Your Maine LLC Is Doing Business in Another State
The short answer. You keep one LLC. It stays registered in Maine, which charges $85 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, 8 cost more in year-one registration than Maine's own first-year total of $260, and 39 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 Maine
When the Annual Report is due. between January 1st and June 1st
Every Maine fee behind these figures is broken out on what an LLC costs in Maine.
What a second state adds
These are the states closest to Maine’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 ($260) |
|---|---|---|---|
| South Dakota | $750 | $55/yr | $490 more |
| Texas | $750 | None | $490 more |
| Massachusetts | $500 | $520/yr | $240 more |
| Oklahoma | $300 | $25/yr | $40 more |
| Oregon | $275 | $100/yr | $15 more |
| Arkansas | $270 | $150/yr | $10 more |
| Mississippi | $250 | None | $10 less |
| North Carolina | $250 | $200/yr | $10 less |
| New York | $250 | from $29.50/yr | $10 less |
| Pennsylvania | $250 | $7/yr | $10 less |
| Georgia | $235 | $60/yr | $25 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 Maine's own costs
Our notes, from Maine's published fee schedules and statutes.
Maine is one of the most expensive small states to keep an LLC in: $175 for the MLLC-6 Certificate of Formation and $85 every year for the domestic annual report (foreign LLCs pay $150 a year). Standard processing is posted at 40 to 55 business days, so the $50 24-hour or $100 same-day expedite fee is effectively the price of a usable LLC on any normal timeline. Statutory ancillary fees are modest by comparison, $20 to reserve a name (MLLC-1), $30 for a certificate of existence, $5 per certification on copies, and $2 per page. Registering an out-of-state LLC to do business in Maine costs $250 (MLLC-12).
40 to 55 business day queue. Maine's Corporations Division publicly posts a 40 to 55 business day standard processing time for corporate filings. Budget $50 (24-hour) or $100 (same-day) for expedited service if the LLC is needed before roughly three months out.
No online formation channel. Unlike most states, Maine has no online filing for the Certificate of Formation, the MLLC-6 must be printed and mailed or delivered in person with a check, money order, or credit card voucher, which adds mail time on top of the posted queue.
$85 a year plus a $50 late penalty. The domestic annual report is $85 (one of the highest in the country) and 31 M.R.S. §1680(10) adds a flat $50 late penalty after the June 1 deadline; continued failure leads to administrative dissolution under §1667 and a $150 reinstatement fee.
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.