Do veterans get a free LLC in North Dakota?

No. N.D. Cent. Code § 10-32.1-92 sets a flat fee for filing articles of organization and issuing the certificate of organization, and the fee schedule contains no exemption, waiver or reduction clause at all. A full-text search of every chapter of title 10 turned up no occurrence of the word veteran anywhere in North Dakota's business entity law.

Is there a North Dakota veteran-owned business certification?

No. The Office of Management and Budget publishes a page listing every state procurement preference, covering things like tie-bid resident preference, printing, coal, bio-based products and North Dakota food, and veterans do not appear on it. NDBuys vendor registration has no veteran-owned self-certification field either. Federal SBA VetCert is your only certification option.

Doesn't North Dakota law give veterans preference on public contracts?

It gives veterans hiring preference, not bidding preference, and the difference matters. N.D. Cent. Code § 43-07-20 requires public construction, repair and maintenance contracts to include a clause preferring bona fide North Dakota residents, with first preference to honorably discharged disabled veterans and veterans. That obligation lands on whoever wins the contract. It gives a veteran-owned LLC no advantage in winning it.

What about the veterans' preference I've read about in North Dakota statute?

That is public employment, not procurement. N.D. Cent. Code ch. 37-19.1 and § 54-44.3-23 govern preference in hiring for public jobs. They are worth knowing about if you are applying to work for the state, and they do nothing for your company when it bids.

Is the VBOC of the Dakotas a North Dakota state program?

No. It is hosted at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks, which makes it easy to mistake for a state office, but it runs under an SBA cooperative agreement and is federally funded. It is still worth using. Just do not read its existence as evidence that North Dakota has a state veteran business program, because the state does not.

Is there a North Dakota tax break for a veteran-owned business?

No. Every chapter of the tax title was searched, and each veteran provision found is personal rather than commercial: the homestead credit, the paraplegic homestead exemption, motor vehicle excise and aircraft excise. None of them attaches to owning a business. Your LLC is taxed like anyone else's.

LLC Guide

North Dakota has nothing for veteran business owners

No filing fee waiver, no state certification, no veteran-owned bid preference. That is a short answer, and it is the accurate one, so this page tells you what to do instead rather than padding out a benefit that does not exist.

By Edmond Hui · Last updated: August 2026

North Dakota does not discount LLC filing fees for veterans — the fee is $135 for everyone — but North Dakota runs no veteran-owned business certification of its own. See the sources below.

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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North Dakota has no veteran LLC fee waiver and no state veteran-owned business certification, so you will pay the same $135 to file articles of organization as every other founder.

The fee schedule at N.D. Cent. Code § 10-32.1-92 is a flat list of charges with no exemption, waiver or reduction clause of any kind, for veterans or anyone. There is also no state certification to apply for: the Office of Management and Budget's own page enumerating every North Dakota procurement preference does not mention veterans, and NDBuys vendor registration collects no veteran-owned self-certification. Your certification route is federal. The one thing you should not do is assume some state preference exists and structure around it.

What a Veteran Pays to Form an LLC in North Dakota

Standard state filing fee	$135
What a veteran pays today	$135
Veteran-specific saving	$0 — no veteran discount on this fee
State veteran-owned business certification	No state program — federal certification only

Verified August 6, 2026 against North Dakota primary sources — listed at the end of this guide.

Why North Dakota Has No Veteran LLC Fee Waiver

You pay the standard fee to file articles of organization under N.D. Cent. Code § 10-32.1-92(1), and the standard annual report fee under subsection 25 of the same section, with the report due each November. The section reads as a plain list of charges. There is no exemption clause anywhere in it, which is a different and stronger statement than a fee page merely failing to mention veterans. We can say that with more confidence than usual because the negatives here were checked mechanically rather than inferred. The full text of every chapter of North Dakota Century Code titles 10, 43, 44, 48, 51, 54, 57 and 6 was pulled from ndlegis.gov and searched for veteran, military, armed forces, service-disabled, servicemember and honorabl. All 47 chapters of title 10, which is where business entity law lives, returned zero occurrences of any of those terms. There is no veteran fee provision hiding in North Dakota's business entity law, because there is no veteran anything in it. The same search across the tax title found only personal benefits, such as the homestead credit and motor vehicle excise exemptions, none of which attach to business ownership. One narrow exception is worth naming because it is real money to a small number of people. Under N.D. Cent. Code § 43-11-25.2, a nonrenewable three-year provisional cosmetology licence is issued without a fee to veterans and veteran spouses within six months of honorable discharge. That is the whole list. If you were hoping the same logic extends to a transient merchant licence, it does not: the fee under § 51-04-03 applies to veterans exactly as it applies to anyone else.

