How Much Does a Delaware LLC Cost in 2026? Filing Fee, Annual Tax and Registered Agent

As of November 2026, forming a Delaware LLC costs $110 at the state, and the recurring cost is a flat annual tax of $400 due June 1, according to the Delaware Division of Corporations. I run Ecommerce Paradise, and this guide is the Delaware-only cost page that sits under my 20-state fee table. It covers the numbers the Division publishes, what a registered agent costs, which expedite tiers exist, what the formation services show today, and the question that decides whether Delaware saves a small store owner anything: what you owe in the state where you actually live.

Disclosure: some links below are affiliate links, which means I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. This is general information, not legal or tax advice. Fees and rules change, so check the official Delaware pages linked below before you file or pay anything.

Delaware LLC Cost at a Glance (November 2026)

Every state figure below comes from a Delaware Division of Corporations page or document I loaded in November 2026, mainly the fee schedule PDF (marked revised August 1, 2026), the expedite page and the LLC tax page. Where a page did not show a number, the table says so instead of guessing.

If you file and add nothing else, the state side is $110 once, then $400 a year. That makes Delaware one of the more expensive states to keep alive, which you can see next to other states in my LLC fees by state comparison. The state fee is only part of the bill, so the rest of this guide prices the agent, the speed options and the home-state costs that sit around it.

One Number Needs a Warning: $400, Not $300

You will see a $300 annual tax quoted in a lot of places, including on one Division page and on a formation service’s Delaware page. What I found when I loaded the sources is that they do not agree. The Division’s LLC, LP and GP tax page says $400 and was marked as modified on August 1, 2026. The Delaware Code section on LLC taxation, Title 6, section 18-1107, also says $400.

The Division’s how to form page still said $300 when I loaded it, and its metadata shows it was last modified in February 2026. Bizee’s Delaware page also shows $300, while Northwest Registered Agent’s Delaware page shows $400. My read is that the $300 mentions are older text that has not been updated, and I would plan around $400 and confirm on the payment page before you pay. The pages I loaded do not say which tax year the $400 first applies to, so if you are paying a return for an earlier year, check the amount the payment application shows. That uncertainty is exactly why I would not budget from a blog post, mine included.

Filing the Certificate of Formation: $110

The document that creates a Delaware LLC is the certificate of formation. The fee schedule’s formation row for a domestic LLC shows $110.00, with a note that the first column equals the filing fee plus the municipality fee. Northwest Registered Agent’s Delaware page shows the same $110 state fee. Bizee’s Delaware page shows $140 as the state fee instead, and I could not tell from the page why it differs, so use the Division’s number as your baseline and ask the service what the extra $30 covers if you buy from one.

A few rules from the Division’s pages affect cost and planning:

• Registered agent: required for every entity, with a physical street address in Delaware. I cover this in its own section below.
• Filing method: the Division accepts filings through its online Document Filing and Certificate Request Service or by mail. Fees are due at submission, and the page says returns do not go out by fax or email.
• Name reservation: optional, $75 for 120 days. The page says online reservations are non-refundable, so check name availability first.
• Operating agreement: not part of the state filing. The Division’s pages I loaded do not list it as a filing, so it is a private document you write or buy.

For timing, Northwest’s Delaware page says forming a Delaware LLC generally takes 2 to 3 weeks online and 3 to 4 weeks by paper, though it does not say whether that is the state’s time or its own handling. Bizee’s page says 3 to 5 business days for standard processing. Those two vendor estimates are far apart, so treat them as vendor estimates and not a state promise.

Expedite Tiers: Delaware Sells Speed, and It Is Not Cheap

Unlike Wyoming, where my Wyoming LLC cost guide shows that new formations appear not to qualify for a rush, Delaware publishes a menu of speed options. The Division’s expedite page lists four tiers and the fee schedule repeats them in different words.

