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How to Form an LLC in New Mexico

New Mexico charges $50 to form an LLC, online only, and then charges nothing to keep it: there is no annual report, no biennial report, and no annual fee anywhere in the Limited Liability Company Act. The discipline in New Mexico is not a calendar, it is the registered agent. The only administrative sanction in the Act is revocation, it has exactly two grounds, both are agent failures, and the state has no DBA registration at all, because a second name goes inside the articles themselves.

By the LLCForming research teamFees checked Nov 8, 2026

The New Mexico filing steps

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

   Check the name through the Secretary of State's SOS Enterprise portal at enterprise.sos.nm.gov before you file. Under Section 53-19-3(A) NMSA 1978, a New Mexico LLC name must contain "limited liability company" or "limited company" or the abbreviation "L.L.C.", "LLC", "L.C.", or "LC", with "limited" shortened to "ltd." and "company" to "co." if you choose, and under Section 53-19-3(B) the name must be distinguishable from the name of any limited liability company, limited partnership, or corporation existing under New Mexico law, any foreign limited liability company or corporation authorized to transact business in New Mexico, and any name reserved or registered under Section 53-19-4. Section 53-19-3(C) allows an otherwise conflicting name only on a certified copy of a court decree establishing your prior right to it. A check does not reserve the name. To hold one, file a name reservation for $20 under Section 53-19-63(H); Section 53-19-4 reserves the name for 120 days from the date of filing of the application, the reservation is transferable by notice without extending that term, and a reservation cannot be renewed, because the former renewal provision was deleted and the current statute contains no renewal mechanism.

2. Choose your registered agent

   New Mexico uses the registered agent wording, and the duty is continuous. Under Section 53-19-5(A) NMSA 1978, each limited liability company shall maintain in New Mexico a registered office, which may be the same as its principal place of business, and a registered agent for service of process, who is either an individual who resides in New Mexico, a domestic corporation, limited liability company, or partnership having a place of business in New Mexico the same as the registered office, or a foreign corporation, limited liability company, or partnership authorized to transact business in New Mexico having a place of business in the same place. The agent's consent is part of the formation itself: the Section 53-19-9 filing package includes the registered agent's signed statement accepting appointment. To change the office or the agent, file a statement of change under Section 53-19-5(B) setting out the new address and the successor agent's name, address, and statement of acceptance, for $20 under Section 53-19-63(I); an agent changing its own address files under Section 53-19-5(C), also $20. An agent's resignation under Section 53-19-5(E) takes effect thirty days after the Secretary of State receives the statement, or on the effective date of a successor appointment, whichever comes first, and Section 53-19-5(F) requires the company to notify the Secretary of State of any change in the street address of its principal place of business. This record is the whole ballgame in New Mexico, because letting it lapse for thirty days is one of only two grounds for administrative revocation in the Act, under Section 53-19-66.1.

3. File the Articles of Organization with the Secretary of State

   File the Articles of Organization with the Secretary of State, online only. The Secretary of State states that all business filings have moved to online process and that paper filings are no longer accepted for any business applications, directing filers to the SOS Enterprise portal at enterprise.sos.nm.gov. The fee is $50, set in Section 53-19-63(A) for filing the original articles of organization and issuing a certificate of organization. One or more persons may form the company under Section 53-19-7, and an organizer need not be a member. Under Section 53-19-8, the articles state the name of the company, satisfying Section 53-19-3, and, if different, the name under which it proposes to transact business in New Mexico; the street address of the initial registered office and the name of the initial registered agent at that address, and the street address of the current principal place of business if different; the period of duration, if other than perpetual; a statement as to whether and to what extent management is vested in a manager; a statement as to whether the company may be operated as a single-member limited liability company; and any other provision the founders choose. No business purpose and no member names are required by the statute. The Section 53-19-9 filing package is the signed articles, a duplicate copy, and the registered agent's signed statement accepting appointment. Under Section 53-19-10(A), the company is formed when the articles are filed, or at any later date or time specified in the articles.

