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What Does an LLC Cost in Colorado?

Colorado is the simplest cost profile in this guide: $50 to form, $25 a year to stay in good standing, and no state business license fee and no entity level tax for a typical pass-through LLC. The only way Colorado gets expensive is neglect: a $50 late penalty, then a $100 cure if the LLC slides to Delinquent.

By the LLCForming research teamFees checked Nov 8, 2026

Year one: what you pay to exist

Year-one cost in Colorado	Amount
Articles of Organization, online (only filing method)	$50
General state business license	$0. Colorado does not issue one
EIN from the IRS	$0
Operating agreement (you write it, not filed)	$0
Total state cost, year one	$50

That $50 is genuinely the whole required state charge for year one. Colorado has no initial report, no formation year add on, and no state business license fee hiding behind the formation. Two optional state filings are worth knowing about because founders often need them: a name reservation is $25 if you want to hold a name for 120 days before filing, and a Statement of Trade Name is $20, required only if the LLC will operate under a name other than its true legal name. A commercial registered agent, if you hire one instead of naming an eligible individual, is a private cost on top of the $50 and is not included here. Local licenses and industry permits through DORA, your city, or your county are activity costs, priced by those offices, not state formation charges.

Every year after: the cost of staying alive

Recurring cost in Colorado	Amount
Periodic Report, online	$25
State entity level income tax on a default pass-through LLC	$0
Trade name renewal for an LLC in Good Standing or Noncompliant status	$0. No annual renewal while the entity holds those statuses
Typical recurring total	$25/yr on time

The recurring $25 buys good standing, and Colorado prices lateness in steps rather than all at once. Miss the end of the filing window and the report costs $75: the $25 fee plus the $50 Periodic Report Late Filing Penalty, with the entity marked Noncompliant. Stay Noncompliant for 60 days without filing and the status becomes Delinquent, after which getting back to good standing takes a Statement Curing Delinquency at $100 instead of the late report alone. None of this grows by the day, which cuts both ways: there is no meter running, but there is also no partial credit for almost filing. The trade name line in the table is a real Colorado saving: an individual has to renew a trade name every year, but an LLC's trade name stays effective with no renewal fee while the entity is in Good Standing or Noncompliant status.

What drives the Colorado total, year one vs. later

Almost nothing drives the Colorado total, and that is the story. Year one is a single $50 online filing with no initial report, no license fee, and no formation year tax attached. Later years are a single $25 Periodic Report, the cheapest recurring state charge in this guide, with a five month penalty free window around the due date that makes it genuinely hard to miss by accident. There is no gross receipts tax and no entity level income tax for a default pass-through LLC to swell the bill as the business grows; members pay Colorado income tax on their own returns instead. So Colorado's total is driven entirely by behavior, not by revenue. File the $25 report inside its window and Colorado stays at $25 a year indefinitely. File it late and the year costs $75. Ignore it through Noncompliant into Delinquent and the cure is a $100 Statement Curing Delinquency, with the LLC's name itself on a 400 day clock. Colorado is a discipline priced state: the fees are trivial, and the penalties are the product.

The fees around the $50 formation

The formation and report fees are only part of the Secretary of State's LLC fee schedule. These are the other lines a Colorado LLC is most likely to meet, all online, from the schedule revised July 1, 2024:

Colorado filing	Fee
Name reservation (120 days; renewal and transfer are also $25 each)	$25
Statement of Trade Name	$20
Statement of Change, including registered agent updates	$10
Statement of Foreign Entity Authority (out-of-state LLC registering)	$100
Periodic Report Late Filing Penalty (on top of the $25 report fee)	$50
Statement Curing Delinquency	$100
Reinstatement (for an entity that has actually been dissolved; a different filing from curing delinquency)	$100
Articles of Dissolution	$10

How Colorado trade names actually work for an LLC

Trade names are filed at the state level with the Secretary of State, online only, and they are not required to be unique: more than one business can file the same trade name. The duration rule depends on who files, and LLCs get the better version. For a reporting entity like an LLC, a trade name stays effective for as long as the entity remains in Good Standing or Noncompliant status, with no annual renewal and no renewal fee. If the entity becomes Delinquent or is dissolved, the trade name remains effective for one year from that date; cure or reinstate within that year and it continues, and if the entity stays Delinquent or dissolved it can be kept alive with an annual trade name renewal at $5. Compare an individual filer, whose trade name lasts one year, expires unless renewed during the three months before expiration, and once expired cannot be renewed at all: a fresh $20 Statement of Trade Name is required. Keeping the LLC itself in good standing is therefore also what keeps its trade names alive for free.

Run your own version, with an optional registered agent added, in the LLC cost calculator. Every state's year-one and recurring totals sit in one table on the national cost hub, and if a service would act as your agent, the registered agent price tracker follows what that costs at each tracked provider. If you would rather a service handled the filing, the services comparison prices that honestly, renewals included.