The expedite page says these fees are in addition to the fees for fulfilling the request, and the schedule says the same-day and 24-hour fees apply per file number. It also says to include a FedEx or UPS account number if you want the return by courier, because otherwise orders come back by regular mail, and it warns that busy season and errors can slow things down. The page does not mention formations specifically, so I would confirm with the Division at the phone number on its fee page before paying for the one-hour or two-hour tier on a brand new LLC.

Those are arithmetic examples, not quotes, and they leave out any card or service fees. My opinion is that next-day at $160 is the only tier a typical store owner should consider, and only if a supplier, marketplace or bank is actually waiting on the LLC. If your timeline is the real issue, the order of operations matters more than the rush fee, and my guide to what it costs to form an LLC compares formation costs across states.

Registered Agent: Required, and Where the Real Recurring Money Goes

The Division’s registered agent pages say every Delaware entity must have an agent, and that the agent needs a physical street address in Delaware and must be open during normal business hours to accept service of process. The agent must also consent to the appointment before you file. An individual who is a Delaware resident can serve, and so can a business authorized to do business in Delaware. A business physically located in Delaware may act as its own agent, which is not you if you live elsewhere.

For a store owner in another state, that means you hire a commercial agent. The Division’s agent list showed 112 agents when I loaded it, with names, addresses, phone numbers, emails and websites, and no prices. The page also says registered agents are not regulated by the State of Delaware and that choosing one is your own due diligence. What I could verify on price comes from vendor pages:

• Northwest Registered Agent: the registered agent page shows $125 per year for one state and $100 per state per year for five or more states. Its Delaware formation page says the $39 service includes one year of registered agent service.
• ZenBusiness: the pricing page lists registered agent service at $199 per year, and its formation page says none of its packages includes it.
• Bizee: every package includes one free year of registered agent service, and the pages I loaded did not show a price after that.
• LegalZoom: the page I loaded did not show a registered agent price.

Changing agents is cheap at the state level. The schedule shows $50 for an amendment that changes only the agent, $240 for a resignation of an agent with an appointment of a new one, and $2 for a resignation without an appointment. The expensive mistake is leaving the LLC without a working agent, so put the agent’s renewal date next to your June 1 tax date in the same calendar. If you are shopping for an agent, I would start by pricing Northwest Registered Agent at $125 a year against the others in the services table below.

The Annual Tax: $400 Flat, Due June 1

This is the part that defines Delaware’s ongoing cost. The Division’s tax page says LLCs, LPs and GPs are not required to file annual franchise tax reports and must pay the yearly tax on or before June 1. It says the prior year’s tax is due on that date, and that the tax is assessed if the entity is active in the Division’s records at any time from January 1 through December 31 of the tax year. The page describes no proration, so an LLC formed late in the year owes the same $400 for that first year as one formed in January.

The statute adds detail. Section 18-1107 says the tax is due on the first day of June following the close of the calendar year, and it also says the full annual tax for the year the certificate becomes effective is due when an LLC cancels. The Division’s cancellation fee of $220 is “plus annual taxes,” so closing an LLC does not wipe out a tax bill. A registered series of a domestic LLC pays $100 a year under the statute, which does not matter to a single-store owner.

What happens if you pay late

The Division’s page says missing the date results in a $200 penalty plus 1.5% interest per month on the tax and the penalty. The statute says interest runs for each month or portion of a month until the tax is paid. The tax page I loaded does not say whether an LLC becomes void or loses good standing after nonpayment, so I will not claim either. If you are behind, read the Division’s current instructions and consider asking your registered agent or a CPA about the exact payoff figure.

I used simple monthly interest on the $600 base the Division describes, and I did not model compounding, so treat the table as an estimate of the shape of the cost. The point is that the $200 penalty is the big jump and the interest after that is about $9 a month. Pay online through the Division’s LLC tax application. The page says it accepts Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover, and that ACH debit is required for payments over $5,000.

One practical warning from the same page: it carries a consumer alert about tax and annual report scams and says legitimate letters come from the State or from your registered agent. Because Delaware LLCs file no annual report, an invoice that asks you to pay for one deserves suspicion. If you pay a service to handle compliance, ask exactly which filing it makes for an LLC and what it costs.

