Search for the cost of a US LLC and you quickly find tempting figures: 50 dollars, 100 dollars, formation in 24 hours. The figures are usually not made up. They are just true for a single item, the fee the state charges for registering the company. That fee is the smallest part of what an LLC costs over the years. If you want to do the maths honestly, you need a list of every item that comes up once and every item that comes up each year, plus a look at the penalties, which end up more expensive than everything else combined.
One-off costs: what formation costs at the state
Each state sets its own fees. Three states that foreign founders often compare show the range:
Wyoming charges 100 dollars for the Articles of Organization under its fee schedule in force since 1 July 2026.
Delaware charges 110 dollars to form an LLC according to its fee schedule as of 1 August 2026; a certified copy costs 50 dollars extra. If you are in a hurry, same-day processing costs an additional 100 dollars, and 24-hour processing an additional 50 dollars.
Texas charges 300 dollars on the current Form 205 for LLC formation, as of September 2026.
On top of that come items the state does not charge. The EIN, the LLC's US tax number, is issued by the IRS free of charge; the IRS expressly warns against websites that charge for it. What you pay for is the work: according to the IRS, the online application requires the responsible party's SSN or ITIN and is not available if the principal business is outside the United States. The application then goes by phone, fax or mail, and someone has to prepare and file it. The same goes for the company's constitution, the Operating Agreement, which is not filed with any Secretary of State but which every bank wants to see.
Running costs: what comes due every year
This is where it is decided whether an LLC is cheap or only looks cheap.
Wyoming levies an Annual Report License Tax every year: 60 dollars or two tenths of a mill on the assets the LLC has in Wyoming, whichever is higher. For an LLC with no assets in Wyoming, it stays at 60 dollars.
Delaware charges every LLC an annual tax of 400 dollars, due for the previous year by 1 June. That is set out in the tax instructions of the Division of Corporations. LLCs in Delaware do not have to file an annual report. If you pay late, you pay a 200 dollar late penalty plus 1.5 percent interest per month on the tax and the penalty. There is no proration for a partial year.
Texas has no flat annual fee, but it does have the franchise tax. For report years 2026 and 2027, the threshold below which no tax is due is 2,650,000 dollars in revenue, according to the Comptroller. If you stay below it, you pay nothing, but you still have to file a Public Information Report or Ownership Information Report by 15 May. Miss it and the Comptroller sends notice that the company will lose its right to do business in Texas (Notice of Intent to Forfeit Right to Transact Business).
Every state also requires a Registered Agent. That is the statutory address for service in the state of formation, where authorities and courts send mail. If you do not live in the state yourself, you need a service provider, and that costs money every year. Wyoming shows how expensive it gets when one is missing: under its fee schedule, reinstating an LLC that was without a Registered Agent costs 350 dollars, and reinstatement after a missed annual tax costs 100 dollars.
How the two best-known formation states differ beyond the fees is covered in the comparison Wyoming or Delaware?.
What 24-hour formation really costs
Advertising overnight formation has a price, and the states name it openly. Under its fee schedule, Wyoming offers same-business-day processing for 1,400 dollars and next-business-day processing for 700 dollars. Delaware charges 1,000 dollars for processing within one hour, 500 dollars within two hours and 50 dollars for 24 hours on an LLC formation. These are surcharges on top of the actual fee.
Whether that is worth it depends on something else: registration with the state is rarely the bottleneck. If you need a bank account quickly, you are mainly waiting for the EIN, which foreign founders based outside the United States request by phone, fax or mail instead of through the online form. Then comes the bank's review and the documents it wants to see. An expedite fee at the state only speeds up the first of several steps, at a price that can be many times the actual formation fee.
What changes and the end cost
Later steps also carry fees that no advert mentions. An amendment to the certificate of formation, such as a new name, costs 60 dollars in Wyoming and 220 dollars in Delaware. Changing the Registered Agent costs 50 dollars in Delaware and 5 dollars in Wyoming.
