How Much Does an LLC Cost in New Hampshire?
By Edmond Hui · Fees verified July 29, 2026 against the New Hampshire 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.
What you actually pay in New Hampshire
New Hampshire is the tidiest fee structure of these five: RSA 304-C:191 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.
New Hampshire LLC fee breakdown
| 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 | — | — |
| Registered agent service (optional) | $50–$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 |
RSA 304-C:191, II(c) 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 (RSA 77-A:2, 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 RSA 77-A:6. Business Enterprise Tax is 0.55% of the taxable enterprise value tax base (RSA 77-E:2, II, 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 RSA 77-E:5. Neither has a flat minimum - below the thresholds the tax is $0.
RSA 304-C contains no newspaper publication requirement; formation is complete on the Secretary of State's receipt and filing of the Certificate of Formation under RSA 304-C:31.
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.
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 | $225 |
| Five-year total | $600 | $1,225 |
First filing timing: RSA 304-C:194, III(a): 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 III(b), 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 29th cheapest of 50 states on first-year cost — $34.53 below the $234.53 national average. On ongoing annual cost it ranks 38th.
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.
New Hampshire filing deadline and late penalties
Annual Report
| Frequency | every year |
| Due | Between January 1 and April 1 of each year |
| Fee | $100 |
| Late penalty | $50 |
RSA 304-C:191, II(f) 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; RSA 304-C:191, II(f) sets reinstatement under RSA 304-C:138, I at $135 and late reinstatement under RSA 304-C:145, I at $500.
Full New Hampshire annual report filing guide · Deadline calculator
Cost traps 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
RSA 304-C:191, II(f) 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 RSA 304-C:194, III(b), 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
Where 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 RSA 304-C:191 and the report timing from RSA 304-C:194, 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 in RSA 77-A:6, $250,000 in RSA 77-E:5) 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 RSA 304-C:191, II(g) charges "$1 per document and $5 for the certificate"; a multi-document request costs more.
Primary sources:
- https://gc.nh.gov/rsa/html/XXVIII/304-C/304-C-191.htm
- https://gc.nh.gov/rsa/html/XXVIII/304-C/304-C-194.htm
- https://gc.nh.gov/rsa/html/V/77-A/77-A-2.htm
- https://gc.nh.gov/rsa/html/V/77-A/77-A-6.htm
- https://gc.nh.gov/rsa/html/V/77-E/77-E-2.htm
- https://gc.nh.gov/rsa/html/V/77-E/77-E-5.htm
- https://www.revenue.nh.gov/news-and-media/business-enterprise-tax-and-business-profits-tax-filing-threshold-adjustment