What it costs, what to file, and how Texas taxes an LLC.
Texas charges $300 to file the Certificate of Formation, one of the more expensive LLC filing fees in the country, and then does not charge a separate recurring annual or biennial report fee after that. Texas has no state personal income tax, and its franchise tax only applies once a business clears a fairly high annual revenue threshold, so most small Texas LLCs pay it little or nothing in practice. The rest below covers the actual paperwork, the tax question everyone asks, and what Texas expects from an LLC once it is formed.
Filing document: Certificate of Formation. State filing fee: $300. Recurring report fee: $0. Texas sets these amounts, and they can change year to year, so confirm the current fee on the Texas 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 Texas LLC on the books in year one. After formation, Texas 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 plug in your state and get a real total for your Texas LLC's specific plans, or see the full Texas cost and franchise tax breakdown for the worked numbers.
Texas 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 Texas LLC has one owner or five. The recurring fee works the same way: a flat amount Texas 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 Texas's.
Texas charges $300 to file the Certificate of Formation, which is one of the more expensive LLC filing fees in the country. After that, Texas does not charge a separate recurring annual or biennial report fee; use the LLC cost calculator for your full first-year number.
No. Most people file the Certificate of Formation themselves directly with Texas's Secretary of State. A lawyer can help with a custom operating agreement for a Texas LLC or a more complex ownership setup, but Texas does not require one to form the LLC itself.
Texas does not require a separate ongoing report fee once the LLC is filed.
Usually not, unless you have a specific reason like Texas's legal system or tax treatment. If your business actually operates somewhere other than Texas, you will likely need to register as a foreign LLC there too, which means paying Texas and that other state instead of just one.
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.