Your Delaware LLC Is Doing Business in Another State
The short answer. You keep one LLC. It stays registered in Delaware, which charges $400 a year to keep it in good standing, 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, 2 cost more in year-one registration than Delaware's own first-year total of $510, and 45 cost less. 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 Delaware
Every Delaware fee behind these figures is broken out on what an LLC costs in Delaware.
What a second state adds
These are the states closest to Delaware’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 ($510) |
|---|---|---|---|
| South Dakota | $750 | $55/yr | $240 more |
| Texas | $750 | None | $240 more |
| Massachusetts | $500 | $520/yr | $10 less |
| Nevada | $425 | $350/yr | $85 less |
| Alaska | $350 | $50/yr | $160 less |
| Oklahoma | $300 | $25/yr | $210 less |
| Tennessee | at least $300 | from $400/yr | not comparable, this is a floor |
| Oregon | $275 | $100/yr | $235 less |
| Arkansas | $270 | $150/yr | $240 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.
Nevada's figure is the mandatory first-year bundle (filing fee, initial list and state business licence), not the $75 filing fee alone.
What we verified about Delaware's own costs
Our notes, from Delaware's published fee schedules and statutes.
Delaware's $110 Certificate of Formation is the whole up-front state cost, and the fee schedule explains that $110 "equals filing fee plus municipality fee." Delaware LLCs file no annual report; instead they owe a flat annual LLC tax on or before June 1 for the prior calendar year, with no proration. That tax rose from $300 to $400 (and from $75 to $100 per registered series) under HB 400, 85 Del. Laws c. 273, § 23, effective January 1, 2026, so the tax for calendar year 2026, payable by June 1, 2027, is $400. Late payment costs "a penalty of $200.00 plus 1.5% interest per month on tax and penalty," and three years of non-payment cancels the certificate of formation outright under 6 Del. C. § 18-1108(a).
Annual tax rose from $300 to $400 effective January 1, 2026. HB 400 (85 Del. Laws c. 273, § 23, approved May 21, 2026) raised the LLC annual tax in 6 Del. C. § 18-1107(b) to $400 and the registered-series tax to $100, effective January 1, 2026. Because § 18-1107(c) makes each year's tax payable the following June 1, the increase first reaches a payment on June 1, 2027; the June 1, 2026 payment was $300 for tax year 2025. The Division of Corporations updated its LLC/LP/GP tax instructions page from $300 to $400 between June 30 and August 11, 2026, but corp.delaware.gov/frtax/ and corp.delaware.gov/taxfaq/ still displayed $300.00 on 2026-08-13 and are out of date.
No proration: form in December, owe a full year's tax. The Division states "there is no proration on alternative entity taxes" and the tax is assessed if the entity is active "anytime during January 1st through December 31st," so an LLC formed on December 28, 2026 owes the full $400 for 2026 by June 1, 2027.
Late tax penalty is $200 plus 1.5% per month, and 3 years kills the LLC. Missing June 1 turns a $400 bill into $600 immediately, with 1.5% monthly interest running on the combined amount, and 6 Del. C. § 18-1108(a) cancels the certificate of formation on the third anniversary of the missed due date.
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.