Pennsylvania waives the LLC filing fee for veterans and reservists

How the Pennsylvania Veteran Fee Waiver Works

What's free is the Certificate of Organization, form DSCB:15-8821, filed with the Bureau of Corporations and Charitable Organizations. The claim is made at filing rather than refunded afterwards: the veteran or reservist owner signs the form personally and attaches proof of status, which the Department of State accepts as a legible copy of a federal DD-214, a federal NGB-22, a valid VA card, or a valid DoD-issued military ID. You can file through the Business Filing Services portal, by mail, or in person, and the fee comes off. Initial application fees for a long list of business-entity licence types issued by the Bureau of Professional and Occupational Affairs are covered by the same law, with one operational quirk worth knowing: those professional-licence applications generally have to go by mail or personal delivery, because the online system can't process an application that arrives without payment. What isn't free is everything that keeps the business running. Section 9610 defines an exempt business fee as one paid for starting or opening a business, and it expressly excludes a fee for maintaining licensure or any other requirement for continuing to operate. That single sentence does a lot of work. Your Pennsylvania annual report is a continuing-operation filing and falls outside the exemption, so it's payable in full, and licence renewals are outside it too even where the initial application was waived. One more thing to take seriously: § 9611(d) makes fraudulently obtaining, assigning or transferring the exemption a misdemeanour of the third degree. This is not a box you tick optimistically and sort out later.

Start with the point most write-ups miss. You do not have to be a veteran. Section 9610 defines a reservist-owned small business as one owned and controlled by a current member of a reserve component or the National Guard, which means a serving reservist or Guard member qualifies on their own terms, without separately being a veteran. The business also has to be a small business, which § 9601 defines by cross-reference to 62 Pa.C.S. § 2102 rather than in the subchapter itself: independently owned, not dominant in its field, and with no more than 100 employees. On ownership, the statute itself says only that the business is owned and controlled by a veteran or veterans, and the majority-ownership threshold you'll see quoted comes from the Department of State's published guidance rather than from the statutory text, so it's a gloss on the law rather than the law. On discharge, Pennsylvania is broader than most states. 51 Pa.C.S. § 9601 defines a veteran as someone who served in the armed forces, including a reserve component or the National Guard, and who was "discharged or released from service under conditions other than dishonorable". That covers a general discharge, an other-than-honorable discharge and a bad-conduct discharge. Only a dishonorable discharge is excluded, so do not rule yourself out because your DD-214 does not say "honorable".

• Ownership: the business must be at least 51% owned by qualifying veterans.
• Discharge: each qualifying owner needs any character of discharge other than dishonorable.

Authority: 51 Pa.C.S. §§ 9601, 9610–9611 (definition of "veteran" at § 9601) (Subchapter C, Business Fee Exemption), added by Act 135 of 2016 (Act of Nov. 3, 2016, P.L. 1053, No. 135). No sunset or expiration provision. — legis.state.pa.us

Other Pennsylvania Fees Veterans Do Not Pay

• Initial application fees for business-entity licence types issued by the Bureau of Professional and Occupational Affairs — including architecture firms, accountancy firms, pharmacies, barber shops and schools, cosmetology salons and schools, esthetician salons, nail technology salons, natural hair braiding salons, funeral entities, auction companies, real estate brokers and cemetery brokers, cemetery companies, real estate education providers, rental listing referral agents, appraisal management companies, trading assistant companies, and vehicle auctions, dealers, distributors and manufacturers. Renewal fees are NOT waived. Fee amounts vary by licence type.: waived. 51 Pa.C.S. §§ 9610–9611 (Act 135 of 2016), as implemented by the Bureau of Professional and Occupational Affairs effective January 2, 2017..

Veteran-Owned Business Certification in Pennsylvania

1. 1

   Understand that verification is a separate thing from the fee waiver

   The Act 135 fee exemption is claimed at filing and needs no certification. Veteran Business Enterprise status for state contracting is a different process, run by the Department of General Services through its Bureau of Diversity, Inclusion and Small Business Opportunities. Getting one does not get you the other.

2. 2

   Self-certify as a Pennsylvania Small Business first

   Under 4 Pa. Code § 58.403 a business self-certifies as a Pennsylvania Small Business before it can be recognised in the diverse-business categories. This is the prerequisite step that trips people up, because they apply for VBE verification and get bounced for having skipped it.

3. 3

   Obtain the third-party certification DGS recognises

   Pennsylvania does not certify veteran ownership itself. Under 4 Pa. Code § 58.404(c), DGS verifies VBE status on the strength of an approved third-party certification, and for the veteran category the listed certifier is the U.S. Small Business Administration's Veteran Small Business Certification. Secure that first, then bring it to the state.

4. 4

   Submit to BDISBO and keep both credentials current

   Work through the DGS certification-verification checklist and file with BDISBO. DGS publishes no fee for the verification, and we found no affirmative statement that it costs nothing either, so ask when you apply. Since your state status rides on the underlying third-party certification, letting that lapse quietly takes the state recognition with it.

Program details verified against legis.state.pa.us.

Other Pennsylvania Programs for Veteran Business Owners

Beyond fees, the veteran-business subchapter does one genuinely concrete thing on Commonwealth contracts: it takes bonding off the table entirely for the smallest ones, and gives purchasing agencies express room to soften the requirement on larger ones. For a young company without a surety relationship, that's often the difference between being able to bid and not.

• Bonding exemption on small state contracts: For Commonwealth contracts under $25,000, veteran-owned small businesses and service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses are exempt from any bonding requirements. On larger contracts a purchasing agency may reduce the level or change the type of bonding, or accept alternative security, and may make special provision for progress payments. legis.state.pa.us

State Benefits vs Federal Benefits — What Is Actually Different

Most of what gets published as “veteran LLC benefits in Pennsylvania” 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 Pennsylvaniagives 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 Pennsylvania

The Bureau of Diversity, Inclusion and Small Business Opportunities at the Department of General Services is the office for anything involving state contracting, verification, or the bonding provisions, and it takes calls. For the fee exemption itself, your counterpart is the Bureau of Corporations and Charitable Organizations inside the Department of State, which is where the Certificate of Organization and your proof of status land. The Department of State also publishes a short veterans and reservists fee exemption notice that lists exactly which documents it will accept as proof, which is worth reading before you file rather than after a rejection.

Pennsylvania Department of General Services — Bureau of Diversity, Inclusion and Small Business Opportunities (BDISBO) — pa.gov · 717-783-3119

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 Pennsylvania formation guide rather than being repeated here.

How to start an LLC in Pennsylvania →

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