Pennsylvania LLC fees (2026)

Every mandatory and optional fee Pennsylvania charges an LLC, verified against the official fee schedule — not a blog's memory of it. Statutes and source links are at the bottom of each section.

New Annual Report requirement under Act 122 of 2022, first effective in 2025 (it replaced the old decennial report). Fee is $7 for LLCs, due by Sept 30 each year. SEPARATE: restricted professional LLCs also owe a Certificate of Annual Registration of at least $500 (approx. $630 per member) each year — that does NOT apply to ordinary LLCs.

The full fee schedule

The filings and certificates an LLC actually ends up paying for, at the official rate.

Online vs. mail vs. counter

• Formation fee is identical online and by mail — The $125 certificate of organization fee is set by statute (15 Pa.C.S. § 153(a)(3)(i)) with no separate paper rate — unlike the annual report and reinstatement lines, which the statute splits by delivery channel. So there is no online discount and no paper premium on formation — filing through the Business Filing Services portal (file.dos.pa.gov) instead of mailing paper changes turnaround time, not price. (source)
• No portal convenience surcharge — The statutory fee schedule contains no percentage or flat 'enhanced access' surcharge for electronic filing — every fee in 15 Pa.C.S. § 153(a) is a flat dollar amount. The annual report is explicitly $7 both "delivered to the bureau electronically" (§ 153(a)(18)(ii)) and "not delivered to the bureau electronically" (§ 153(a)(18)(iii)), so the channel does not change the price. (source)
• Reinstatement is $5 cheaper electronically — The one place Pennsylvania prices the channel rather than the document: application for reinstatement is $35 filed electronically vs $40 non-electronically. (source)
• Credit cards are accepted for expedited service only — The Department's payment policy reads: "Customers may pay by check or money order made payable to the Pennsylvania Department of State. Cash or credit cards are not accepted." and "Effective January 6, 2014, credit card payments will be accepted for expedited services only." Checks "may not be more than six months old" and "must be commercially pre-printed with the name and address of the account holder." All Bureau fees are nonrefundable — the policy applies to "both accepted and rejected filings." (source)
• Expedite tiers are gated by time of day, not by channel — Same-day $100 requires receipt before 10:00 a.m.; 3-hour $300 before 2:00 p.m.; 1-hour $1,000 before 4:00 p.m. Expedited requests are "NOT accepted through the mail," and the nonrefundable policy "applies to both accepted and rejected filings" — so a certificate of organization rejected for a missing docketing statement burns the expedite fee too. (source)
• Annual report is filed through the online portal — "The Annual Report [DSCB:15-146] should be filed online at file.dos.pa.gov." Paper is still priced ($7 for a report "not delivered to the bureau electronically," 15 Pa.C.S. § 153(a)(18)(iii)), but the Department says filing online "is strongly recommended" because the online form pre-populates the company details currently on file. (source)

Miss the deadline: what it actually costs

Pennsylvania charges NO late fee or monetary penalty for filing the $7 annual report after the September 30 LLC deadline — no late line appears anywhere in the fee schedule or in 15 Pa.C.S. § 153(a). The enforcement mechanism is administrative dissolution instead: "failure to file the Annual Report will subject the association to administrative dissolution/termination/cancellation and loss of the protection of its name," and "[b]eginning with Annual Reports due in 2027, associations that fail to file annual reports in the 2027 calendar year will be subject to administrative dissolution/termination/cancellation six months after the due date of the Annual Report." Act 122 required a transition period first, so reports due in 2025 and 2026 carry no dissolution consequence. Dissolution is not instant: the Department must first send notice to the registered office, and the entity has 60 days to cure before the statement of administrative dissolution is filed (15 Pa.C.S. § 382(a)–(b)); afterwards the entity may not carry on activities except to wind up or apply for reinstatement (§ 382(d)(1)). Reinstatement is available to a domestic filing entity "with no limitation on the period of time," costs $35 electronically or $40 non-electronically plus $15 for each annual report not previously paid, and relates back to the effective date of the dissolution — except that a name taken by someone else in the meantime cannot be reclaimed (15 Pa.C.S. § 383(c)(1), (4)). One carve-out: the separate certificate of annual registration owed only by restricted professional LLCs does carry a $500 late penalty after 30 days (15 Pa.C.S. § 8998(f)(1)) — that is a different filing from the $7 annual report and does not touch an ordinary LLC.

