Your Kentucky LLC Is Doing Business in Another State
The short answer. You keep one LLC. It stays registered in Kentucky, which charges at least $190 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, 14 cost more in year-one registration than Kentucky's own first-year total of at least $230, and 33 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 Kentucky
When the Annual Report is due. Between January 1 and June 30 of each year
Every Kentucky fee behind these figures is broken out on what an LLC costs in Kentucky.
What a second state adds
These are the states closest to Kentucky’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 (from $230) |
|---|---|---|---|
| South Dakota | $750 | $55/yr | $520 more |
| Texas | $750 | None | $520 more |
| Massachusetts | $500 | $520/yr | $270 more |
| Arkansas | $270 | $150/yr | $40 more |
| Maine | $250 | $85/yr | $20 more |
| Mississippi | $250 | None | $20 more |
| North Carolina | $250 | $200/yr | $20 more |
| New York | $250 | from $29.50/yr | $20 more |
| Pennsylvania | $250 | $7/yr | $20 more |
| Georgia | $235 | $60/yr | $5 more |
| Delaware | $200 | $400/yr | $30 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 Kentucky's own costs
Our notes, from Kentucky's published fee schedules and statutes.
Kentucky has one of the lowest entry costs in the country ($40 for Articles of Organization (Form KLC) and a $15 annual report) but the real recurring cost is the Limited Liability Entity Tax, a $175 minimum every year for LLCs with $3 million or less in gross receipts or gross profits. That means the tax is more than four times the formation fee and nearly twelve times the annual report fee. Reinstatement after administrative dissolution costs a $100 penalty under KRS 14A.2-060(1)(j) plus $15 for each missed report. A veteran-owned business organized after August 1, 2018 is exempt from the annual report fee for its first four years, though not from the filing deadline itself.
The $175 LLET dwarfs the filing fees. Kentucky's headline cost is $40 to form and $15 a year to report, but every liability-shielded entity owes a minimum $175 Limited Liability Entity Tax annually, more than four times the formation fee.
Hard August 31 cliff, no late fee. Kentucky charges nothing for filing late, but if the annual report is not in by August 31 the LLC is administratively dissolved and reinstatement costs a $100 penalty plus $15 per delinquent report.
Veteran-owned fee waiver is easy to miss. KRS 14A.2-060(2)(b) exempts a veteran-owned business organized after August 1, 2018 from the annual report fee for its first four years, but you must check the veteran-owned box on Form KLC and attach DD-214s or active-duty IDs at formation.
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.