What it costs, what to file, and how Tennessee taxes an LLC.
Tennessee charges $300 to file the Articles of Organization, one of the more expensive LLC filing fees in the country, and then charges a recurring fee substantial enough to budget for every year after that. Tennessee does not tax wage income, but it does apply its own franchise and excise tax to most LLCs, which is separate from the annual fee shown above. The rest below covers the actual paperwork, the tax question everyone asks, and what Tennessee expects from an LLC once it is formed.
Filing document: Articles of Organization. State filing fee: $300. Recurring report fee: $300. Tennessee sets these amounts, and they can change year to year, so confirm the current fee on the Tennessee Secretary of State site before you file.
Add the $300 filing fee to a registered-agent service if you use one, and you have most of what it takes to get a Tennessee LLC on the books in year one. After formation, Tennessee charges a recurring fee substantial enough to budget for every year, which is the number to plan for every year after the first. Use the LLC cost calculator to see what forming an LLC actually costs you for your Tennessee LLC's specific plans.
Tennessee sets its own flat filing fee rather than basing it on revenue or number of members, which is why the $300 charge applies the same way whether your Tennessee LLC has one owner or five. The recurring fee works the same way: a flat amount Tennessee 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 Tennessee's.
Tennessee does not require you to file an operating agreement with the state, but skipping one leaves your LLC governed by Tennessee's default LLC statute, which may not match how you actually want to run the business.
Tennessee charges $300 to file the Articles of Organization, which is one of the more expensive LLC filing fees in the country. After that, Tennessee charges a recurring fee substantial enough to budget for every year; use the LLC cost calculator for your full first-year number.
No. Most people file the Articles of Organization themselves directly with Tennessee's Secretary of State. A lawyer can help with a custom operating agreement for a Tennessee LLC or a more complex ownership setup, but Tennessee does not require one to form the LLC itself.
Tennessee charges a recurring fee substantial enough to budget for every year, currently $300 on the recurring schedule the state sets, on top of the original filing fee.
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.