Your Michigan LLC Is Doing Business in Another State
The short answer. You keep one LLC. It stays registered in Michigan, which charges $25 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, 43 cost more in year-one registration than Michigan's own first-year total of $75, and 4 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 Michigan
When the Annual Report is due. February 15 each year after organization/qualification
Every Michigan fee behind these figures is broken out on what an LLC costs in Michigan.
What a second state adds
These are the states closest to Michigan’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 ($75) |
|---|---|---|---|
| South Dakota | $750 | $55/yr | $675 more |
| Texas | $750 | None | $675 more |
| Massachusetts | $500 | $520/yr | $425 more |
| Colorado | $100 | $25/yr | $25 more |
| Iowa | $100 | $15/yr | $25 more |
| Ohio | $99 | None | $24 more |
| Kentucky | $90 | from $190/yr | $15 more |
| California | $70 | $810/yr | $5 less |
| Montana | $70 | None | $5 less |
| Utah | $59 | $18/yr | $16 less |
| Hawaii | $50 | $12.50/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 Michigan's own costs
Our notes, from Michigan's published fee schedules and statutes.
Michigan is cheap to start and cheap to keep: $50 for the CSCL/CD-700 Articles of Organization and $25 for the annual statement each February 15. The expedite ladder is unusually wide, $50 for 24-hour or $100 for same-day service on a formation filing, rising to $500 for two-hour and $1,000 for one-hour service, all on top of the filing fee. Ancillary costs: $25 to reserve a name (form 540), $10 for a good-standing certificate (or $12.50 expedited), and certified copies at a $16 minimum for the first six pages plus $1 per additional page. Professional LLCs pay $75 rather than $25 for the annual statement and are the only LLC type exposed to the $50 late fee. Registering a foreign LLC costs $50 (form 760), which cannot be filed online.
Michigan business filings are not at the Secretary of State. LLC formation and annual statements go to LARA's Corporations Division (Corporations, Securities & Commercial Licensing Bureau), not the Michigan Secretary of State. Filings and fee schedules live under michigan.gov/lara, and the annual statement is filed through the MiBusiness Registry Portal.
Two-year grace period, then dissolution. LARA dissolves or revokes a business that stops filing annual statements after a two-year grace period (one year for foreign corporations). Coming back costs $50 for a Certificate of Restoration of Good Standing (form 770) plus every missed $25 statement fee.
PLLCs pay triple and face a $50 late fee. A professional limited liability company pays $75 rather than $25 for the annual statement, and the fee schedule's $50 late fee applies to PLLCs received after February 15. Ordinary LLCs have no late fee at all, which is the opposite of what most fee tables show.
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.