Your Nevada LLC Is Doing Business in Another State
The short answer. You keep one LLC. It stays registered in Nevada, which charges $350 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, 3 cost more in year-one registration than Nevada's own first-year total of $425, and 44 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 Nevada
When the Annual Report is due. On or before the last day of the month in which the anniversary date of its organization occurs
Every Nevada fee behind these figures is broken out on what an LLC costs in Nevada.
What a second state adds
These are the states closest to Nevada’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 ($425) |
|---|---|---|---|
| South Dakota | $750 | $55/yr | $325 more |
| Texas | $750 | None | $325 more |
| Massachusetts | $500 | $520/yr | $75 more |
| Alaska | $350 | $50/yr | $75 less |
| Oklahoma | $300 | $25/yr | $125 less |
| Tennessee | at least $300 | from $400/yr | not comparable, this is a floor |
| Oregon | $275 | $100/yr | $150 less |
| Arkansas | $270 | $150/yr | $155 less |
| Maine | $250 | $85/yr | $175 less |
| Mississippi | $250 | None | $175 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 Nevada's own costs
Our notes, from Nevada's published fee schedules and statutes.
Nevada's headline $75 Articles of Organization fee is misleading, because two more charges are mandatory on day one: the $150 Initial List of Managers or Members required by NRS 86.263(1) and the $200 State Business License required by NRS 76.100, for an unavoidable $425 to open. The annual list and the business license are two separate mandatory charges, so the recurring cost is $150 for the Annual List plus $200 for the license, or $350 every year, both due by the last day of the anniversary month. Miss them and NRS 86.263 adds a $75 list penalty while NRS 76.100 adds a $100 license penalty, $175 in penalties on top of the $350. Nevada's Commerce Tax is a separate matter that only reaches businesses above $4 million in Nevada gross revenue.
The $75 filing fee is only 18% of what you actually pay. NRS 86.263(1) requires the $150 Initial List to be filed at the same time as the articles, and NRS 76.100 requires the $200 State Business License at the time of that initial list. Anyone budgeting $75 to form a Nevada LLC will be short by $350.
$350 every year, forever, regardless of revenue. The $150 Annual List and the $200 State Business License are two independent mandatory charges with no small-business or zero-revenue exemption, making Nevada one of the most expensive states to simply keep an LLC in good standing.
Late means $175 in penalties and then a revoked charter. Defaulting adds $75 to the list fee under NRS 86.263 and $100 to the license fee under NRS 76.100. Worse, NRS 86.263 revokes the charter outright on the first day of the first anniversary of the month following the month the filing was due.
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.