How much does it cost to start an LLC in New Hampshire?

$100 to file the Certificate of Formation (form LLC-1) under New Hampshire law, whether on paper or online. A name reservation is an optional $15 and a certificate of good standing is $5. A foreign LLC registering in New Hampshire also pays $100.

How much is the New Hampshire LLC annual report fee?

$100 per year, due between January 1 and April 1. If the report or fee is not in by April 1, New Hampshire law adds a $50 late filing fee, so a late report costs $150. Reinstatement after dissolution is $135, or $500 for late reinstatement.

Does a New Hampshire LLC pay state income tax?

Yes, at the entity level. The Business Profits Tax is 7.5% of taxable business profits for organizations with gross business income over $109,000 (for periods beginning on or after January 1, 2025), and the Business Enterprise Tax is 0.55% of the enterprise value tax base for enterprises over $298,000 in gross receipts or enterprise value. Below those thresholds no return is required.

When is my first New Hampshire LLC annual report due?

Normally between January 1 and April 1 of the year after you form. But New Hampshire law exempts an LLC formed between December 1 and April 1 from filing that year, so a December 2026 formation files its first annual report in the January 1 to April 1, 2028 window instead of 2027.

New Hampshire LLC Cost (2026)

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

In New Hampshire, the first-year state cost of an LLC is $200, before any registered-agent service. Forming an LLC in New Hampshire costs $100 to file the Certificate of Formation with the state, the Annual Report costs $100 every year.

Bar chart of LLC costs in New Hampshire: $200 in unavoidable state charges in the first year and $100 a year after that. New Hampshire charges $100 for its annual report. — The recurring figure covers the annual report plus any flat state entity tax. Source: New Hampshire's published filing fee schedule, verified July 2026.

Certificate of Formation$100

Annual Report$100

First-year state cost$200

Five-year state cost$600

How much does it cost to form an LLC in New Hampshire?

New Hampshire is the tidiest fee structure of these five: its LLC fee statute sets a flat $100 for the Certificate of Formation (LLC-1), a flat $100 annual report due between January 1 and April 1, and a $50 additional late fee if the report or fee is not in by April 1 - so a late report costs $150. Reinstatement is $135, or $500 for late reinstatement. Certificates are cheap: $5 for a certificate of good standing, $10 for a certificate reciting all of an LLC's filings, and $1 per document plus $5 for a certified copy. A name reservation is $15. The genuine New Hampshire cost is tax, not filing fees: the Business Profits Tax is 7.5% once gross business income exceeds $109,000 and the Business Enterprise Tax is 0.55% once gross receipts or the enterprise value tax base exceeds $298,000.

Which fees does a New Hampshire LLC pay, and how often?

Cost	Amount	How often	Charged by
Certificate of Formation (LLC-1)	$100	One time	New Hampshire Secretary of State
Annual Report	$100	Every year	New Hampshire Secretary of State
Required state cost, first year	$200	N/A	N/A
Registered agent service (optional)	$50 to $300	Every year	Commercial provider
Name reservation (optional)	$15	One time	New Hampshire Secretary of State
Certificate of good standing (optional)	$5	Per copy	New Hampshire Secretary of State

New Hampshire law sets a flat $100 on receipt of a certificate of formation, with no online/paper distinction in the statute.

Business Profits Tax and Business Enterprise Tax: Business Profits Tax is 7.5% of taxable business profits (rate effective for taxable periods ending on or after December 31, 2023) and is owed by business organizations with gross business income above the filing threshold - $109,000 for taxable periods beginning on or after January 1, 2025, CPI-adjusted biennially from the $92,000 base in the statute. Business Enterprise Tax is 0.55% of the taxable enterprise value tax base (effective for periods ending on or after December 31, 2022) for enterprises with gross business receipts or an enterprise value tax base above $298,000, CPI-adjusted biennially from the $250,000 base in the statute. Neither has a flat minimum - below the thresholds the tax is $0.

New Hampshire's LLC statute contains no newspaper publication requirement; formation is complete on the Secretary of State's receipt and filing of the Certificate of Formation.

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. For what formation services charge on top of these state fees, see the best LLC services in New Hampshire.

Next steps for an LLC in New Hampshire

What does a New Hampshire 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)	$200	$325
Each year after	$100/yr	$225/yr
Five-year total	$600	$1,225

First filing timing: Under New Hampshire law, the first annual report is due between January 1 and April 1 of the year following the calendar year in which the LLC was formed. But under the next paragraph of the same section, an LLC formed between December 1 of the preceding year and April 1 of the current year is not required to file an annual report that year - so an LLC formed in December 2026 skips 2027 and first files in 2028.

Is New Hampshire expensive compared with other states?

New Hampshire ranks 31st cheapest of 50 states on first-year cost , $32.16 below the $232.16 national average. On ongoing annual cost it ranks 38th.

Cheaper state	First-year cost	You would save
Montana	$35	$165
Arizona	$50	$150
Missouri	$50	$150

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

When is the New Hampshire filing deadline, and what happens if you miss it?

Annual Report

Frequency	every year
Due	Between January 1 and April 1 of each year
Fee	$100
Late penalty	$50

New Hampshire law adds "an additional late filing fee in the amount of $50" for failure or refusal to file the annual report or pay the fee on or before April 1, making a late report $150.

An LLC that stops filing is subject to administrative dissolution; New Hampshire's fee statute sets reinstatement at $135 and late reinstatement at $500.

