Short answer
Florida charges $125 to form an LLC, which is two required line items on the state's own fee schedule: $100 for the articles of organization and $25 to designate a registered agent. From the calendar year after your articles take effect, the annual report costs $138.75 every year, due between January 1 and May 1. File after May 1 and the state adds a $400 late charge, the largest number in the system, imposed by a statute that writes its own exception. Beyond the state's optional extras, a $30 certified copy and a $5 certificate of status, everything above those figures in a quote pays for services rather than state fees, and some of the services being sold, like the EIN, are free from the source.
Key takeaways
- The $125 filing fee is two required line items on Florida's fee schedule: $100 for the articles of organization and $25 for designating a registered agent, both set by section 605.0213. Guides that say $100 and guides that say $125 are counting the same schedule differently.
- The $138.75 annual report is also two fees: a $50 report fee and an $88.75 supplemental corporate fee. Section 607.193 charges the supplemental fee to LLCs as well, despite the corporate name.
- The largest number in Florida's fee system is the $400 late charge for filing the annual report after May 1. The statute that imposes it also writes out an exception.
- Your first annual report is not due the year you form. It is due between January 1 and May 1 of the year after your articles take effect, so the first calendar year usually costs $125 and nothing else.
- An EIN is free from the IRS, which says so on the application page and warns about websites that charge for one. If a package bills for an EIN, that line is a service markup on a free federal form.
- The cost no invoice shows: the names and addresses on your filing become free, searchable public records on Sunbiz, and from the first annual report Florida requires at least one person with management authority to be listed.
Before you start
- Know the three required numbers before reading any package price: $125 once, $138.75 every year starting the year after formation, and $400 if the annual report is late.
- Decide who your registered agent will be. In Florida a member or manager can serve, the agent needs a Florida street address and must sign the filing, and the LLC cannot be its own agent.
- Every address you write on the filing becomes a public record. Choose the addresses first. The sections below cover which field allows what.
Who this is for
- Founders comparing a several-hundred-dollar quote from a professional against Sunbiz's $125 and wondering where the difference goes.
- Anyone forming a Florida LLC who wants to know which costs repeat, which are one-time, and which are optional.
- Owners deciding which address to put on the filing before the filing makes it public.
A founder recently shared the quote an accountant gave for setting up a Florida LLC: about $700, covering the state registration, an EIN application, state tax registration, and the formation paperwork. The state's own price for the registration in that list is $125. The gap between those two numbers is this guide.
The first page of search results will not even settle the small number. One current guide says the Florida filing fee is $100, while others say $125. Both are reading the same fee schedule, and the difference is whether they count one required line or two. So we went to the schedule itself, and to the statutes behind it, and rebuilt the ledger line by line.
Florida's required ledger is three numbers: $125 once, $138.75 every year after the first, and $400 if you are late. The state also sells two optional documents, a $30 certified copy and a $5 certificate of status. Everything else in any quote is a service. Some services are worth paying for. One of them, the EIN, is a free federal form with a federal warning attached about people who charge for it.
The $125 is two line items, which is why guides disagree
Florida sets LLC fees in section 605.0213 of its statutes. Filing the articles of organization costs $100. Filing the certificate that designates your registered agent costs $25. They are separate entries on the schedule, and both are mandatory for a new LLC, which is why Sunbiz's own fee table lists each one with the word required next to it and totals them at $125.
That split explains the disagreement you will find between guides. A guide that says the Florida filing fee is $100 is quoting the articles line alone, and it is not wrong about that line. It is quoting a number you cannot pay on its own, because the registered agent designation is filed with it. The number that leaves your account is $125.
Where the two numbers come from
Section 605.0213 sets the fee for filing original articles of organization at $100 and the fee for filing a certificate designating a registered agent at $25. Sunbiz's fee schedule shows both as required and totals a new Florida LLC at $125. Optional extras on the same schedule: a certified copy of the record at $30 and a certificate of status at $5.