And if you want to dissolve your LLC one day, you pay for that too. In Wyoming, dissolution costs 60 dollars under the fee schedule. In Delaware, cancelling an LLC costs 220 dollars, and all outstanding annual taxes must be paid first. So an LLC that has been forgotten for years cannot simply be closed in Delaware; it can only be closed once the arrears have been settled with penalties and interest. The costs of an LLC therefore do not end when you stop using it, only when it has been properly cancelled.
The most expensive item is a forgotten filing
For US income tax purposes, an LLC with a single foreign owner is generally a transparent entity, a so-called disregarded entity. Under the IRS instructions, it does not have to file its own income tax return. It still has a reporting obligation. Under the IRS instructions for Form 5472, such an LLC must file a pro forma Form 1120 with Form 5472 every year, reporting transactions with its owner and related parties. That applies even if the LLC has no profit and no tax.
The penalty for a missing or incomplete filing: 25,000 dollars. If the failure continues for more than 90 days after an IRS notice, a further 25,000 dollars is added for each 30-day period or part of one. Under the IRS instructions, an incomplete Form 5472 expressly counts as not filed. What to do if a deadline has already passed is described in the article Missed the deadline: the 25,000 dollar rescue.
In the full cost picture, that means: the annual tax return is not an optional convenience but the item that protects all the others. Save on formation and get sloppy on the filing, and you end up with the most expensive LLC.
What no longer costs anything: the BOI report
One item disappeared in 2026. Under FinCEN's final rule of 11 August 2026, companies formed in the United States are exempt from reporting their beneficial owners. An LLC formed in Wyoming, Delaware or Texas therefore no longer has to file a BOI report. Anyone still paying for it is paying for a service that is no longer needed. According to FinCEN, the only companies still required to report are those formed under foreign law and registered in a US state. So if you have a European company registered in the United States instead of forming an LLC, you still need to budget for this item. The background is in the article BOI permanently abolished.
Costs that depend on the business
Some items cannot be put in a flat figure because they depend on the business model.
Sales tax. If you sell goods or certain digital products to customers in the United States, an obligation to register and remit can arise in individual states. That costs not only the tax itself but time or software. When that happens is shown in the article Sales tax for the US LLC.
Bank account and payment providers. Account fees, transfers into other currencies and card processing fees vary by provider. Comparing them is worth more than comparing formation fees, because these costs grow with your revenue.
Documents. Register extracts, certified copies and apostilles cost between a few dollars and just under 200 dollars each, depending on the state; in Delaware, for example, 50 dollars for a short-form good standing and 175 dollars for the long form. Add shipping and, where needed, translations.
Bookkeeping. An LLC needs clean books, if only for Form 5472. How much work that is depends on the number of transactions.
The bill at a glance
For a single-member LLC owned by a foreign founder, the honest list looks like this:
- One-off: the state's formation fee (100 to 300 dollars in the three states above), the Operating Agreement, the EIN application, expedite fees if any.
- Annually to the state: annual tax or annual report (60 dollars in Wyoming, 400 dollars in Delaware, in Texas usually just a report with no tax).
- Annually to service providers: Registered Agent, business address, preparation and filing of Form 1120 and Form 5472.
- As needed: apostilled documents, sales tax registration, bank fees.
- Risk: 25,000 dollars for each missed Form 5472, late penalties and reinstatement fees in every state.
Compare only point 1 and you are comparing the wrong price. An offer advertising 50 dollars says nothing about points 2 to 5. An all-in price that covers every obligation for a year looks more expensive at first glance and often turns out to be the cheaper bill.
And the taxes in your country of residence?
The US costs are only one half. Where your LLC's profits are taxed is decided not by the LLC but by your residence. If you live in a high-tax country, you pay tax on the profits there; the LLC then saves no tax and only costs fees. It comes into its own for people who have moved their residence to a country that taxes foreign income lightly or not at all.
What our package includes for a whole year, from formation through the Registered Agent and state fees to the tax return with Form 5472, is set out on the page with our all-in prices.