Your South Dakota LLC Is Doing Business in Another State
The short answer. You keep one LLC. It stays registered in South Dakota, which charges $55 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, 13 cost more in year-one registration than South Dakota's own first-year total of $205, and 34 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 South Dakota
When the Annual Report is due. The 1st day of your anniversary month, every year, starting the year after you form. You can file from two months before, and you are delinquent two months after.
Every South Dakota fee behind these figures is broken out on what an LLC costs in South Dakota.
What a second state adds
These are the states closest to South Dakota’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 ($205) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Texas | $750 | None | $545 more |
| Massachusetts | $500 | $520/yr | $295 more |
| Nevada | $425 | $350/yr | $220 more |
| Maine | $250 | $85/yr | $45 more |
| Mississippi | $250 | None | $45 more |
| North Carolina | $250 | $200/yr | $45 more |
| New York | $250 | from $29.50/yr | $45 more |
| Georgia | $235 | $60/yr | $30 more |
| Delaware | $200 | $400/yr | $5 less |
| Minnesota | $185 | None | $20 less |
| Washington | at least $180 | $70/yr | not comparable, this is a floor |
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 South Dakota's own costs
Our notes, from South Dakota's published fee schedules and statutes.
South Dakota charges $150 to file Articles of Organization online and $165 on paper, because the fee schedule adds a flat $15 paper-filing fee to anything that could have been filed online. The annual report is $55 online or $70 on paper, and a delinquent annual report adds a $55 penalty (SDCL 47-34A-212(b)). A series LLC's Articles of Organization cost $200 rather than $150, and a foreign LLC's certificate of authority is $750 online / $765 on paper. South Dakota has no corporate income tax, so the recurring cost of a South Dakota LLC is essentially the $55 annual report.
Paper filing costs $15 more, every time. The fee schedule adds a $15 "Paper Filing Fee for documents able to be filed online," which is why the Articles of Organization are $165 on paper and the annual report is $70 on paper.
Annual report due date is changing on January 1, 2027. SDCL 59-11-25 as amended by SL 2026 ch. 203 (effective January 1, 2027) replaces the single statutory date with a choice between the formation-anniversary month and a January 31 deadline, selected on the formation document.
60 days late starts the dissolution clock. SDCL 47-34A-809 lets the Secretary of State begin administrative dissolution once the annual report is 60 days overdue; getting back to active status then costs $150 plus every missed report, a $55 penalty each, and a Department of Revenue tax clearance.
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.