Your Pennsylvania LLC Is Doing Business in Another State
The short answer. You keep one LLC. It stays registered in Pennsylvania, which charges $7 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, 24 cost more in year-one registration than Pennsylvania's own first-year total of $132, and 23 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 Pennsylvania
When the Annual Report is due. September 30 (the LLC filing window is January 1 - September 30)
Every Pennsylvania fee behind these figures is broken out on what an LLC costs in Pennsylvania.
What a second state adds
These are the states closest to Pennsylvania’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 ($132) |
|---|---|---|---|
| South Dakota | $750 | $55/yr | $618 more |
| Texas | $750 | None | $618 more |
| Massachusetts | $500 | $520/yr | $368 more |
| Alabama | $150 | None | $18 more |
| Arizona | $150 | None | $18 more |
| Illinois | $150 | $75/yr | $18 more |
| North Dakota | $135 | $50/yr | $3 more |
| Florida | $125 | $138.75/yr | $7 less |
| New Jersey | $125 | $75/yr | $7 less |
| Connecticut | $120 | $80/yr | $12 less |
| Kansas | $115 | $45/yr | $17 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 Pennsylvania's own costs
Our notes, from Pennsylvania's published fee schedules and statutes.
Pennsylvania charges $125 for the Certificate of Organization (DSCB:15-8821) and, since 2025, $7 every year for the Annual Report (DSCB:15-146), which for LLCs must be filed in the January 1 - September 30 window. Add-ons are comparatively expensive: name reservation $70, a subsistence certificate (Pennsylvania's certificate of good standing) $40, and certified copies $55 plus $3 per page. Expedited service costs $100 same-day, $300 for 3-hour or $1,000 for 1-hour, and is only available for documents hand-delivered in Harrisburg. Regular filings cannot be paid by credit card at all. Check or money order only, with cards accepted for expedited services only.
The annual report is new and catches established LLCs off guard. Act 122 of 2022 repealed Pennsylvania's long-standing decennial report and replaced it with a $7 annual report beginning in calendar year 2025, so an LLC formed years ago that only ever expected a once-a-decade filing now has a September 30 deadline every single year.
Dissolution risk starts with the 2027 report. The Department of State grants a transition period, but associations that fail to file the Annual Report due in 2027 face administrative dissolution six months after the due date, after which the LLC loses the protection of its name and cannot obtain a subsistence certificate.
No credit cards for ordinary filings. The Bureau of Corporations accepts only check or money order for regular filings. Cash and credit cards are refused, and cards are accepted for expedited services only, so a $125 Certificate of Organization sent by mail needs a commercially pre-printed, signed check less than six months old.
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.