Your Rhode Island LLC Is Doing Business in Another State
The short answer. You keep one LLC. It stays registered in Rhode Island, which charges $450 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, 2 cost more in year-one registration than Rhode Island's own first-year total of $600, and 45 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 Rhode Island
When the Annual Report is due. February 1 - May 1
Every Rhode Island fee behind these figures is broken out on what an LLC costs in Rhode Island.
What a second state adds
These are the states closest to Rhode Island’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 ($600) |
|---|---|---|---|
| South Dakota | $750 | $55/yr | $150 more |
| Texas | $750 | None | $150 more |
| Massachusetts | $500 | $520/yr | $100 less |
| Nevada | $425 | $350/yr | $175 less |
| Alaska | $350 | $50/yr | $250 less |
| Oklahoma | $300 | $25/yr | $300 less |
| Tennessee | at least $300 | from $400/yr | not comparable, this is a floor |
| Oregon | $275 | $100/yr | $325 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.
Nevada's figure is the mandatory first-year bundle (filing fee, initial list and state business licence), not the $75 filing fee alone.
What we verified about Rhode Island's own costs
Our notes, from Rhode Island's published fee schedules and statutes.
Rhode Island charges $150 to file Articles of Organization (Form 400) and $50 for the annual report (Form 632), but the Secretary of State fee is the smaller half of the picture: every Rhode Island LLC also owes a $400 annual charge to the Division of Taxation, so recurring state cost is about $450 a year rather than $50. The annual report can only be filed in the February 1 - May 1 window, and a $25 late penalty is applied June 1. A Reservation of Entity Name is $50, a certificate of good standing ordered by mail is $20, and certified copies are $10 plus $0.15 per page. A foreign LLC pays the same $150 to register.
The $400 state tax dwarfs the $50 annual report. Rhode Island's Division of Taxation charges every LLC a $400 annual charge on Form RI-1065 (or RI-1120S/RI-1120C), so a site quoting only the $50 Secretary of State report understates true recurring cost by eight times. The real figure is roughly $450 per year.
You owe the $400 for your formation year, even for one day. The Division of Taxation applies the charge "for any year in which the business is in existence, whether a full year, or partial year," and the Department of State confirms it is not pro-rated and is owed with no business activity and no profit, so a December formation still triggers a full $400.
Three-month filing window, then a June 1 penalty. The LLC annual report can only be filed February 1 through May 1; a $25 late penalty is applied June 1, and the only reminder is a courtesy letter mailed each January to the registered agent. If that letter comes back undeliverable, the Department of State starts revocation proceedings for failure to maintain a registered office.
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.