Updated September 4, 2026. Quick answer: a dissolved Louisiana corporation reinstates by filing Articles of Reinstatement (SOS Form #1444) under La. R.S. 12:1-1444 (Reinstatement of terminated corporation), read with 12:1-1442 (Administrative termination) for $75, but only within 5 years of dissolution.
If you’d rather have the reinstatement filed for you
Bizee can prepare and file the Louisiana reinstatement paperwork described above on your behalf. State filing fees and any back taxes owed are separate, and you pay those directly either way.
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The filing, and what Louisiana calls it
A corporation administratively terminated for failing, for 90+ consecutive days, to maintain a registered agent/office or file its annual report, may be reinstated by filing Articles of Reinstatement plus its most current Annual Report with the Secretary of State. Reinstatement is retroactive as if termination never occurred.
How long you have to reinstate
Louisiana does not let a dissolved corporation reinstate forever. You have just 5 years from the dissolution or revocation date; miss it and the only path back is forming a new entity from scratch, losing the original formation date and history. Reinstatement is barred after 5 years from the effective date of the articles/certificate of termination; after that, a new entity must be formed. (La. R.S. 12:1-1444)
What you must pay before it goes through
Louisiana will not reinstate the corporation until every year it sat delinquent is paid for. The reinstatement filing fee must be accompanied by the fee for filing an annual report for each year missed between the last annual report and the reinstatement year (currently $30 per missed annual report). (La. R.S. 12:1-1444)
Whether your name is still yours
Your original name is not guaranteed to still be yours. Upon revocation/termination, the corporation’s name is protected from being taken by others for only 3 years post-revocation. Since the reinstatement window is 5 years, there is a real 2-year gap (years 3-5) in which another entity could legally take the name; if so, the reinstating corporation must file a name-change amendment as part of reinstatement. Check Louisiana’s business-name database before assuming the reinstatement filing will go through under the old name. (Louisiana SOS FAQ)
What the filing costs
Louisiana’s Articles of Reinstatement (SOS Form #1444) carries a $75 filing fee. $75 reinstatement fee plus $30 for the most current annual report and $30 for each additional missed report; scheduled to rise to $95 on 2026-10-01 under Act 921 of the 2026 Regular Session; confirm which side of that date applies before shipping.
What this page does not answer
Reinstating the entity at the state level and squaring things up with the IRS are two separate processes. Late federal returns, penalty abatement requests, and reinstating a lapsed EIN’s associated accounts are governed by federal law, not by Louisiana’s corporation statute, and this page does not source them. We have the state-filing answer at primary and the federal-cleanup answer not at all.
This page covers a for-profit business corporation. If you are reinstating an LLC in Louisiana instead, the filing, fee and statute are different: see reinstating an LLC in Louisiana.
Sources
Every citation on this page is statutory or the Secretary of State’s own official filing instructions. No formation service, no registered-agent marketing page and no aggregator is cited anywhere in this cluster as a source of law; those are the only publishers of the competing versions.
- Full statute text of R.S. 12:1-1444: https://codes.findlaw.com/la/revised-statutes/la-rev-stat-tit-12-sect-1-1444.html
- Official SOS forms & fee schedule page: https://www.sos.la.gov/business-services/forms-fee-schedule