4. Get an EIN from the IRS

   Free, online, and takes minutes once your New Mexico 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

   New Mexico's Act defines the term itself: under Section 53-19-2(O) NMSA 1978, an operating agreement means a written agreement among the members providing for the conduct of the business and affairs of the company, and that agreement as amended in writing. Written form is part of the definition, not a suggestion. The Act's defaults yield to the agreement throughout: management is vested in the members except to the extent the articles vest it in managers under Section 53-19-15(A), the majority consent dissolution rule applies except as otherwise provided in the articles or an operating agreement under Section 53-19-39(A)(2), and winding up and asset distribution run the same way under Sections 53-19-42(A) and 53-19-44. Section 53-19-65(A) states the policy behind all of it: to give maximum effect to the principle of freedom of contract and to the enforceability of operating agreements. The agreement is not part of the Section 53-19-9 filing package, Section 53-19-63 sets no fee for one, and it is not filed with the Secretary of State.

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. New Mexico 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 state level step most operating businesses meet is tax registration with the New Mexico Taxation and Revenue Department through the Taxpayer Access Point, because gross receipts tax registration follows the business's own activity, as the cost page explains. Check your industry and your locality before you budget, because those offices, not the Secretary of State, set those charges.

Filing details that trip people up

• There is no annual report, and that is a structural fact, not a slogan. The Limited Liability Company Act contains no report requirement anywhere in Sections 53-19-1 to 53-19-74 NMSA 1978, and the Act's complete fee schedule in Section 53-19-63 contains no report fee. New Mexico's report statute, the Corporate Reports Act, Sections 53-5-1 to 53-5-10, imposes its biennial corporate report only on a domestic or foreign corporation under Section 53-5-2(A); limited liability companies are not within it. It follows that there is no administrative dissolution for failure to file a report in New Mexico, because no report exists. The report page is titled and written accordingly.
• Filing is online only. Paper is not a cheaper channel, it is a closed one. The Secretary of State states that all business filings have moved to online process and that paper filings are no longer accepted for any business applications, through the SOS Enterprise portal. The $50 Articles of Organization fee in Section 53-19-63(A) is therefore the only formation price there is, with no in office or by mail alternative to compare it against.
• Foreign LLCs pay $100, and the home state certificate is required and must be fresh. A foreign LLC registers for $100 under Section 53-19-63(K), and Section 53-19-48 requires it to submit a certificate of good standing and compliance issued by the appropriate official of its home jurisdiction, current within thirty days and not expired at the time of receipt by the Secretary of State. Transacting business unregistered is priced in Section 53-19-53: the company may not maintain an action, suit, or proceeding in a New Mexico court until it registers, it is liable for the fees that would have been imposed had it registered, and it faces a civil penalty of not to exceed $200 per year or part of a year, while its contracts stay valid and a member or manager is not liable for its debts solely because of the unregistered business.
• New Mexico has no state DBA registration. A second name goes inside the articles. No DBA, assumed name, or trade name filing, form, or fee appears in the Limited Liability Company Act or in its complete fee schedule in Section 53-19-63. What the Act has instead is a line item: Section 53-19-3(A) requires the articles themselves to state, if different, the name under which the company proposes to transact business in New Mexico, and Section 53-19-11(A)(1) requires the same statement in articles of amendment, which cost $50 under Section 53-19-63(B). There is no separate DBA fee to budget, and no separate DBA filing to renew. Our DBA guide covers how this differs by state.
• Closing is a single $25 filing, and publication at the end is optional, never required. Articles of Dissolution cost $25 under Section 53-19-63(D), and that one filing is the whole state closing sequence. After dissolution, Section 53-19-46 lets the company choose to publish a notice of dissolution once, in a newspaper of general circulation in the county of its principal or registered office, to bar unknown claims not brought within three years of publication. It is a claims bar tool the company may use, not a formation or closing requirement, and New Mexico has no publication requirement at formation either.

After your New Mexico LLC is approved

Get the EIN, open the business bank account, and register with the New Mexico Taxation and Revenue Department through the Taxpayer Access Point for the taxes your activity triggers, including gross receipts tax if the business sells property or performs services in New Mexico. Then note what New Mexico does not ask for: no annual report, no biennial report, and no annual fee, this year or any year, so there is no recurring state deadline to calendar. The standing duty that replaces it is the registered agent and registered office record. Keep both continuously in place, file a statement of change for $20 whenever the agent, the office, or the agent's address changes, and notify the Secretary of State of any change in the street address of the principal place of business, because thirty days without an agent, or thirty days without filing a required statement of change, is a ground for administrative revocation. If the business will trade under a different name, that name belongs in the articles themselves, not in a separate DBA filing, because New Mexico has none.

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

New Mexico LLC questions