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What Does an LLC Cost in Massachusetts?

Massachusetts is the expensive outlier in this guide: $500 to form on paper, $520 online, and then $500 every year, $520 online, for the Annual Report. There is no way around the annual figure and no late fee schedule to soften it. What there is not, for a default LLC, is an entity level tax: the corporate excise applies only if the LLC elects corporate treatment.

By the LLCForming research teamFees checked Nov 8, 2026

Year one: what you pay to exist

Year-one cost in Massachusetts	Amount
Certificate of Organization, Corporations Division, filed on paper	$500
Certificate of Organization, filed online or by fax instead	$520
EIN from the IRS	$0
Operating agreement (you write it, not filed)	$0
Resident agent (you or another eligible person serves)	$0
Total state cost, year one	$500 on paper, $520 online or by fax

The $500 statutory fee is the complete required state charge on paper, and $520 is the complete charge online or by fax, because the Division's expedited service fee on electronic and fax filings is mandatory, not a speed upgrade you can decline. For a $500 subtotal the fee is $20. Subtotals over $500 are priced at 4.5 percent, which matters for combined filings. Beyond the formation filing itself, year one carries no extra mandatory state charge: the first Annual Report is not due until the first anniversary date. The extras are optional only. A name reservation is $30 for 60 days, with a further $30 for a 60 day extension. 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 Massachusetts	Amount
Annual Report, filed on paper	$500
Annual Report, filed online or by fax instead	$520
Annual Report late fee	No monetary late fee published for LLC reports
Entity level corporate excise on a default pass-through LLC	$0. The excise applies only on a corporate election
Typical recurring total	$500/yr on paper, $520/yr online or by fax

Five hundred dollars a year buys a specific enforcement design, and it is slower and more forgiving on timing than the fee is on price. No monetary late fee for an LLC Annual Report is published in the Division's fee schedule, in section 12, or in 950 CMR 112.14, and this page prints no late fee figure, because none is verified for LLCs. The consequence is administrative dissolution, and it requires two consecutive years of failure to file annual reports, written notice from the state secretary, and a 90-day period to correct each ground or show it does not exist. Reinstatement is available at any time after dissolution, on an application priced at $100, and only once all annual reports owed have been filed, which means the real cost of a two year lapse is the $100 application plus two $500 reports. Treat the anniversary as a hard annual deadline anyway: a dissolved LLC may carry on only the business necessary to wind up and liquidate.

What drives the Massachusetts total, year one vs. later

Massachusetts is driven by one number charged twice over: $500 at formation and $500 every year after. In most states in this guide the recurring total is a fraction of the formation fee. In Massachusetts it equals it, which means the honest way to judge the state is over several years, not at the filing screen. A five year Massachusetts LLC costs $500 to form and $2,000 in Annual Reports on paper, or $520 and $2,080 filed online, before any optional item. Nothing repeals or discounts that figure: it is set in section 12(d) itself, repeated in the fee schedule and in 950 CMR 112.14. What does not add to it matters too. There is no publication charge, no separate resident agent filing fee at formation, and no entity level tax on a default LLC, because Massachusetts follows the federal classification and the corporate excise attaches only to an LLC that elects corporate treatment. The expensive Massachusetts mistakes are therefore not hidden add-ons. They are forming here without needing to, electing corporate treatment without pricing the $456 minimum excise, and missing two straight Annual Reports and paying to undo an administrative dissolution on top of the back reports.

The Massachusetts charges outside the standard total, and when each applies

These figures are real and verified on the Corporations Division's own fee schedule, in chapter 156C, and in the Division regulations. Each one applies only in the situation stated:

Charge	Figure	When it applies
Foreign registration: Application for Registration	$500, or $520 online or by fax	An LLC formed in another state registering to do business in Massachusetts, due within ten days after it commences doing business here. Certificate of legal existence from the home state: Yes, one is required. The application must be accompanied by a certificate of legal existence or comparable certificate from the home jurisdiction, issued not more than 90 days prior to submission. The foreign LLC then files a foreign annual report at $500, due on the anniversary of its registration.
Dissolution: Certificate of Cancellation	$100, or $110 online or by fax	Closing a domestic LLC after dissolution and completion of winding up, or at any other time there are no members. Watch for this: under 950 CMR 112.19, the LLC must file all annual reports and pay all fees required by law before it can file the certificate of cancellation, so a lapsed LLC pays its back reports first. No Department of Revenue tax clearance certificate is stated as a precondition to a domestic LLC's certificate of cancellation in section 14 or the regulation.
DBA: Business Certificate, filed with the city or town clerk of every city or town where an office is situated	Fee set by each city and town	Trading under a name other than the real name of the person conducting the business, under M.G.L. c. 110, section 5. There is no statewide operative fee to publish: the statutory default applies only unless a city or town has set its own fee, and Mass.gov directs filers to their own clerk. The certificate lasts 4 years and must be renewed every four years while the business continues. A violation is punishable by a fine of not more than $300 for each month the violation continues.
Reinstatement following administrative dissolution	$100	Only after an administrative dissolution, and only once all annual reports owed have been filed. Available at any time, with no deadline in section 71. Filed by fax, the $100 subtotal carries a $10 expedite fee, for $110 total by that route.
Name reservation	$30	Optional. Reserves an available name for 60 days. An extension for an additional 60 days is another $30, and a transfer is $30.
Change of resident agent or address	$25 on paper or by fax, $0 electronically	Only when the resident agent or the agent's street address changes. The same pricing covers a statement of resignation of resident agent filed on paper or by fax.
Corporate excise	$456 minimum, if it applies	Only if the LLC elects to be treated as a corporation: 8 percent on income attributable to Massachusetts plus $2.60 per $1,000 of taxable tangible property or net worth, with a minimum excise of $456. A default LLC taxed as a disregarded entity or a partnership pays no entity level excise. Two elective pass-through entity excises also exist under chapters 63D and 63E, but both are opt-in elections, not default charges.

One local charge sits outside the state totals by design. If the LLC trades under a name other than its legal name, the Business Certificate fee is whatever the city or town clerk charges locally, on a four year cycle. It is a real cost of using a trade name in Massachusetts, but it is not a state LLC charge, and no honest statewide total can include a figure for it.

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.