail requires you to allow delivery and processing time before the deadline. The practical stakes are the same either way. Miss April 15 and you owe a $10 late fee, and if the report is still unfiled once the three-month delinquency period passes, the business forfeits and can file nothing else with the Secretary of State until it is reinstated.
: Kansas is cheap to enter and cheap to keep. The Kansas Secretary of State charges $85 to file Articles of Organization online ($90 on the paper Form DL), which sits between Missouri and Colorado at $50 each and Oklahoma and Nebraska at $100 each. Where Kansas pulls ahead is the recurring side: its information report is $90 online ($110 by paper) but only every two years, and there is no Kansas franchise tax for tax year 2011 and after. Colorado charges a $25 periodic report every year and Oklahoma a $25 annual certificate, while Nebraska's biennial report is $25 online ($30 by paper) and Missouri requires no LLC report at all. Annualized, Kansas ongoing cost works out to about $45 a year, and the first year lands near $130 counting the report on that basis, roughly $102 below the national average. File your Articles of Organization online through the Kansas Secretary of State at sos.ks.gov to pay the lower of the two formation fees.
: You need your LLC's current resident agent information, principal office address, and manager or member details to complete the information report required by the Kansas Secretary of State's Business Services Division. Specifically, provide the LLC's legal name exactly as filed, its Kansas business address, the resident agent's name and Kansas street address (a PO box alone is not enough), and the current managers or members. The Kansas Business Center uses this to verify your LLC's active status and keep the state's records matched to your actual operations, so missing or inaccurate details can hold up processing. File every two years by April 15 of your reporting year, online through the Kansas Business Center at sos.ks.gov for $90 or on the paper Form ILC for $110. Check the details against your Articles of Organization before you submit, and confirm which year you file in: businesses forming in even years file in each succeeding even year and businesses forming in odd years file in each succeeding odd year, so an LLC organized in 2026 owes its first report by April 15, 2028.

Sources

Each entry below is a document recorded in our verified Kansas sources, and each entry says what the document is. Some statutory text is read from an accurate mirror rather than from the state's own host, and those say so.

sos.ks.gov/businesses/register-a-business.htmlKansas Secretary of State: business entity filings
sos.ks.gov/businesses/information-reports.htmlKansas agency guidance: Information Report
sos.ks.gov/businesses/reinstate-a-business.htmlKansas agency guidance: Information Report

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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.