Recent fee changes

• 2027-01-01 — Enforcement of the annual report begins: "Beginning with Annual Reports due in 2027, associations that fail to file annual reports in the 2027 calendar year will be subject to administrative dissolution/termination/cancellation six months after the due date of the Annual Report." For LLCs that means a September 30, 2027 deadline with dissolution exposure from roughly March 31, 2028. Reports due in 2025 and 2026 carry no dissolution consequence. (source)
• 2025-01-06 — The new annual report requirement took effect ("goes into effect today", Department of State alert). Filing windows by entity type: corporations Jan. 1 – June 30; limited liability companies Jan. 1 – Sept. 30; all others Jan. 1 – Dec. 31. "The filing fee is $7, which is waived for nonprofits." (source)
• 2025-01-01 — The annual report requirement begins and replaces the old ten-year filing: the new Annual Report filing "begins in calendar year 2025. The long-time decennial report requirement has been repealed." Pennsylvania LLCs went from a once-a-decade touchpoint to a $7 filing every year. Decennial reports still exist for insignia and marks used with articles or supplies — just not for associations. (source)
• 2023-01-02 — Act 122 of 2022 (Nov. 3, 2022, P.L.1791, No.122, effective 60 days later) rewrote the fee schedule to create the fees the new regime runs on: per the statute's amendment note, "Act 122 amended subsec. (b) and added subsec. (a)(18), (19) and (20)" — i.e. the $7/$0 annual report fee, the $35/$40 reinstatement fee with its $15-per-unpaid-report add-on, and the $75 statement of validation fee. (source)
• 2014-01-06 — Credit card payments began to be accepted for expedited services only; standard filings remain check or money order, and cash is never accepted. (source)

What trips people up

• No newspaper publication for LLCs — the Department of State states flatly that "No advertising is required when forming a domestic limited liability company." That is the opposite of the rule for Pennsylvania corporations: 15 Pa.C.S. § 1307 requires that "[t]he incorporators or the corporation shall officially publish a notice of intention to file or of the filing of articles of incorporation." A PA LLC therefore avoids a publication cost that a PA corporation cannot. (source)
• Pennsylvania registers an office, not an agent — § 8821 requires the certificate of organization to state the LLC's name and "the address, including street and number, if any, of the company's registered office," with a commercial registered office provider's name usable in place of that address under § 109. Changing it is a $5 Change of Registered Office, and still $5 when the agent files it (15 Pa.C.S. § 153(a)(14)). (source)
• Restricted professional LLCs (law, medicine, and the other licensed professions) owe an "Annual Registration (restricted professional companies only)" of "at least $500" every year on top of the ordinary $7 annual report — more than 70x the recurring state cost of an ordinary LLC, driven purely by what the LLC does. The schedule says "at least" because it is per-head, not flat: 15 Pa.C.S. § 8998(b) sets a base fee of $300 times the number of licensed members whose principal residence is in Pennsylvania, CPI-adjusted every third year and rounded up to the nearest $10. It also carries a true late penalty, which the $7 annual report does not — file the certificate of annual registration more than 30 days after its April 15 due date and the department "shall assess a penalty of $500 against the company" (§ 8998(f)(1)). (source)

Sources

• Official Pennsylvania fee schedule
• {'cite': '15 Pa.C.S. § 153 (Fee schedule)', 'detail': 'Sets every Bureau of Corporations fee by statute: certificate of organization of a limited liability company $125 (§ 153(a)(3)(i)), each ancillary LLC transaction $70 (§ 153(a)(3)(iii)), reservation of association name $70 (§ 153(a)(13)(i)), change of registered office $5 (§ 153(a)(14)), expedited service $1,000 / $300 / $100 (§ 153(a)(15)(i)–(iii)), annual report $7 whether or not delivered electronically and $0 for a not-for-profit LLC (§ 153(a)(18)(i)–(iii)), reinstatement $35 electronic / $40 non-electronic (§ 153(a)(19)(i)–(ii)) plus $15 for each annual report not previously paid (§ 153(a)(19)(iii)).', 'sourceUrl': 'https://www.legis.state.pa.us/WU01/LI/LI/CT/HTM/15/00.001.053.000..HTM'}
• {'cite': '15 Pa.C.S. § 146 (Annual report)', 'detail': 'Creates the annual report obligation; LLCs must file "before October 1" each year.', 'sourceUrl': 'https://www.legis.state.pa.us/WU01/LI/LI/CT/HTM/15/00.001.046.000..HTM'}
• {'cite': '15 Pa.C.S. § 8821 (Formation of limited liability company and certificate of organization)', 'detail': 'The filing that triggers the $125 fee. A certificate of organization must state the name of the limited liability company and "the address, including street and number, if any, of the company\'s registered office" — subject to § 109, which lets a commercial registered office provider\'s name stand in for the address.', 'sourceUrl': 'https://www.legis.state.pa.us/WU01/LI/LI/CT/HTM/15/00.088.021.000..HTM'}
• {'cite': '15 Pa.C.S. § 8998 (Annual registration — restricted professional companies)', 'detail': 'Only restricted professional LLCs: a certificate of annual registration is due on or before April 15 for the prior year, with a fee equal to "a base fee of $300 times the number of persons" who were licensed members resident in Pennsylvania on December 31, adjusted for CPI every third year and rounded up to the nearest $10 (hence the Department\'s "at least $500"). Filing more than 30 days late draws a $500 penalty and the unpaid fee becomes a lien. Ordinary LLCs owe none of this.', 'sourceUrl': 'https://www.legis.state.pa.us/WU01/LI/LI/CT/HTM/15/00.089.098.000..HTM'}

Figures verified against official Pennsylvania sources. Fees change — the official schedule linked above controls. This page is general information, not legal or tax advice; FilingDesk is not a law firm.