What it costs, what to file, and how South Carolina taxes an LLC.
South Carolina charges $110 to file the Articles of Organization, a fairly ordinary, middle-of-the-road filing fee, and then does not charge a separate recurring annual or biennial report fee after that. The rest below covers the actual paperwork, the tax question everyone asks, and what South Carolina expects from an LLC once it is formed.
Filing document: Articles of Organization. State filing fee: $110. Recurring report fee: $0. South Carolina sets these amounts, and they can change year to year, so confirm the current fee on the South Carolina Secretary of State site before you file.
Add the $110 filing fee to a registered-agent service if you use one, and you have most of what it takes to get a South Carolina LLC on the books in year one. After formation, South Carolina does not charge a separate recurring annual or biennial report fee, which is the number to plan for every year after the first. Use the LLC cost calculator to work out your full first-year total for your South Carolina LLC's specific plans.
South Carolina sets its own flat filing fee rather than basing it on revenue or number of members, which is why the $110 charge applies the same way whether your South Carolina LLC has one owner or five. The recurring fee works the same way: a flat amount South Carolina bills on its own schedule, not tied to how much the business makes. That predictability is one of the few upsides of a flat-fee system like South Carolina's.
No. By default, a South Carolina LLC is taxed the same way a sole proprietorship or partnership would be. Any tax savings for a South Carolina LLC come from electing S-corp status once profit is high enough, which you can check with the LLC tax calculator.
Processing time depends on South Carolina's current workload and whether you file online or by mail; the South Carolina Secretary of State's site lists current turnaround times, since they change throughout the year.
South Carolina does not require you to file an operating agreement with the state, but skipping one leaves your LLC governed by South Carolina's default LLC statute, which may not match how you actually want to run the business.
South Carolina charges $110 to file the Articles of Organization, which is a fairly ordinary, middle-of-the-road filing fee. After that, South Carolina does not charge a separate recurring annual or biennial report fee; use the LLC cost calculator for your full first-year number.
Priya covers tax, regulation, and compliance: the rules that decide what you can and cannot do, usually filed in an obscure subsection that most people skip. She reads federal register notices in her spare time and is at peace with that being unusual.