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What Does an LLC Cost in Maryland?

Maryland is two numbers: $100 to form, $300 a year to stay. The $300 Annual Report fee applies whether or not the LLC owns any property, and the personal property tax that shares its form is a separate, conditional charge that many LLCs never owe. Closing, unusually, is free.

By the LLCForming research teamFees checked Nov 8, 2026

Year one: what you pay to exist

Year-one cost in Maryland	Amount
Articles of Organization, SDAT	$100
EIN from the IRS	$0
Operating agreement (you write it, not filed)	$0
Resident agent (you or another individual serves)	$0
Total state cost, year one	$100

That $100 is the complete required state charge to form. Maryland's year one traps are speed and payment method, not extra filings: standard processing runs 6 to 8 weeks, expedited service adds $50, same-day rush adds $325 online or $425 in person, and paying online by credit card or PayPal adds a 3% technology fee, which makes the base filing $103 by card. The first $300 Form 1 is not a year one charge: filing starts the year after the LLC is created, so it falls due April 15 of the following year. A name reservation, if you choose one, is $25 for a 30 day hold. Hiring a commercial resident agent service is a market purchase, separate from state charges, and naming an eligible individual costs nothing.

Every year after: the cost of staying alive

Recurring cost in Maryland	Amount
Annual Report (Form 1), due April 15	$300
Business Personal Property Return, filed with Form 1	$0 fee. The tax in the next row is separate
Personal property tax	Only if the LLC owns taxable business personal property in Maryland; billed by the county, varies
State income tax on the LLC itself	$0 for a default pass-through LLC
Typical recurring total	$300/yr

The $300 buys another year of good standing, and Maryland prices lateness in two stages. The monetary penalty under Tax-Property section 14-704(a) is deliberately small: an initial penalty capped at $500, built from 1/10 of 1% of the county assessment with minimums of $30, $40, or $50 depending on how late the filing is, plus 2% of that penalty for each additional 30 days. The structural penalty is the serious one. Continued non-filing leads SDAT to proclaim the LLC forfeited, with a 60 day cure that reinstates it as of the forfeiture date. Past that window, restoration takes Articles of Reinstatement at $100, or $150 expedited, and section 4A-917 conditions acceptance on every required annual report being filed and every unpaid tax, unemployment insurance contribution, interest, and penalty being paid, plus a county Tax Clearance Certificate if the LLC reported personal property. Paying $300 on time is the cheapest version of this story by a wide margin.

What drives the Maryland total, year one vs. later

Maryland inverts the usual pattern. Year one is cheap, a single $100 filing fee, with every extra in that year optional: $50 to expedite, $325 online to rush, 3% if you pay by card. Later years are where Maryland earns its place near the top of this guide, because the $300 Form 1 fee is a flat charge on every domestic and registered foreign LLC, every year, regardless of revenue, activity, or property. It does not grow with the business, and it does not shrink for a dormant one; an LLC that stops operating owes it until it files Articles of Cancellation or is forfeited. The one Maryland figure that does scale, the personal property tax, is not in the $300 at all: it is assessed by SDAT on Maryland business personal property and billed by the county where the property sits, so an LLC with no taxable Maryland property owes the $300 fee and no property tax, while a property heavy LLC owes both. Maryland is therefore a discipline priced state at a higher level: the recurring bill is fixed, knowable, and entirely avoidable only by closing the company, which the state makes free.

The Maryland charges around the $100 formation

SDAT's fee schedule prices the whole LLC life cycle. These are the lines a Maryland LLC is most likely to meet, from Corp. and Ass'ns section 1-203 and the Maryland Business Express fee schedule:

Maryland filing	Fee
Expedited service on a filing (7 to 10 business days)	+$50
Same-day rush filing	+$325 online, +$425 in person
Online payment by credit card or PayPal	3% technology fee on the total
Change of resident agent or principal office (Resolution)	$25
Name reservation (30 days)	$25
Trade name filing (5 years; renewal is also $25)	$25
Foreign LLC registration	$100
Paper extension request for Form 1	$20
Articles of Reinstatement after forfeiture	$100 standard, $150 expedited
Articles of Cancellation	$0

The personal property tax and the PTE tax, in plain terms

Form 1 does two jobs. As an annual report it costs $300. As a Business Personal Property Return it has no fee, and it only becomes a tax bill if the business owns, leases, or uses personal property in Maryland. Form 1 asks whether that property has a total original cost of $20,000 or more; only then are the property sections completed. SDAT assesses the property on its depreciation schedules, certifies the assessments to the counties, and the county or municipality where the property is located bills the tax at its own rate. An LLC with no Maryland personal property, or under the reporting threshold, owes no personal property tax, and still owes the $300 report fee.

The pass-through entity tax is the other Maryland figure kept out of the flat totals, because it is income based. Under Tax-General section 10-102.1 and the Comptroller's Technical Bulletin No. 58, an LLC taxed as a partnership must pay the tax on the distributive shares of its nonresident members, and may elect to also pay it on resident members' shares, an election made on the return (Form 511 for an electing entity, Form 510 for a non-electing one) and irrevocable for that tax year. For 2025 the rate is 8.75% for individual members and 8.25% for entity members, and members claim a credit for their share of the tax paid. It is a real Maryland cost for LLCs with nonresident members, and it is not a formation or maintenance fee, so it is explained here rather than totaled above.

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.