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Montana LLC Annual Report: Due January 1 to April 15, Fee Waived on Time, $35 After April 15

Every Montana LLC files an annual report with the Secretary of State between January 1 and April 15. Filed in that window, the report currently costs nothing: the fee page lists it as WAIVED and the help center confirms the waiver. Filed after April 15, it costs $35. The printed schedule underneath still carries a $20 standard fee, and the $15 late fee in secondary guides is arithmetic, not an official charge.

By the LLCForming research teamFees checked Nov 8, 2026

The annual report, in one table

Item	Montana rule
Who files	Domestic LLCs and foreign LLCs authorized to transact business in Montana. The Secretary of State help center confirms annual reports are required for all LLCs and corporations, and that the report is not a tax or earnings report.
When	Between January 1 and April 15. Under Section 35-8-208(3), the first annual report must be delivered between January 1 and April 15 of the year following the calendar year of organization or authorization, and subsequent reports in the same window each year. The help center gives the final filing deadlines after the due date as November 1 for foreign entities and December 1 for domestic entities.
Fee	WAIVED when filed prior to April 15, and $35.00 when filed after April 15, per the live Secretary of State fee page and the help center. See the waiver section below for the $20 standard fee underneath it.
What it contains	Under Section 35-8-208(1), the company name and organizing jurisdiction, the registered agent information required by Section 35-7-105(1), the principal office business mailing address, and manager or member names and business mailing addresses, among other items.
Late fee	There is no standalone $15 late fee in the official sources. The official totals are the two figures above; $15 is only the difference between the $20 standard fee and the $35 after April 15 total.

The waiver and the $20 standard fee, stated openly

Two Secretary of State publications price this report, and they fit together once the waiver is understood. The live fee page, in its LLC Both Domestic and Foreign Filings section, lists "Annual Report Prior To April 15th" as WAIVED and "Annual Report After April 15th" at $35.00, and the help center states: "The Secretary of State's Office will waive the fee for all annual reports filed between January 1st and April 15th. After April 15th, the fee is $35." The printed fee schedule effective July 1, 2022 lists "Annual report prior to April 15th $20.00" and "Annual report after April 15th $35.00," and the live page's All Types section still prints those $20 and $35 figures. The waiver is therefore a waiver of a $20 standard fee, not a repeal of it. The operative position for a filer today is the one this page leads with: file in the window and the state charges nothing; file after April 15 and it is $35. No end date or through year for the waiver appears in the sources behind this page, so none is printed. Secondary guides that describe a $15 late fee are describing the gap between $20 and $35; no official page read for this page lists a standalone $15 charge, so this site states the two totals and not a separate $15 line.

What happens if you do not file

Under Section 35-8-209(1), a domestic LLC may be dissolved involuntarily by order of the Secretary of State if it has failed for 140 days to file its annual report within the time required by law. The same section lists the other grounds: failing for 60 days after a change of registered agent to file a statement of the change, or failing for 60 days to appoint and maintain a registered agent in this state; failing to remit any fees required by law; procuring its certificate of existence through fraud; or exceeding or abusing the authority conferred by law, with the excesses or abuses continuing after written notice to its registered agent. For the fraud and abuse grounds, Section 35-8-209(2) requires the violation to be established by an order of a district court. A foreign LLC faces revocation of its authority on the parallel foreign provisions, and the help center states the foreign final deadline as November 1 against December 1 for domestic companies.

Reinstatement: $35 plus $35 per delinquent year, within five years, with a tax certificate rule

The fee page prices LLC reinstatement at $35.00 plus an additional fee of $35.00 per year for each year of delinquent annual reports. Under Section 35-8-912, a company administratively dissolved under Section 35-8-209 may apply for reinstatement within 5 years after the effective date of dissolution, and the Secretary of State may not order a reinstatement if 5 years have elapsed. The application, executed by a person who was a member or manager at the time of dissolution, must give the name and business mailing address, state that the assets have not been liquidated, and state that a majority of members have authorized the application. With it, under Section 35-8-912(2), the company must submit all annual reports not yet filed, and a certificate from the Department of Revenue stating that all taxes imposed pursuant to Title 15 have been paid, unless the company has only one member and has not elected to be taxed as a corporation. The help center confirms the mechanics: most domestic registrations require that Title 15 certificate, requested through the Department's Transaction Portal, a certificate is not required for single member LLCs not taxed as corporations, and the filer must file all missing annual reports at $35 each along with the reinstatement application. Reinstatement relates back under Section 35-8-912(5): the company is considered to have been an existing legal entity from the date of its original organization. Foreign entities are not eligible to reinstate and must requalify with a new Certificate of Authority, $70 plus $50 for each series member named.

