North Dakota has nothing for veteran business owners

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's 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's no veteran fee provision hiding in North Dakota's business entity law, because there's 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's real money to a small number of people. Under N.D. Cent. Code § 43-11-25.2, a nonrenewable three-year provisional cosmetology license is issued without a fee to veterans and veteran spouses within six months of honorable discharge. That's the whole list. If you were hoping the same logic extends to a transient merchant license, it doesn't: 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:

Certification is worth doing on its own merits, but it is not a discount on formation. If a page tells you North Dakota gives 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 doesn't run a business development or certification program, so calling it about certification won't 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 isn't business capital. Don't 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 →

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