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How to Form an LLC in Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania charges $125 to form an LLC, and the most common Pennsylvania advice on the internet is now wrong. The decennial report that older guides describe was repealed. Since 2025, Pennsylvania LLCs file a $7 annual report instead, in a window that runs from January 1 to September 30. Pennsylvania also does not use a registered agent for LLCs at all. It uses a registered office.

By the LLCForming research teamFees checked Nov 8, 2026

The Pennsylvania filing steps

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

   Search your name in the Business Search on Business Filing Services at file.dos.pa.gov before you file; the Department of State directs founders there to check the records. A Pennsylvania LLC name must contain a designator: "company," "limited," or "limited liability company," or an abbreviation of one of those terms, or words of like import from another jurisdiction. The name generally may not be the same as another association already on Department records, and it may not contain words that imply it is a business corporation, such as "corporation" or "incorporated." The minimum name rules sit in 15 Pa.C.S. sections 201, 202, and 204. Reserving a name is optional and costs $70, and most founders who are ready to file skip it.

2. Set your registered office (or list a CROP)

   Pennsylvania does not use a registered agent for LLCs, and there is no individual agent to name and no acceptance for anyone to sign. The Certificate of Organization instead states one of two things. The first option is the address of the LLC's registered office in Pennsylvania, which must be a street or rural route address; a post office box alone is not acceptable, and under 15 Pa.C.S. section 135(c) the Department must refuse a document showing only a P.O. box. The second option, for an association without a physical location in Pennsylvania, is the name of a Commercial Registered Office Provider, called a CROP, together with its county of venue, listed in place of an address. The Department advises entering into a contract with the CROP before you list it. Changing the registered office later costs $5. The filing names organizers, not an agent, which is why Pennsylvania formation looks simpler on paper than Ohio's signed acceptance system.

3. File the Certificate of Organization with the Department of State

   File the Certificate of Organization, form DSCB:15-8821, together with a Docketing Statement, form DSCB:15-134A, with the Department of State's Bureau of Corporations and Charitable Organizations. File online through Business Filing Services at file.dos.pa.gov, the current portal that succeeded PENNFile, or on paper. The fee is $125 online and on paper, it covers the filing with no separate fee listed for the docketing statement, and Bureau fees are nonrefundable whether a filing is accepted or rejected. Two payment quirks catch people: for ordinary paper filings the Bureau accepts check or money order only, no cash and no credit cards, while credit cards are accepted for online filings and for expedited service. Expedited service is a paper, in-person option in Harrisburg, never through the mail, and costs extra on top of the $125: same-day service adds $100 for filings received before 10:00 a.m., 3-hour service adds $300 before 2:00 p.m., and 1-hour service adds $1,000 before 4:00 p.m.

4. Get an EIN from the IRS

   Free, online, and takes minutes once your Pennsylvania 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

   Under 15 Pa.C.S. section 8815(b), to the extent an operating agreement does not provide for a matter, the default rules of Title 15 govern that matter, and an unwritten LLC runs entirely on those statutory defaults, including member management. Pennsylvania is unusually permissive about form: under section 8812 an operating agreement may be oral, implied, in record form, or a combination. It is not filed with the Department of State. Permissive is not the same as wise. An oral agreement plus statutory defaults is how multi-member LLCs end up litigating what they meant, so write it down at formation.

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. Pennsylvania has no general statewide business license issued by the Department of State; the Department handles entity registration only. Businesses register for tax accounts with the Department of Revenue, through myPATH and the PA Business Hub at hub.business.pa.gov, which is the Commonwealth's one-stop guidance source and lists registrations by business type. Sellers register for a sales tax license with the Department of Revenue as a tax registration. Industry specific licenses come from the relevant state board or agency, and local governments add their own requirements.

Filing details that trip people up

• The decennial report is repealed. Do not file one, and do not believe guides that describe one. Act 122 of 2022 created an annual report for Pennsylvania filing associations, beginning in calendar year 2025, and the Department of State states the long-time decennial report requirement has been repealed. The recurring filing for an LLC is now the $7 annual report on the report page, not a once-a-decade filing.
• No advertising is required to form a Pennsylvania LLC. The Department of State says so in one sentence on its LLC page. Newspaper advertising duties in Pennsylvania attach to other filings. The one that can touch an LLC is a fictitious name registration that lists an individual, covered in the note below. Forming the LLC itself has no publication step.
• Foreign LLCs pay $250 in Pennsylvania, double the domestic fee. A foreign LLC registers with a Foreign Registration Statement under 15 Pa.C.S. section 412, with a docketing statement, for $250, and it may not do business in Pennsylvania until it registers. An unregistered foreign association may not maintain an action or proceeding in Pennsylvania until it registers, though its contracts stay valid and it can still defend a proceeding. Registered foreign LLCs also owe the same $7 annual report.
• A fictitious name is a $70 state filing with no renewal. Registering a name other than the LLC's legal name takes form DSCB:54-311 with the Department of State for $70. Fictitious names have not been filed at the county seat since the early 1980s, registration creates no exclusive right to the name, and there is no periodic renewal; the old decennial filing for fictitious names was deleted in 2000. Advertising is required only when an individual is listed on the registration: publish in two newspapers of general circulation in the county, one a legal newspaper, and keep the proof with your records. An LLC registering by itself, with no individual listed, does not advertise. Our DBA guide covers the details.
• Restricted professional LLCs have a second, much larger annual filing. Ordinary LLCs do not. LLCs rendering restricted professional services, such as law, medicine, dentistry, public accounting, psychology, or veterinary medicine, file a Certificate of Annual Registration by April 15 each year, charged per qualifying member: $700 per member for the 2026 filing. That figure appears in competitor totals as if every Pennsylvania LLC owed it. Yours does not, unless it is a restricted professional company.

After your Pennsylvania LLC is approved

Get the EIN, open the business bank account, and register for tax accounts with the Department of Revenue through myPATH or the PA Business Hub. Then set one recurring reminder: the $7 annual report, filed online at file.dos.pa.gov in the window that runs from January 1 to September 30. Keep your registered office address current, since that record is where the state and process servers find you, and a change of registered office costs only $5. If the business will trade under a different name, budget the $70 fictitious name registration. And if anyone tells you to prepare for a decennial report, they are working from repealed law.

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

Pennsylvania LLC questions