The other standing duty: the registered agent

Montana's second ongoing record duty is the registered agent, governed not by the LLC Act but by Title 35, chapter 7, the Model Registered Agents Act, incorporated by Section 35-8-202(1)(d). The agent must have a physical address in Montana, not a P.O. Box, and be available during business hours to accept documents, per the Secretary of State help center. A statement of change of registered office, agent, or both carries NO FEE on the fee page, so there is no cost excuse for a stale record, and failing for 60 days to appoint and maintain an agent, or for 60 days after an agent change to file the statement of change, is itself an involuntary dissolution ground under Section 35-8-209(1)(a).

Foreign LLCs in Montana: $70 in, no fee out, and no home state certificate

A foreign LLC registers with a Certificate of Authority for $70, plus $50 for each series member named in a series LLC; an amended certificate is $15 plus $50 for each series member named. Under current Section 35-8-1003, the application sets forth the company name or a name satisfying Section 35-8-1009, its home jurisdiction, its date of organization and period of duration, the business mailing address of its principal office, the Section 35-7-105(1) agent information, the names and business mailing addresses of its current managers if different from its members, a statement that it has complied with the organizational laws of its home jurisdiction and exists there, and, for series, the name of each series with a copy of each series operating agreement. No home state certificate of existence is delivered: that requirement stood in the 1999 and 2009 texts and was removed, so no freshness period applies. Transacting business without authority has priced consequences under Section 35-8-1002: the company may not maintain a proceeding in a Montana court until it obtains a certificate of authority, and it is liable for a civil penalty of $5 for each day, not to exceed $1,000 for each year, that it transacts business without one, collectible by the attorney general, while failure to obtain authority does not impair the validity of its acts or prevent it from defending a proceeding. A foreign LLC files the same January 1 to April 15 annual report on the same fee terms. Withdrawal is a Certificate of Withdrawal at NO FEE, but under Section 35-8-1010(2)(f) the application must state that all Title 15 taxes have been paid, supported by a Department of Revenue certificate attached to the application; the application also surrenders authority, revokes the agent, and appoints the Secretary of State as agent for service of process for causes of action arising while it was authorized.

Closing a Montana LLC on purpose: Articles of Termination at no fee, precisely on tax clearance

Montana's closing filing is Articles of Termination, at NO FEE on the fee page, not articles of dissolution. Dissolution events are in Section 35-8-901(1): the time or events specified in writing in the articles or operating agreement occur, the consent specified in the operating agreement is given, an event makes it unlawful for all or substantially all of the business to be continued, with a cure of illegality within 90 days after notice effective retroactively, the term in the articles expires, or a decree of judicial dissolution is entered under Section 35-8-902. After dissolution the company continues only to wind up. At any time after dissolution and winding up, Section 35-8-906 lets the company terminate its existence by filing articles of termination stating the name, the reason for filing, the effective date if not on filing, the name of the agent or agents authorized to receive service of process after dissolution or termination, the name of the person or persons authorized to wind up the business and execute documents, the date of dissolution, and that the business has been wound up and the legal existence of the company has been terminated. On tax clearance, the position is precise: no tax clearance certificate is a statutory prerequisite to filing Articles of Termination for a domestic LLC, because Section 35-8-906 lists seven contents and no tax item, while the statutes that do require a Department certificate name reinstatement and foreign withdrawal expressly. The Department of Revenue's Tax Certificates page adds the practical layer: generally, selecting "Voluntary withdrawing or dissolving with the Secretary of State" is sufficient and the Tax Clearance Certificate is not needed, though some situations will require one, supported by a marked final return. Where a certificate is requested or required, there is no Department charge to request one, the request is filed on the Transaction Portal, the Department's goal is processing within 30 days, and the certificate expires six months from its date. Final tax returns themselves remain due; that obligation is separate from a clearance filing. Our dissolution guide covers the wind up order.