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How to Form an LLC in Mississippi

Mississippi charges $50 to form an LLC and then nothing at all to keep a domestic one: the annual report is free. The traps are in the distinctions. Both a registered agent and a registered office are mandatory here, the free annual report is filed online only and is still required, and the same report costs a foreign LLC $250 a year, which is the single easiest Mississippi figure to get wrong.

By the LLCForming research teamFees checked Nov 8, 2026

The Mississippi filing steps

1. Check your name on the state's own search

   Check the name against the Secretary of State's records before you file. Under Mississippi Code section 79-29-109, a Mississippi LLC name must contain the words "limited liability company" or the abbreviation "L.L.C." or "LLC", must be distinguishable upon the records of the Secretary of State from the names of domestic and foreign corporations, nonprofit corporations, limited partnerships, limited liability partnerships, and LLCs organized or registered in Mississippi and not dissolved, and from names reserved or registered in that office, and may not contain "bank", "banker", "bankers", "banking", "trust company", "insurance", "trust", "corporation", "incorporated", or any combination or abbreviation of those words or words of similar import. The Secretary of State shall reject a certificate of formation whose name does not comply. One trap for anyone reading the Secretary of State's hosted copy of the LLC Act: that text is the 2010 enactment and still bans "partnership" and "limited partnership" in an LLC name, but House Bill 1105 of 2024 removed that prohibition effective July 1, 2024. A search does not reserve the name. To hold one, file an application for name reservation for $25; it reserves the name for 180 days.

2. Choose your registered agent

   Mississippi requires both a registered office and a registered agent, continuously maintained; neither is optional. Each LLC must keep a registered office in Mississippi, which may be the same as any of its places of business, and a registered agent for service of process whose business office is identical with the registered office. The agent may be an individual resident of Mississippi, a domestic corporation, nonprofit corporation, or LLC, or a foreign corporation, nonprofit corporation, or LLC authorized to transact business in Mississippi. Since January 1, 2013, agent appointments run under the Mississippi Registered Agents Act, Title 79, Chapter 35, which standardizes the selection, change, and dismissal forms across entity types and creates commercial registered agents for hire. A filing that appoints a noncommercial agent states the agent's name, address, and email address, and affirms that the agent has been notified and has consented to serve. Changing the registered agent or office costs $10; a change of the agent's own address is $10 per company; and an agent's resignation filing costs $0. The backstop has teeth: an LLC that is without a registered agent in Mississippi for 60 days or more, or that does not notify the Secretary of State within 60 days that its agent has changed or resigned, is exposed to administrative dissolution.

3. File the Certificate of Formation with the Secretary of State

   File the Certificate of Formation, filing type F0100, with the Secretary of State through the online business filing system reached from the Business Services pages at sos.ms.gov; the Secretary of State's Business FAQs confirm that all business filings may be submitted and paid for online, by credit card, e-check, or ACH. The fee is $50, a single figure; the Secretary of State's schedules publish no separate mail, online, or in person price for this filing. Under section 79-29-201, the certificate must set forth the name of the LLC, the registered agent information required by the Registered Agents Act, and, if the LLC is to have a specific date of dissolution, the latest date upon which the LLC is to dissolve. It may set forth any other matters the members determine to include. The LLC is formed at the date and time of filing by the Secretary of State, or at a later date or time specified in the certificate, which may not be later than the 90th day after filing.

4. Get an EIN from the IRS

   Free, online, and takes minutes once your Mississippi filing is approved. Never pay a service for this. See EIN for an LLC for the walkthrough and the one IRS rule (a real person as responsible party) that surprises people.