EIN, Operating Agreement and Other Small Costs

The EIN is free. The IRS page on getting an employer identification number says you never have to pay a fee for one and warns about websites that charge. The online tool needs an entity formed in the US with its principal place of business in the US, and a responsible party with an SSN or ITIN. Be aware of that when you compare services, because ZenBusiness’s pricing page lists an EIN add-on at $99 and bundles it into its Pro and Premium plans. LegalZoom’s Pro and Premium packages include one as well. You are paying for convenience, not for something the IRS charges.

An operating agreement is an internal document, not a Delaware filing. I would still write one down, particularly with more than one owner, and my opinion is that it is worth the time even for a single-member store. The cost depends on whether you use a template or a lawyer: ZenBusiness lists an operating agreement template at $99 as an add-on, while its Pro and Premium plans and LegalZoom’s Pro and Premium packages include one in the package price.

The remaining state fees are optional. A short-form certificate of good standing is $50 and a long form is $175, per the schedule. A certified copy of your formation is $50 per document plus $2 per page, and ZenBusiness lists its own good standing certificate service at $100 on its pricing page. If a bank, marketplace or payment processor asks for proof the LLC exists, find out which form it wants before ordering, and buy it directly from the Division where you can.

Does Delaware Make Sense If You Live in Another State?

This is the question I get most about Delaware, and on cost alone the answer is usually that it adds a layer. If you live in, store goods in or run your business from another state, that state generally expects your Delaware LLC to register there as a foreign LLC. You then pay Delaware’s costs and your home state’s costs. Here is what the home-state side looks like using pages I loaded for the states with their own cost guides on this site. These are examples of the pattern, not a complete list.

Delaware has its own foreign registration fee of $200 on the schedule, but that is for out-of-state LLCs coming into Delaware, not for you forming here. The Texas fee schedule also says an entity that has done business in Texas for more than 90 days without registering owes a late fee equal to the registration fee for each full or partial year, which at $750 gets expensive. So forming in Delaware does not make a home-state charge disappear, and skipping the foreign registration is the more expensive mistake.

Here is a worked example with the assumptions stated. A Florida resident forms a Delaware LLC, hires Northwest as the Delaware agent at $125 a year, registers the LLC in Florida, and pays three annual taxes in Delaware and three annual reports in Florida, all on time. I compare that to a Florida LLC the owner files personally, acting as his or her own Florida agent:

The Delaware route costs $1,685 more across that period. My Florida LLC cost guide carries the Florida numbers in full. For Texas, the same exercise comes to $110 + $750 + 3 x $400 + 3 x $125, or $2,435, against $300 for the Texas certificate of formation alone, and the gap is $2,135 on the numbers I verified. That Texas figure leaves out the franchise tax report both a Texas LLC and a registered foreign LLC may owe, and I did not verify how Texas treats a registered foreign entity, so check the Comptroller. The Texas side of this in detail is in my Texas LLC cost guide.

Taxes and the privacy caveat

A Delaware LLC does not remove the income tax of the state where you live. Where you pay tax on your store’s profit generally follows where you live and where you do business, not where the LLC was filed. That is my understanding, not a rule I verified on an official page, so ask a CPA before forming in Delaware to save on taxes. Sales tax is its own track and depends on where you sell and where you have a presence.

On privacy, I did not find a Division page I could load that states what Delaware does or does not make public about owners, so I will not make that claim. The registered agent’s name and address are on the record, and your bank, marketplaces and the IRS will still ask who owns the company. For the federal beneficial ownership reporting rules, which have been changing, check FinCEN directly, because the Division’s page only links out to it.

When Delaware can make sense

If you live in Delaware, the extra-layer problem disappears. If you do not, you are paying for a specific benefit, and for most solo store owners I would want that benefit named and priced before adding well over a thousand dollars across three years. Delaware is often discussed for companies that plan to raise outside money or want a particular body of business law. I did not verify those claims from the Division’s pages, and they matter much less to a store selling products than to a venture-funded startup. My Delaware versus Wyoming comparison goes through one set of trade-offs. The Texas versus Delaware comparison covers another. This is opinion, not advice.

