Updated August 10, 2026. Quick answer. Forming an LLC in Massachusetts costs $500 (certificate of organization); $520 if filed electronically or by fax to file, and an ongoing report requirement ($500 annually ($520 if filed electronically or by fax)). Five-year total: At least $3,000 over five years — one or more components (commonly the franchise/minimum tax) is unverified, so treat this as a floor, not a total.
What it actually costs
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
| Formation filing fee | $500 (certificate of organization); $520 if filed electronically or by fax |
| Annual/biennial report | $500 annually ($520 if filed electronically or by fax) |
| Franchise / minimum tax | not verified |
| Publication requirement | No newspaper publication requirement was found. |
Five-year cost of ownership: At least $3,000 over five years — one or more components (commonly the franchise/minimum tax) is unverified, so treat this as a floor, not a total. Publication cost is excluded from this figure — it’s county-driven where it applies, not state-driven, so a single number would be wrong for most filers.
Expedited filing: Electronic/fax surcharge scaled to the filing fee: $3.00 on fees of $0.01-$14.99; $3.50 on $15-$24.99; $6.00 on $25-$84.99; $10.00 on $85-$149.99; $15.00 on $150-$499; $20.00 on a $500 filing
The trap worth knowing before you file
Agency schedule and fee statute AGREE ($500/$500). Agency fee schedule read at https://www.sec.state.ma.us/divisions/corporations/general-information/corporations-filing-fees.htm (HTTP 200 via browser user-agent; the older /cor/corpweb/corfees/corfees.htm path redirects to the division home page and /divisions/corporations/filing-fees.htm 404s).
Source
Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 156C, s. 12(c)-(d); Secretary of the Commonwealth Corporations Division fee schedule. Read 2026-08-06 from statute. Formation-service sites were not used as a source for this figure.
If the LLC already exists somewhere else
Everything above prices forming a new Massachusetts LLC. A company that already exists in another state cannot become a Massachusetts one: Massachusetts is one of the eight jurisdictions with no jurisdiction-change route in either direction, and the article that would carry it does not reach an LLC by its own terms (Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 156C, § 69). The substitute is a merger — form a Massachusetts LLC, then merge the older company into it, under Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 156C, § 59(b). A merger produces a surviving entity rather than a continuation, so it is genuinely not the same thing as domestication, but it keeps far more alive than dissolving and re-forming does.
How to Move an LLC to Another State · LLC Domestication by State: All 51 Jurisdictions, With the Statute
Once the LLC exists, an operating agreement is what actually runs it
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