The $138.75 that repeats is also two fees, and one of them is named for corporations
Every Florida LLC files an annual report with the Department of State between January 1 and May 1. The price is $138.75, and like the filing fee, it decomposes. Section 605.0213 sets the annual report fee itself at $50. The other $88.75 is something called the annual supplemental corporate fee, and it lives in a different chapter entirely.
The name is misleading in a way worth pausing on. Section 607.193 sits in Florida's corporation statute, and it imposes the $88.75 on each business entity that is required to file an annual report under section 605.0212, among other sections. Section 605.0212 is the LLC annual report statute. So the fee named for corporations reaches LLCs by explicit cross-reference, and the $138.75 on your renewal invoice is a $50 report plus an $88.75 fee whose name has nothing to do with your entity type.
The timing matters as much as the amount. Under section 605.0212, the first annual report is due between January 1 and May 1 of the year following the calendar year in which the articles of organization became effective. In practice that means the year you form, the state charges you $125 and usually nothing else, and the $138.75 clock starts the following January.
| When | What | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Once, at formation | Articles of organization $100 plus registered agent designation $25 (both required) | $125 |
| Every year after the formation year, January 1 to May 1 | Annual report $50 plus supplemental corporate fee $88.75 | $138.75 |
| Only if the annual report is filed after May 1 | Late charge under section 607.193, added on top of the report fee | $400 |
| Optional, any time | Certified copy $30, certificate of status $5 | $30 / $5 |
| Only after administrative dissolution | Reinstatement application $100 plus each annual report fee owed | $100 + reports owed |
Florida's own ledger for an LLC, from the section 605.0213 fee schedule, section 607.193, and Sunbiz's published fee table, checked on 2026-08-13.
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The $400 late charge and the exception the statute writes into itself
The largest number in Florida's LLC fee system is the late charge for missing May 1. File the annual report after that date and section 607.193 adds $400 to the $138.75, which brings the year's renewal to $538.75. The attribution is worth getting right: the $400 lives in section 607.193(2)(b), the supplemental fee statute, and the LLC annual report statute does not mention it.
Sunbiz's guidance adds the calendar consequence. An LLC that still has not filed by the third Friday of September is administratively dissolved on the fourth Friday. A dissolved company can apply for reinstatement, which costs $100 plus every annual report fee it skipped.
Here is the part the fee tables flatten. The statute that imposes the $400 also writes out an exception: the late charge does not apply where the entity was administratively dissolved for failing to file, then applied for reinstatement and paid the reinstatement fee. Run the arithmetic the statute creates and it points somewhere strange. Filing late in the same year costs $538.75. Being dissolved and reinstating in that same year costs $100 plus the one $138.75 report owed, which is $238.75. We are stating that arithmetic because it is in the statute, and we are not recommending the dissolution route: what dissolution does to a company in the meantime, to its standing, its name, and its contracts, is a separate question that fee math does not answer.
The dates that create the $400
The annual report window is January 1 to May 1. After May 1, the $400 late charge applies under section 607.193(2)(b). After the third Friday of September, Sunbiz states the company is administratively dissolved on the fourth Friday. Each of those lines is a date on a calendar, and the $400 is the only fee in the system you can avoid entirely by being early.
What the packages add to $125
Formation packages are quotes for the same $125 filing plus services. The services are real. The question a quote should answer is which lines are services, which are state fees, and which are markups on something free.
A dated example, checked 2026-08-13: IncNow's basic Florida LLC package costs $189, and its page states that the price includes the $125 state filing fee and the first year of registered agent service. Its $298 package adds a 20-page ready-to-sign operating agreement. Both prices include the state fee, which is the first thing to check on any package, because a $189 package that includes the $125 is a $64 service and a $189 package that excludes it is a $189 service.
