Your Georgia LLC Is Doing Business in Another State
The short answer. You keep one LLC. It stays registered in Georgia, which charges $60 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, 15 cost more in year-one registration than Georgia's own first-year total of $170, and 32 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 Georgia
When the Annual Report is due. Between January 1 and April 1 of each year ("Each limited liability company registered to do business in this State shall, between January 1 and April 1 of each year, file an annual registration")
Every Georgia fee behind these figures is broken out on what an LLC costs in Georgia.
What a second state adds
These are the states closest to Georgia’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 ($170) |
|---|---|---|---|
| South Dakota | $750 | $55/yr | $580 more |
| Texas | $750 | None | $580 more |
| Massachusetts | $500 | $520/yr | $330 more |
| Minnesota | $185 | None | $15 more |
| Washington | at least $180 | $70/yr | not comparable, this is a floor |
| Vermont | $155 | $45/yr | $15 less |
| Alabama | $150 | None | $20 less |
| Arizona | $150 | None | $20 less |
| Illinois | $150 | $75/yr | $20 less |
| Louisiana | $150 | $30/yr | $20 less |
| Rhode Island | $150 | $450/yr | $20 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 Georgia's own costs
Our notes, from Georgia's published fee schedules and statutes.
Under the Corporations Division fee schedule effective September 6, 2025, Georgia charges $110.00 to file Articles of Organization ($100.00 base + a $10.00 service charge) and $60.00 for the annual registration ($50.00 + $10.00), and the schedule shows the same totals in the online and paper columns, so the old $10 online discount is gone. The annual registration is due between January 1 and April 1 each year with a $25.00 late-filing penalty. Georgia lets an LLC prepay one, two or three calendar years at once, but those fees are non-refundable if the company ends early. Expedited service is steep: $120.00 for two business days, $275.00 same day and $1,200.00 for one hour, on top of the filing fee. Online annual registrations and Certificate of Existence requests are processed immediately with no expedite fee.
Online filing no longer saves the $10 service charge. The fee schedule effective September 6, 2025 shows the $10.00 service charge in both the Online Filing and Paper Filing columns, so Articles of Organization cost $110.00 and annual registration $60.00 either way. Guidance still quoting $100 online / $110 paper, including the georgia.gov "Register an LLC" page, is out of date.
Prepaid multi-year registrations are non-refundable. Georgia lets an LLC pay for up to three calendar years of annual registration at once, but Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. 590-7-22-.10 states the fees "will not be refunded if a limited liability company is terminated, dissolved, merged out of existence, withdrawn, administratively dissolved, or revoked prior to the end of an annual registration period."
First annual registration can land within weeks of forming. Under Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. 590-7-22-.02 the first annual registration is due between January 1 and April 1 of the year after the formation filing, so an LLC created in December 2026 owes its first $60.00 registration by April 1, 2027 or takes the $25.00 late penalty.
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.