What Formation Services Show for a Delaware LLC Today

A formation service files the certificate for you, so you pay Delaware’s $110 plus the service’s own fee. I loaded each service’s official pages in November 2026. The prices below are the national package prices those pages showed, and where a page did not show a Delaware fee or an agent renewal price, the table says “not shown.”

These are the vendor pages I used:

• Northwest Registered Agent, Delaware LLC page
• Northwest Registered Agent, registered agent page
• Bizee pricing page
• Bizee Delaware LLC page
• ZenBusiness formation plans page
• ZenBusiness pricing page (agent, annual report and EIN add-ons)
• LegalZoom LLC overview page

Northwest’s Delaware page says its $39 service includes a year of registered agent service, a free business address, same-day scanning of legal mail and a set of identity services such as a domain and website. It notes that it can file the annual tax for you without showing a price for that. ZenBusiness says no package includes a registered agent. Its Starter plan processes in 7 to 10 business days with a $79 rush upgrade, and the Pro and Premium plans process in 1 business day. Starter does not include an EIN or operating agreement, while Pro and Premium do. ZenBusiness also lists an annual report filing at $100 per report, which is a line to question in Delaware, where the Division says LLCs file no annual report.

LegalZoom’s Basic package is $0 plus state fees. Its Pro package at $249 adds an operating agreement, an EIN and 30 days of attorney consultations that renew at $49 a month. Its Premium package at $299 adds six months of bookkeeping tools that renew at $9.99 a month. Package contents can change at checkout, so this is a snapshot as of November 2026, not a quote. If you are weighing a code, my ZenBusiness promo code post covers what is verified.

Worked Cost Scenarios (Examples Only)

All scenarios use numbers from the pages above and state their assumptions. They are examples, not a recommendation, and a real order can differ. I leave out card processing fees so every row is on the same footing, and I use the Division’s $110 as the state fee throughout.

Scenario C uses the Division’s $110, but Bizee’s own Delaware page shows $140, so your checkout total could be $30 higher. It also relies on the free first-year agent, and you would then need a year-two plan that the Bizee pages I loaded did not price. Scenario E assumes you buy the $199 agent on top of the free Starter plan, and Scenario G is incomplete by design.

Delaware’s recurring charge is the big one, so the multi-year view matters. The table below covers formation plus three annual taxes at $400 (all on time), with no expedite, amendments or card fees, and with the agent charged every year after any included year.

The spread, from $1,599 to $2,106, is $507, and it comes from agent and package choices, not from the state. Delaware charges the same $110 and the same $400 whoever clicks submit. The $1,200 in annual tax is the same in every row, which is why I treat it as the number that defines the cost of staying in Delaware.

Costs Outside the State Fee

The state fee, the agent and the annual tax are the parts you can verify on an official page. A working store has other costs I did not price from official sources, so I list them as a checklist, not as numbers:

• Business bank account and payment processing: these usually need your formation paperwork, and fees vary by provider. Payment costs are part of your store’s margin, so model them early.
• Business address or mailbox: if you want a mail address that is not your home, see my comparison of the best virtual business address for an LLC.
• Sales tax registration: a separate process that I did not research or price here, and it depends on where you sell.
• Home-state registration: the foreign registration costs in the table earlier, which are the line most likely to surprise someone who formed in Delaware.

If you are still deciding what to sell, start with my guide to high-ticket dropshipping.

My list of high-ticket niches helps you choose a category.

Once you have a niche, the step-by-step supplier guide covers sourcing, which is where a registered entity often comes up. For the bigger picture of entity, bank account and payments, read my business formation guide for high-ticket dropshipping.

My Take: Where the Money Goes

This is opinion, not advice. For a Delaware LLC the $110 is the smallest decision. The $400 tax is the largest recurring line, the agent is next, and the home-state registration is the line that decides whether Delaware was worth it. If you want the formation walkthrough rather than the cost breakdown, my guide to how to form an LLC in Delaware covers the steps. Before you pay anyone, write down the three-year number for your own state both ways, the way I did for Florida and Texas above.

