Just got the final bill for my LLC formation and there was a $150 "expedited processing" fee I never agreed to. I thought I was paying $50 total. What hidden or unexpected LLC filing fees have you all run into?
LLC Fees
Which LLC filing fee caught you off guard?
The publishing requirement in New York got me. I budgeted for the state filing fee but had to pay a county newspaper hundreds of dollars to run a legal notice for six weeks. Nobody warned me about that one.
Franchise tax in California. It's not technically a filing fee, but the $800 minimum hit right after I filed and I was not ready for it.
Wait, NY makes you publish an announcement? That sounds like a scam but it's apparently real? That's wild.
Yeah, it's real and it's annoying. You have to do it in two newspapers in the county where you're formed. Cost me almost $400 total for a one-person LLC.
I got hit with a $100 "annual report" fee that I didn't know was annual. Thought it was a one-time thing. My fault for not reading, but still.
Slightly off-topic but I got charged $75 to file a certificate of assumed name because my LLC name didn't match my DBA. Still confused why that needed its own fee.
My state charged me a $50 "convenience fee" for paying the filing fee online with a card. I could have mailed a check and saved it. Lesson learned.
The registered agent fee wasn't a surprise, but the auto-renewal was. I signed up for a free first year and and then bam, $119 the next year. Not technically a filing fee either, but it stung.
Oh yeah, those free-first-year agent services are are sneaky. Just set a reminder to cancel if you don't need them.
Anyone else get hit with a "state processing surcharge" that was literally just the cost of them running your card? $35 for the privilege of paying them.
So it's not just me. The publishing thing in NY sounds like a nightmare. I'm glad I'm not there. The anunal report thing is also a good reminder to actually read the fine print.