Research, datasets, and methodology

LLC Formation Cost publishes original primary-sourced research on US LLC formation cost. Each dataset is verified directly against the issuing state's Secretary of State office, re-checked quarterly, licensed CC BY 4.0, and free to reuse with attribution. Below is every research artifact published to date alongside our open methodology.

Published research

2026 LLC Cost Index Quarterly-verified, 51-jurisdiction primary-sourced dataset of LLC formation costs for 2026. Includes filing fees, annual report cadences, and franchise tax. CC BY 4.0.
Open Dataset (CSV + JSON) Raw data files behind every state page on this site, served openly under CC BY 4.0. Updated quarterly. Citation + backlink required for reuse.
Methodology How we collect, verify, and publish LLC cost data. Sources, verification cadence, what is and is not in the dataset, and how we handle corrections.

How to cite this research

Each research artifact carries its own citation block (BibTeX, APA, Chicago, plain text). For most uses a one-line attribution is enough: "Source: LLC Formation Cost Research, llcformationcost.com (2026), CC BY 4.0." If you reuse the underlying CSV or JSON datasets in a downstream tool, the CC BY 4.0 license requires a visible link back to the dataset page. Researchers, journalists, and product builders alike get the same terms (no separate licensing for commercial use).

Spot something stale or in need of a correction? Open a corrections ticket via /corrections/. We log every change with a date, the prior value, the new value, and the SOS bulletin or page that prompted the update.

Why we publish the data openly

Most LLC cost data published online is scraped once, syndicated across affiliate roundup sites for a year or two, and never re-verified. The result is a long tail of articles claiming Pennsylvania has an annual report (it has a decennial report, cycling every 10 years), Texas charges a franchise tax above $1.23M revenue (true, but the surrounding context gets dropped), and California's first-year franchise tax was waived through 2024 (the AB 85 waiver expired; the $800 minimum is back as of 2024). Publishing the dataset openly with quarterly verification dates and a public corrections log is the only way founders, journalists, and downstream tools can actually trust the numbers they cite.

Open publishing also makes the work more durable. When the Wyoming Secretary of State ever changes its filing fee, every site that scraped the old number will carry stale data for months. Our quarterly verification cycle catches the change, the corrections log records it, and any tool that pulls from our CSV or JSON endpoints gets the corrected value on its next refresh. Researchers who build on the dataset inherit the same correction discipline by reference.

What's in the pipeline

Beyond the 2026 LLC Cost Index we're working on a 50-state annual-report cadence snapshot (mapping which states require annual, biennial, decennial, or no recurring report and the late-filing penalty per state), a registered-agent provider price comparison (refreshed monthly against published rate cards from Northwest, ZenBusiness, Bizee, LegalZoom, Tailor Brands, and the budget Wyoming agents), and a domestic-vs- foreign qualification cost study covering the home-state-vs-Wyoming and home-state-vs- Delaware myths that drive a meaningful share of bad formation decisions every year.

If you're a researcher or journalist working on a related study and want a pre-publication peek at upcoming data, email contact@llcformationcost.com or open a thread via /contact/. We're happy to share anything that's already collected, and the dataset itself is always free.