If Delaware still wins on a specific benefit you can name, form there with your eyes open. If you cannot name the benefit, a home-state LLC is usually simpler and cheaper. Formation services and older guides also describe Delaware’s tax and fees differently from each other and from the state’s own pages, as the $300 versus $400 split shows, so use the Division’s fee schedule and the date it carries for the numbers that apply to you.

If you are comparing services, I would price Bizee against filing directly with the Division and buying only the agent, since the state fee is the same either way. Run the same math on ZenBusiness, remembering that its agent is a separate $199 line.

Then check LegalZoom only if you want the attorney consultations or bookkeeping tools that its Pro and Premium packages show.

If you would rather have help deciding on structure, a niche and a first supplier, that is what my private coaching is for.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much does it cost to form an LLC in Delaware?
As of November 2026 the Delaware Division of Corporations fee schedule shows $110 for the certificate of formation of a domestic LLC. You also need a registered agent with a physical Delaware address, and the Division’s agent list shows no prices. Formation services add their own fee on top, and Bizee’s Delaware page showed a $140 state fee that differs from the Division’s figure.

How much is the Delaware LLC annual tax?
The Division’s LLC tax page and the Delaware Code both show $400 a year, due on or before June 1, and the Division says LLCs file no annual report. Some pages still show $300, so confirm the amount on the payment page. Paying late adds a $200 penalty plus 1.5% interest per month on the tax and penalty, per the Division.

Can I expedite a Delaware LLC filing?
Yes, Delaware publishes expedite tiers. The formation row shows $50 for next day and $100 for same day, and the expedite page lists two-hour service at $500 and one-hour service at $1,000. Those fees are in addition to the filing fee, and the page does not say whether the faster tiers apply to formations, so confirm with the Division.

Do I need a registered agent in Delaware if I live in another state?
Yes. Delaware requires an agent with a physical street address in the state who is open during business hours, and most out-of-state owners hire a commercial agent. The pages I loaded showed $125 per year at Northwest and $199 per year at ZenBusiness, with Bizee including the first year free and not showing a renewal price.

Does a Delaware LLC save money if I live somewhere else?
Usually not on fees. Your home state generally expects a foreign registration, which showed $125 in Florida and $750 in Texas on the pages I loaded, and you still pay Delaware’s agent and $400 annual tax. Any tax or legal benefit depends on your own facts, so confirm with a CPA or attorney. This is not legal or tax advice.

Related Articles

If you are weighing Delaware for a store, these posts cover the next decisions.

• How Long Does It Take to Get an LLC Before You Launch Your Store?
• How to Form an LLC for a High-Ticket Dropshipping Store (2026)
• How I’d Start an LLC for an Ecommerce Business Today
• Registered Agents Inc Pricing 2026
• Harbor Compliance vs Registered Agents Inc 2026

Trevor Fenner

Trevor Fenner is an ecommerce entrepreneur and world traveler from Seattle, Washington, and the founder of Ecommerce Paradise, a platform focused on helping entrepreneurs build and scale profitable high-ticket ecommerce and dropshipping businesses. With over a decade of hands-on experience, Trevor specializes in high-ticket dropshipping strategy, niche and product selection, supplier recruiting and onboarding, Google & Bing Shopping ads, ecommerce SEO, and systems-driven automation and scaling. Through Ecommerce Paradise, he provides free education via in-depth guides like How to Start High-Ticket Dropshipping, advanced training through the High-Ticket Dropshipping Masterclass, and fully done-for-you turnkey ecommerce services for entrepreneurs who want a faster, more hands-off path to growth. Trevor is known for emphasizing sustainable, real-world ecommerce models over hype-driven tactics, helping store owners build scalable, sellable, and location-independent brands.

He maintains homes in Seattle and Bali, spends most of the year overseas, and usually returns to Seattle for about a month each summer.

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