How much does it cost to start an LLC in Kentucky?

Filing Articles of Organization (Form KLC) with the Kentucky Secretary of State costs $40, the same online or by mail. Add the $15 annual report and Kentucky's $175 minimum Limited Liability Entity Tax and your true first-year state cost is about $230. A name reservation, if you want one, is $15 for 120 days.

What is the Kentucky LLC annual report fee?

The annual report fee is $15, set by KRS 14A.2-060(2)(a), and it is due between January 1 and June 30 each year. Your first report is due in the window following the calendar year you organized. A veteran-owned business organized after August 1, 2018 pays no annual report fee for its first four years.

Do Kentucky LLCs have to pay the LLET?

Yes. The Limited Liability Entity Tax applies to every business protected from liability by Kentucky law, including LLCs. The minimum is $175 for entities with $3 million or less in total gross receipts or gross profits; above $6 million it becomes the lesser of 0.095% of Kentucky gross receipts or 0.75% of Kentucky gross profits.

What happens if I file my Kentucky annual report late?

There is no late fee. A Sixty Day Notice is mailed July 1, and a report received by August 31 returns the company to good standing without penalty. Miss August 31 and the LLC is administratively dissolved — reinstatement then costs a $100 penalty plus $15 for each delinquent report.

LLC Costs · KY

How Much Does an LLC Cost in Kentucky?

By Edmond Hui · Fees verified July 29, 2026 against the Kentucky Secretary of State fee schedule

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.

Forming an LLC in Kentucky costs $40 to file the Articles of Organization with the state, the Annual Report costs $15 every year, and the Limited Liability Entity Tax (LLET) adds at least $175 a year. That puts the first-year state cost at $230, before any registered-agent service.

Articles of Organization$40

Annual Report$15

Limited Liability Entity Tax (LLET)$175/yr

First-year state cost$230

Five-year state cost$990

What you actually pay in Kentucky

Kentucky has one of the lowest entry costs in the country — $40 for Articles of Organization (Form KLC) and a $15 annual report — but the real recurring cost is the Limited Liability Entity Tax, a $175 minimum every year for LLCs with $3 million or less in gross receipts or gross profits. That means the tax is more than four times the formation fee and nearly twelve times the annual report fee. Reinstatement after administrative dissolution costs a $100 penalty under KRS 14A.2-060(1)(j) plus $15 for each missed report. A veteran-owned business organized after August 1, 2018 is exempt from the annual report fee for its first four years, though not from the filing deadline itself.

Kentucky LLC fee breakdown

Cost	Amount	How often	Charged by
Articles of Organization (KLC)	$40	One time	Kentucky Secretary of State
Annual Report	$15	Every year	Kentucky Secretary of State
Limited Liability Entity Tax (LLET) (minimum)	$175	Every year	Kentucky Department of Revenue
Required state cost, first year	$230	—	—
Registered agent service (optional)	$50–$300	Every year	Commercial provider
Name reservation (optional)	$15	One time	Kentucky Secretary of State
Certificate of good standing (optional)	$10	Per copy	Kentucky Secretary of State

Limited Liability Entity Tax (LLET): Minimum $175 for entities with total gross receipts or total gross profits of $3 million or less; a sliding-scale formula applies between $3 million and $6 million; above $6 million the tax is the lesser of 0.095% of Kentucky gross receipts or 0.75% of Kentucky gross profits.

Neither the Secretary of State's LLC filing instructions nor Form KLC imposes a newspaper-publication step.

Registered agent is listed separately because it is a commercial service, not a state charge. Commercial registered-agent services, not a state charge. Range and $125 midpoint match the assumption used by /tools/llc-true-cost. Most states let you serve as your own registered agent at no cost if you have a physical in-state address. Run your own numbers in the true-cost calculator.

Kentucky LLC cost over five years

State charges only in the first column; the second adds a registered-agent service at the $125/yr market midpoint.

Period	State cost only	With registered agent
Year 1 (formation + first filing)	$230	$355
Each year after	$190	$315
Five-year total	$990	$1,615

First filing timing: The business entity must file its first annual report between January 1 and June 30 of the year following the calendar year in which it was organized.

Is Kentucky expensive compared with other states?

Kentucky ranks 35th cheapest of 50 states on first-year cost — $4.53 below the $234.53 national average. On ongoing annual cost it ranks 41st.

Cheaper state	First-year cost	You would save
Montana	$35	$195
Arizona	$50	$180
Missouri	$50	$180

A cheaper filing fee elsewhere rarely saves money if you live and operate in Kentucky. Doing business here with an out-of-state LLC generally means registering it as a foreign LLC in Kentucky anyway — paying both states. See foreign qualification in Kentucky before forming elsewhere to save on fees.

Kentucky filing deadline and late penalties

Annual Report

Frequency	every year
Due	Between January 1 and June 30 of each year
Fee	$15

There is no late fee. A Sixty Day Notice is mailed July 1 giving another 60 days; "Annual reports received by August 31 will return the company to good standing without penalty."

"Failure to submit a report by August 31 will result in either administrative dissolution of the business or revocation of authority to conduct business in Kentucky." KRS 14A.2-060(1)(j) then charges a $100 reinstatement penalty following administrative dissolution, plus $15 for each delinquent annual report.

Full Kentucky annual report filing guide · Deadline calculator

Cost traps specific to Kentucky

The $175 LLET dwarfs the filing fees

Kentucky's headline cost is $40 to form and $15 a year to report, but every liability-shielded entity owes a minimum $175 Limited Liability Entity Tax annually — more than four times the formation fee.

Hard August 31 cliff, no late fee

Kentucky charges nothing for filing late, but if the annual report is not in by August 31 the LLC is administratively dissolved and reinstatement costs a $100 penalty plus $15 per delinquent report.

Veteran-owned fee waiver is easy to miss

KRS 14A.2-060(2)(b) exempts a veteran-owned business organized after August 1, 2018 from the annual report fee for its first four years — but you must check the veteran-owned box on Form KLC and attach DD-214s or active-duty IDs at formation.

Frequently Asked Questions

: Filing Articles of Organization (Form KLC) with the Kentucky Secretary of State costs $40, the same online or by mail. Add the $15 annual report and Kentucky's $175 minimum Limited Liability Entity Tax and your true first-year state cost is about $230. A name reservation, if you want one, is $15 for 120 days.
: The annual report fee is $15, set by KRS 14A.2-060(2)(a), and it is due between January 1 and June 30 each year. Your first report is due in the window following the calendar year you organized. A veteran-owned business organized after August 1, 2018 pays no annual report fee for its first four years.
: Yes. The Limited Liability Entity Tax applies to every business protected from liability by Kentucky law, including LLCs. The minimum is $175 for entities with $3 million or less in total gross receipts or gross profits; above $6 million it becomes the lesser of 0.095% of Kentucky gross receipts or 0.75% of Kentucky gross profits.
: There is no late fee. A Sixty Day Notice is mailed July 1, and a report received by August 31 returns the company to good standing without penalty. Miss August 31 and the LLC is administratively dissolved — reinstatement then costs a $100 penalty plus $15 for each delinquent report.

Where these numbers come from

Every fee above was checked against Kentucky's own published sources on July 29, 2026 — the Kentucky Secretary of State fee schedule, the governing statute, and where a state-level tax applies, the state tax authority. Commercial formation-service pages were not used.

The first-year total is the Articles of Organization fee plus the first year of any recurring state charge. Where a state's first report is not due until the following year, that is noted above. The five-year total is the filing fee plus five years of recurring charges, which avoids the timing question entirely. Registered-agent service is excluded from all state figures.

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