Your Alabama LLC Is Doing Business in Another State
The short answer. You keep one LLC. It stays registered in Alabama, which charges no recurring state filing fee, though the LLC keeps whatever obligations Alabama attaches to it, and a state that finds you are doing business there adds its own registration and its own filings on top. Whether your activity counts is decided by that state's own rule, not by this page. Of the 47 other states that have one figure to compare, 14 cost more in year-one registration than Alabama's own first-year total of $200, 32 cost less, and 1 costs the same. Tennessee and Washington are outside those figures: Tennessee's fee scales with member count from $300, and Washington's $180 is before back fees, so neither has one figure to compare.
What you keep paying in Alabama
Every Alabama fee behind these figures is broken out on what an LLC costs in Alabama.
What a second state adds
These are the states closest to Alabama’s own cost line, plus the three dearest to enter. Each figure is that state’s first-year registration cost for an out-of-state LLC, beside what it charges every year after. Whether your activity counts as doing business there depends on the facts, and each state defines it differently.
| State | Year one to register | State charges, each year after | Against your year one ($200) |
|---|---|---|---|
| South Dakota | $750 | $55/yr | $550 more |
| Texas | $750 | None | $550 more |
| Massachusetts | $500 | $520/yr | $300 more |
| Georgia | $235 | $60/yr | $35 more |
| Delaware | $200 | $400/yr | the same |
| Minnesota | $185 | None | $15 less |
| Washington | at least $180 | $70/yr | not comparable, this is a floor |
| Vermont | $155 | $45/yr | $45 less |
| Arizona | $150 | None | $50 less |
| Illinois | $150 | $75/yr | $50 less |
| Louisiana | $150 | $30/yr | $50 less |
A state charge of None is not a tax of none. The column is the recurring charge our fee dataset records, and a state that asks for no recurring filing may still levy an entity-level tax that sits outside it.
What we verified about Alabama's own costs
Our notes, from Alabama's published fee schedules and statutes.
Alabama charges $200 for a domestic LLC Certificate of Formation and passes $100 of that to the county treasurer where the registered agent sits, so there is no extra probate filing fee. A Certificate of Name Reservation is legally required before the formation document can be filed - $25 by mail or $28 online - making the true minimum state cost $225 to $228, not $200. Alabama LLCs file no annual report: since January 1, 2024 only domestic and foreign for-profit corporations and professional corporations file one, at $10, and reports from other entity types are not accepted. A Certificate of Existence is $25 by mail or $28 online, certification of a document is $10, and plain copies are $2 per page ($3.50 online).
Name reservation is mandatory, not optional. Alabama requires a Certificate of Name Reservation to be obtained and attached before the Certificate of Formation can be filed, so budget $25 by mail or $28 online on top of the $200 filing fee.
Business privilege tax return can still bite in year one. Form BPT-IN is due within 2 1/2 months of organization unless the computed privilege tax is $100 or less, which Alabama fully exempts (tax and return) for tax years beginning after 12/31/2023.
Frequently Asked Questions
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.