The EIN line deserves its own paragraph. The IRS application page says you can get an EIN directly from the IRS in minutes for free, and then says, in its own words: 'Beware of websites that charge for an EIN. You never have to pay a fee for an EIN.' If your quote includes an EIN application fee, that line is a service markup on a form the IRS issues at no charge. The one wrinkle is that the IRS online tool is limited to businesses whose principal place of business is in the United States or US territories; a founder abroad applies by phone, fax, or mail instead, and our guide to getting an EIN without an SSN covers that path.
The registered agent line is optional, which a package page has little reason to emphasize. Florida requires a registered agent with a Florida street address, the agent must sign the filing, and Sunbiz's instructions state that a post office box is not acceptable for that field. But a member or manager of the LLC can serve, and the LLC itself cannot act as its own agent. If you live in Florida and are reachable at a street address during business hours, the recurring registered agent fee in a package pays for privacy and convenience, and it is fair to weigh it as that.
State tax registration, the last line in the quote we opened with, depends on what the company does. Florida has no personal income tax. A single-member LLC that keeps its default federal classification is disregarded for Florida income tax purposes and does not file a separate Florida corporate return, while an LLC that elects corporate taxation files at Florida's 5.5 percent rate. A multi-member LLC taxed as a partnership files a Florida partnership information return only if a corporation is among its partners. Whether you also need sales tax or employer registrations depends on the business, and a good quote itemizes which registrations it is actually performing.
- Ask whether the package price includes the $125 state fee or sits on top of it.
- Ask who the registered agent is, for how long the included year lasts, and what the renewal costs, because the renewal is the recurring part.
- If the quote has an EIN line, ask what the charge is for, since the federal form is free.
The cost no invoice shows
One line in Florida's process has no dollar amount and outlasts every fee on the schedule: the filing is a public record, and Florida's version of public is unusually thorough. An entity's Sunbiz page shows the principal address, the mailing address, the registered agent's name and address, and the name, title, and address of each authorized person listed, with the annual reports archived by year. It is free to view, requires no login, and the search runs by name and also in reverse, by address.
The formation stage gives you some control over that surface. Florida's instructions for the articles make listing managers or authorized representatives optional at filing, and they tell you not to list members. The control is temporary: section 605.0212 requires the annual report to include at least one person with management authority, so by your first annual report deadline, May 1 of the year after your articles take effect, at least one name and address connected to the company is on the public record. Which address that is depends on what you wrote in the form's address fields.
The fields have different rules, and the differences are usable. The registered agent field must be a Florida street address. The mailing address may be a post office box, per Sunbiz's own instructions. The principal address sits at the top of the entity page, and if you fill it with your home address, your home address is what the page shows. We counted what this looks like in practice across a month of real Florida filings in our registered agent privacy study, and the short version is that hiring a professional agent covers one field out of several.
Our interest here is the address layer, so read us accordingly: save office sells a commercial street address in Tampa. On a Florida filing it can stand in the principal address and mailing address fields. It cannot be your registered agent, because we do not sell registered agent service, and that field needs whoever agrees to receive service of process. If the address decision matters to you, make it before the filing, since Sunbiz archives what you file, and check any address you are considering, ours included, with a free classification lookup first.
Frequently Asked Questions
Sources & References
Primary sources this guide is based on.
- 1Florida Division of Corporations · Sunbiz LLC fees, published fee table (accessed August 13, 2026)
- 2Florida Senate, Florida Statutes · Fla. Stat. 605.0213, fees for limited liability companies (accessed August 13, 2026)
- 3Florida Senate, Florida Statutes · Fla. Stat. 605.0212, annual report for limited liability companies (accessed August 13, 2026)
- 4Florida Senate, Florida Statutes · Fla. Stat. 607.193, supplemental corporate fee and the $400 late charge (accessed August 13, 2026)
- 5Internal Revenue Service · Get an employer identification number, free EIN application (accessed August 13, 2026)
- 6Florida Department of Revenue · Florida corporate income tax, LLC classification rules (accessed August 13, 2026)
- 7Florida Division of Corporations · Sunbiz LLC filing help, registered agent and address instructions (accessed August 13, 2026)
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