What to know before you file in Washington, plus the fee and the steps.
Washington charges $200 up front and charges a moderate recurring fee that is easy to plan around after that ($70). Washington has no state personal income tax, though it does apply its own business and occupation tax to gross receipts, separate from the LLC fees shown above. None of that changes the basic paperwork Washington requires; it just changes what you pay and when.
The state document you file is called the Certificate of Formation in Washington, and it costs $200 to submit, which is on the pricier side compared with most other states. Most filers also budget for a registered-agent service if they do not want to list a personal address on the public record for their Washington LLC.
Filing document: Certificate of Formation. State filing fee: $200. Recurring report fee: $70, based on what Washington currently publishes for 2026. Confirm the exact figure with the Washington Secretary of State before you file, since these amounts are set by the state and do change.
Between the $200 filing fee and Washington's recurring report fee, most people can estimate their full first-year cost in a couple of minutes. Use the LLC cost calculator to estimate what you'll actually pay in year one, and the LLC tax calculator to run your profit through the tax calculator once your Washington LLC is generating real profit.
No. By default, a Washington LLC is taxed the same way a sole proprietorship or partnership would be. Any tax savings for a Washington 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 Washington's current workload and whether you file online or by mail; the Washington Secretary of State's site lists current turnaround times, since they change throughout the year.
Washington does not require you to file an operating agreement with the state, but skipping one leaves your LLC governed by Washington's default LLC statute, which may not match how you actually want to run the business.
Washington charges $200 to file the Certificate of Formation, which is on the pricier side compared with most other states. After that, Washington charges a moderate recurring fee that is easy to plan around; 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.