The Delaware LLC, and the Number Delaware Publishes Twice
Delaware publishes its formation fee, its due date and its late penalty clearly. On the recurring tax amount, it publishes two different figures in two different places, and this page is going to show you both rather than pick one.
The state's fee schedule, self-dated as revised on the first of August 2026, puts domestic LLC formation at one hundred and ten dollars.
The Division of Corporations sets out a distinction that surprises people arriving from corporation advice: although limited partnerships, limited liability companies and general partnerships formed in Delaware do not file an annual report, they are required to pay an annual tax.
No annual report, but a tax. And the amount of that tax is where the state disagrees with itself.
What the state charges to form it
The Division of Corporations publishes a fee schedule, and the line for this entity reads: Limited Liability Companies Formation, domestic, $110.00.
The same row prices three separate services in their own columns: fifty dollars for a certified copy, one hundred dollars for same-day service and fifty dollars for twenty-four hour service.
The document that schedule sits in is self-dated as revised on the first of August 2026, which is worth noting because the dating of Delaware's own pages becomes the point three sections down.
Two published figures for one tax. Confirming which one you owe is worth doing before June.
Book Your Assessment CallNo annual report, but an annual tax
This trips up anyone who read about Delaware in a corporation context and assumed it transfers.
The Division states it directly: although limited partnerships, limited liability companies and general partnerships formed in the State of Delaware do not file an Annual Report, they are required to pay an annual tax.
So there is a payment, and there is no report attached to it. Corporations in Delaware have both, on a different date, which is why most of what is written about Delaware filings does not describe what an LLC owner actually does.
June the first, and what late costs
The statute sets the timing and it is not the calendar year end. The annual tax for a domestic limited liability company, it reads, shall be due and payable on the first day of June following the close of the calendar year, or upon the cancellation of a certificate of formation.
Late has a published price in the same section. The statute provides that the company shall pay the sum of $200, and a registered series shall pay the sum of $50, and it adds interest at the rate of one and a half percent for each month or portion thereof until fully paid.
Per month or portion thereof is the phrase to notice. Interest attaches to a partial month as it does to a whole one.
$400 in the statute, $300.00 on the state's own page
Here is the honest version of the most searched number about a Delaware LLC, and it needs both halves.
Delaware's code, at 6 Del. C. § 18-1107(b), states that the company shall pay an annual tax, for the use of the State of Delaware, in the amount of $400.
The Division of Corporations' own instructions page states that they are required to pay an annual tax of $300.00.
Both were fetched on the same day, both returned full pages, and neither says anything about the other.
What can be said about the dating, because it is evidence rather than inference: the statute's amendment credits run through the current General Assembly, and the Division page's own HTML carries a modified date in 2022, which is before those amendments. The same site's fee schedule was refreshed in August 2026 while that page was not.
That pattern points one way. It is still a pattern rather than a statement, because no source read anywhere says in words that the amount was changed from one figure to the other.
So this page publishes the conflict rather than a resolution. Anyone planning around the number should confirm the current amount with the Division, or with whoever files it, before a June date arrives with a penalty attached to it.
One thing the two sides do agree on, and it is the operationally important part: the due date, the $200 penalty and the one and a half percent monthly interest are the same in both accounts.
The state's numbers are one layer. The federal ones are the layer people miss.
Book Your Assessment CallWhat Delaware requires you to maintain
Delaware asks for the same two things Wyoming does. Each limited liability company, section 18-104(a) of its code reads, shall have and maintain in the State of Delaware a registered office, which may but need not be a place of its business in the state, and a registered agent for service of process having a business office identical with that registered office.
The Division puts the same rule in plainer words: the legal requirements to be a registered agent in Delaware are to maintain a street address and office located in Delaware and be open during normal business hours for the purpose of accepting service of process.
And it publishes a line worth knowing as a buyer, on the same page: registered agents are not regulated by the State of Delaware.
Which makes the choice of agent a commercial question rather than a licensed one. What the role actually involves, in both states, is set out from the statutes themselves.
The federal side is unchanged by the state
Classification is federal. A single-member LLC is treated by the IRS as an entity disregarded as separate from its owner unless it files Form 8832 and elects otherwise, and the certificate's state has nothing to do with it. The defaults and the window sit on their own page.
The EIN is federal, with its own published constraint: applicants with no legal residence, principal place of business, or principal office or agency in the United States or US territories are told by the IRS that they cannot use the online application. The alternative routes are here.
And the reporting obligation that attaches to a foreign-owned LLC follows the ownership rather than the state. That filing, and what missing it costs, is the one most owners meet late.
What nobody publishes
The Delaware pages read for this guide carry no currency marker: no statement of the form current through a given date, on either statutory page. Currency is evidenced only by the amendment credits under the text.
First Class Citizen publish one formation figure rather than a figure per state, and no state annual-report or franchise-fee amount appears on their service page or in their LLC FAQ. Whether their price moves with the state, and whether the state can be changed after filing, are unanswered in public.
Both are short questions for their team, and both are cheaper to ask before the filing than after it.
Two published figures for one tax. Confirming which one you owe is worth doing before June.
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FAQ
What does Delaware charge to form an LLC?
Does a Delaware LLC file an annual report?
How much is the Delaware LLC annual tax?
When is it due, and what does late cost?
Does Delaware regulate registered agents?
Does forming in Delaware change my federal position?
Get the whole stack straight, not just the certificate
A state settles a fee and a date. Classification, the number and the reporting are federal and they are where the expensive surprises live. First Class Citizen's work covers the sequence, and the call is where yours gets mapped.
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