Your North Carolina LLC Is Doing Business in Another State
The short answer. You keep one LLC. It stays registered in North Carolina, which charges $200 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, 5 cost more in year-one registration than North Carolina's own first-year total of $325, and 42 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 North Carolina
When the Annual Report is due. April 15 of each year after the year of creation
Every North Carolina fee behind these figures is broken out on what an LLC costs in North Carolina.
What a second state adds
These are the states closest to North Carolina’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 ($325) |
|---|---|---|---|
| South Dakota | $750 | $55/yr | $425 more |
| Texas | $750 | None | $425 more |
| Massachusetts | $500 | $520/yr | $175 more |
| Alaska | $350 | $50/yr | $25 more |
| Oklahoma | $300 | $25/yr | $25 less |
| Tennessee | at least $300 | from $400/yr | not comparable, this is a floor |
| Oregon | $275 | $100/yr | $50 less |
| Arkansas | $270 | $150/yr | $55 less |
| Maine | $250 | $85/yr | $75 less |
| Mississippi | $250 | None | $75 less |
| New York | $250 | from $29.50/yr | $75 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 North Carolina's own costs
Our notes, from North Carolina's published fee schedules and statutes.
North Carolina has a modest $125 formation fee but by far the most expensive routine annual report of these five states at $200 per year - more than the cost of forming the LLC. Paper filers pay exactly $200; online filers pay $203 by credit card or $202 by ACH because the state adds its payment-processing charge. The report is due April 15 every year after the year of creation and there is no statutory late fee, so the real penalty for lapsing is administrative dissolution plus a $100 reinstatement. Optional charges are $10 for a name reservation, $15 for a paper Certificate of Existence ($10 electronic), $100 for 24-hour expedited filing and $200 for same-day filing under N.C.G.S. 55D-11.
$200 every single year - the highest recurring report fee in the region. North Carolina's $200 LLC annual report costs more each year than the $125 it took to form the company, and $203 if you pay online by credit card. Over five years that is $1,000-$1,015 in report fees alone.
Entity creation takes 15-20 business days unless you pay to expedite. The Secretary of State's posted turnaround for entity creation is 15-20 business days. Cutting that to 24 hours costs $100 and same-day (documents in by noon) costs $200 under N.C.G.S. 55D-11.
Electing corporate taxation triggers a $200 minimum franchise tax on top of the report. A default-classified LLC owes no NC franchise tax, but an LLC that elects C-corp or S-corp treatment becomes liable for the franchise tax with a $200 minimum - stacking on top of the $200 annual report.
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.