Authority: N.D. Cent. Code § 10-32.1-92(1): 'The secretary of state shall charge and collect for: 1. Filing articles of organization and issuing a certificate of organization, one hundred thirty-five dollars.' The fee schedule is a flat list with no exemption, waiver or reduction clause of any kind. — ndlegis.gov

Other North Dakota Fees Veterans Do Not Pay

One narrow occupational licence only: a nonrenewable three-year provisional cosmetology licence, 'issued without a fee', for veterans and veteran spouses within six months of honorable discharge. There is no general business-licence waiver and no transient-merchant/peddler exemption — the $200 transient merchant licence fee under N.D. Cent. Code § 51-04-03 applies to veterans like anyone else.: waived. N.D. Cent. Code § 43-11-25.2(4)-(5) (applications to practice cosmetology — active-duty military members, veterans, spouses); cf. N.D. Cent. Code § 51-04-03 (transient merchant licence fee, no veteran exemption)..

Veteran-Owned Business Certification in North Dakota

North Dakota does not run its own veteran-owned business certification. That means there is no state certificate to apply for — but it also means the federal certification is the one that matters, and it is free.

The SBA’s VetCert program certifies Veteran-Owned Small Businesses (VOSB) and Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Businesses (SDVOSB) for federal contracting. Certification is free and is handled entirely at veterans.certify.sba.gov.

State Benefits vs Federal Benefits — What Is Actually Different

Most of what gets published as “veteran LLC benefits in North Dakota” is actually federal, and identical in all 50 states. Three separate things get run together:

What it is	Who runs it	Does it make forming an LLC cheaper?
Filing-fee waiver	North Dakota Secretary of State, by statute	Not available in North Dakota
Veteran-owned business certification	U.S. Small Business Administration (VetCert)	No — it helps you win contracts, not file paperwork
SBA loans, VBOC counselling, VA benefits	Federal agencies	No — and they are the same in every state

Certification is worth doing on its own merits, but it is not a discount on formation. If a page tells you North Dakotagives veterans a “free LLC” and then links you to a certification portal, it has conflated the first row with the second.

Free Help for Veteran Business Owners in North Dakota

The North Dakota Department of Veterans Affairs, at 701-239-7165, handles benefits and does not run a business development or certification program, so calling it about certification will not get you anywhere. Its one money program, the Veterans' Aid Fund under N.D. Cent. Code § 37-14-04, is a personal loan capped at a few thousand dollars and is not business capital. Do not confuse the VBOC of the Dakotas, hosted at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks, with a state program: it operates under an SBA cooperative agreement and is federal, however local the address looks. That federal channel, along with SBA VetCert, is where your practical help is.

North Dakota Department of Veterans Affairs (benefits only — it runs no business-development or certification programme) — veterans.nd.gov · 701-239-7165

Veteran Business Outreach Centers (VBOCs) are funded by the SBA and provide free business planning and formation counselling to veterans, service members and military spouses. Find your VBOC.

Forming the LLC Itself

Nothing about the formation process changes because you are a veteran — the forms, the registered agent requirement and the annual filing are the same. The full walkthrough lives in our North Dakota formation guide rather than being repeated here.

How to start an LLC in North Dakota →

Sources

Every figure on this page was checked against these primary sources on August 6, 2026.

Chart comparing the standard North Dakota LLC filing fee with what a veteran actually pays to form an LLC, and the difference between the two. — What a veteran pays to form an LLC in North Dakota, against the standard filing fee. Source: North Dakota Secretary of State.

Frequently Asked Questions

: No. N.D. Cent. Code § 10-32.1-92 sets a flat fee for filing articles of organization and issuing the certificate of organization, and the fee schedule contains no exemption, waiver or reduction clause at all. A full-text search of every chapter of title 10 turned up no occurrence of the word veteran anywhere in North Dakota's business entity law.
: No. The Office of Management and Budget publishes a page listing every state procurement preference, covering things like tie-bid resident preference, printing, coal, bio-based products and North Dakota food, and veterans do not appear on it. NDBuys vendor registration has no veteran-owned self-certification field either. Federal SBA VetCert is your only certification option.
: It gives veterans hiring preference, not bidding preference, and the difference matters. N.D. Cent. Code § 43-07-20 requires public construction, repair and maintenance contracts to include a clause preferring bona fide North Dakota residents, with first preference to honorably discharged disabled veterans and veterans. That obligation lands on whoever wins the contract. It gives a veteran-owned LLC no advantage in winning it.
: That is public employment, not procurement. N.D. Cent. Code ch. 37-19.1 and § 54-44.3-23 govern preference in hiring for public jobs. They are worth knowing about if you are applying to work for the state, and they do nothing for your company when it bids.
: No. It is hosted at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks, which makes it easy to mistake for a state office, but it runs under an SBA cooperative agreement and is federally funded. It is still worth using. Just do not read its existence as evidence that North Dakota has a state veteran business program, because the state does not.
: No. Every chapter of the tax title was searched, and each veteran provision found is personal rather than commercial: the homestead credit, the paraplegic homestead exemption, motor vehicle excise and aircraft excise. None of them attaches to owning a business. Your LLC is taxed like anyone else's.

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