5. Write your operating agreement

   Mississippi does not require an operating agreement to form an LLC, and the agreement is not filed with the Secretary of State and carries no state fee. Its role is structural. Under section 79-29-123, the certificate of formation and the operating agreement govern where they provide for a matter, and the Revised Mississippi Limited Liability Company Act governs where they do not; a Mississippi Court of Appeals opinion describes the Act's requirements as the default rules for an LLC that has no written operating agreement. The annual report itself asks each LLC to state whether it has a written operating agreement, which presupposes that an LLC may not have one. Defaults worth knowing: dissolution by consent takes all of the members unless the certificate or the operating agreement provides for a lesser number, under section 79-29-801. Write the agreement at formation, because whatever it leaves blank, the Act fills in.

6. Open the business bank account and handle licenses

   Bring your approved formation document and EIN letter. Then check your city and county for a general business license and your industry for state permits. Mississippi issues no single statewide general business license through the Secretary of State. Licensing is industry specific, through state agencies and boards, or local, through your city or county. The near universal state level step is tax registration with the Mississippi Department of Revenue for the tax accounts your activity triggers. Check your industry and your city before you budget, because those offices, not the Secretary of State, set those charges.

Filing details that trip people up

• The annual report is free for a domestic LLC, and $250 for a foreign one. Keep those figures separate. The Secretary of State's fee schedule prices the domestic LLC annual report, filing type F0108, at $0, and the foreign LLC annual report, filing type F0208, at $250. The report is due April 15, may be filed any time on or after January 1, and all annual reports must be filed online. Quoting the domestic $0 figure for a foreign LLC understates its Mississippi cost by $250 every year.
• No publication requirement to form. No publication step appears in section 79-29-201, in the formation article of the LLC Act, or in the Secretary of State's list of filing system functions. Mississippi's fictitious name system, covered below, has no newspaper step either. Forming the LLC itself has no publication step.
• Foreign LLCs pay $250 to register, and the home-state certificate is required. An out-of-state LLC files an Application for Registration of a foreign LLC, the document Mississippi actually uses, for $250. Under section 79-29-1003, the LLC must deliver with the application a certificate of existence, or a document of similar import, duly authenticated by the Secretary of State or other public official having custody of the records in its formation jurisdiction. The statutory text read for this guide states no freshness window for that certificate, so this guide prints none. An unregistered foreign LLC may not maintain an action, suit, or proceeding in a Mississippi court until it has registered, although its contracts stay valid and it can still defend one, and transacting business without registration appoints the Secretary of State as its agent for service of process.
• A fictitious business name registration is voluntary, costs $25, and grants no exclusive rights. Mississippi has no mandatory DBA registration. Under the Fictitious Business Name Registration Act, section 25-93-1 and following, a business may register a fictitious name with the Secretary of State for $25; the registration runs for a term of five years and is renewable. The Secretary of State's own summary stresses the limit: registration does not grant the registrant the exclusive right to use the registered name, and the Secretary of State does not refuse a registration because the name is indistinguishable from one already registered. It is a disclosure registry, not a name rights filing. Our DBA guide covers the details.
• Closing a Mississippi LLC takes one filing at $50. A Certificate of Dissolution, filing type F0103, for $50. Mississippi deliberately reduced closing to a single Secretary of State filing; there is no second termination filing behind it. A dissolution can itself be revoked with a Certificate of Revocation of Dissolution for $25. The full closing picture is on the report page.

After your Mississippi LLC is approved

Get the EIN, open the business bank account, and register with the Mississippi Department of Revenue for the tax accounts your activity triggers. Then set the recurring reminder that defines Mississippi compliance: the annual report, $0 for a domestic LLC, due April 15 every year, filed online only, with the filing window opening January 1 and the organization's Business ID number needed to file. Free is not the same as optional, because a report that is still missing 60 days after its due date is a ground for administrative dissolution. Keep the registered agent and office current as well; a change costs $10. If the business will trade under a different name, the fictitious business name registration is available for $25, and it is voluntary.

The full recurring picture for Mississippi, with fees and due dates, is on the Mississippi annual report and compliance page, and the money view is on the Mississippi LLC cost page.

Mississippi LLC questions