Full New Hampshire annual report filing guide · Deadline calculator

What cost traps are specific to New Hampshire?

New Hampshire taxes the LLC itself, not just the members

An LLC with gross business income over $109,000 must file a Business Profits Tax return at 7.5%, and one with gross receipts or an enterprise value tax base over $298,000 owes Business Enterprise Tax at 0.55%. Both apply at the entity level and dwarf the $100 annual report.

The $50 late fee is automatic on April 2

New Hampshire law adds a $50 late filing fee for failure to file the annual report or pay the fee on or before April 1, taking the report from $100 to $150. Let it lapse into dissolution and reinstatement is $135, or $500 for late reinstatement.

Forming in December can legally skip a whole annual report

Under New Hampshire law, an LLC formed between December 1 and April 1 is not required to file an annual report that year - a genuine $100 saving that also means a first-year founder should not assume a report is due.

Frequently Asked Questions

: $100 to file the Certificate of Formation (form LLC-1) under New Hampshire law, whether on paper or online. A name reservation is an optional $15 and a certificate of good standing is $5. A foreign LLC registering in New Hampshire also pays $100.
: $100 per year, due between January 1 and April 1. If the report or fee is not in by April 1, New Hampshire law adds a $50 late filing fee, so a late report costs $150. Reinstatement after dissolution is $135, or $500 for late reinstatement.
: Yes, at the entity level. The Business Profits Tax is 7.5% of taxable business profits for organizations with gross business income over $109,000 (for periods beginning on or after January 1, 2025), and the Business Enterprise Tax is 0.55% of the enterprise value tax base for enterprises over $298,000 in gross receipts or enterprise value. Below those thresholds no return is required.
: Normally between January 1 and April 1 of the year after you form. But New Hampshire law exempts an LLC formed between December 1 and April 1 from filing that year, so a December 2026 formation files its first annual report in the January 1 to April 1, 2028 window instead of 2027.

Where do these numbers come from?

Every fee above was checked against New Hampshire's own published sources on July 29, 2026 , the New Hampshire 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 Certificate of Formation 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. Confidence on this state is medium: Every Secretary of State fee is quoted verbatim from New Hampshire's LLC fee statute and the report timing from its annual report section, so the filing-cost side is solid. Two reasons for medium rather than high: (a) sos.nh.gov and revenue.nh.gov both return HTTP 403 to automated fetches, so I could not directly confirm the CPI-adjusted BPT/BET thresholds of $109,000 and $298,000 on the DRA page - the statutory bases ($92,000 for the Business Profits Tax, $250,000 for the Business Enterprise Tax) and the biennial CPI-adjustment mechanism ARE confirmed from the statute, and the adjusted figures come from the DRA's own threshold-adjustment notice, but I read that notice only through a search excerpt; (b) for the same reason I could not verify whether New Hampshire charges an in-person expedited service fee (reported on sos.nh.gov as an additional $25) or a QuickStart online payment surcharge, so expedite is [] and no surcharge is asserted. certified_copy is recorded as 6 because the fee statute charges "$1 per document and $5 for the certificate"; a multi-document request costs more.

Sources

26 documents

Each entry below is a document recorded in our verified New Hampshire 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. Where we hold the citation but no stable public link, the citation is printed on its own rather than pointed at a guessed address.

gc.nh.gov/rsa/html/XXVIII/304-C/304-C-191.htm
gc.nh.gov/rsa/html/XXVIII/304-C/304-C-194.htm
gc.nh.gov/rsa/html/V/77-A/77-A-2.htm
gc.nh.gov/rsa/html/V/77-A/77-A-6.htm
gc.nh.gov/rsa/html/V/77-E/77-E-2.htm
gc.nh.gov/rsa/html/V/77-E/77-E-5.htm
revenue.nh.gov/news-and-media/business-enterprise-tax-and-business-profits-tax-filing-threshold-adjustment
sos.nh.gov/media/btrcez0p/form_llc-1_-10-2018.pdf
New Hampshire statute: RSA 304-C:191 (LLC filing fees)
New Hampshire statute: RSA 304-C:191, II(c) (certificate of formation fee)
New Hampshire statute: RSA 304-C:194, III(a) (first annual report due)
New Hampshire statute: RSA 304-C:194, III(b) (first-year annual report exemption)
New Hampshire statute: RSA 304-C:191, II(f) (late annual report fee)
New Hampshire statute: RSA 304-C:191, II(f) (reinstatement fees)
New Hampshire statute: RSA 304-C:138, I (reinstatement)
New Hampshire statute: RSA 304-C:145, I (late reinstatement)
New Hampshire statute: RSA 77-A:2 (Business Profits Tax rate)
New Hampshire statute: RSA 77-A:6 (Business Profits Tax filing threshold)
New Hampshire statute: RSA 77-E:2, II (Business Enterprise Tax rate)
New Hampshire statute: RSA 77-E:5 (Business Enterprise Tax filing threshold)
New Hampshire statute: RSA 304-C (LLC act, no publication requirement)
New Hampshire statute: RSA 304-C:31 (certificate of formation)
New Hampshire statute: RSA 304-C:194 (annual report timing)
New Hampshire statute: RSA 77-A:6 (Business Profits Tax threshold base)
New Hampshire statute: RSA 77-E:5 (Business Enterprise Tax threshold base)
New Hampshire statute: RSA 304-C:191, II(g) (certified copy fee)

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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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