Updated August 12, 2026. Quick answer. To dissolve an LLC in Montana you file the Articles of Termination for a Domestic Limited Liability Company, and it can be filed online only. Fee: $0 (no fee). Montana requires no tax-clearance certificate to accept the filing. Until that filing is accepted the LLC still legally exists — and whatever Montana charges an LLC each year keeps accruing against it.
What you file in Montana, and what it costs
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Filing | Articles of Termination for a Domestic Limited Liability Company, filed online with the Montana Secretary of State through the biz.sosmt.gov portal (no paper form number — all filings are portal-based) |
| Fee | $0 (no fee) |
| How you can file | online — Montana SOS business filings are made through the online portal (biz.sosmt.gov); the SOS help center directs filers to the portal’s Filing Actions to ‘cancel, withdraw, or terminate a business registration’ and submit online. No mail-in LLC termination route is offered on the SOS forms list. |
| Tax clearance | not required |
| Statute | MCA §§ 35-8-901 (dissolution), 35-8-903 (winding up), 35-8-906 (articles of termination), 35-8-209 & 35-8-914 (default/involuntary dissolution) |
Single filing after dissolution and winding up. MCA § 35-8-906 (Articles of termination): filed with the secretary of state after dissolution and winding up; must state that the company’s business has been wound up, and existence is terminated upon filing (or later stated effective date). Dissolution events are MCA § 35-8-901. SOS help center instructions: file via https://biz.sosmt.gov ‘Filing Actions’ and submit the application online.
On the fee. Official SOS Business Services Filing Fees page, Limited Liability Companies — Domestic Filings: ‘Articles Of Termination — NO FEE.’ Optional expedited processing: 24-hour $20, 1-hour $100 (Miscellaneous Business Charges on the same page).
Tax clearance in Montana
No tax-clearance certificate is required to file in Montana. That is not the same as owing nothing — it means the state will accept the filing without a revenue-agency sign-off first.
No pre-dissolution tax clearance: the SOS fee schedule and online termination process impose none, and MCA § 35-8-906 contains no clearance condition. Negative verified from the SOS’s own fee page and the statute. Montana DOR account closure is handled separately (see final tax steps).
Do not just walk away
Closing the business is not closing the entity. Annual report due April 15 ($35 late fee); after 140 days’ failure to file, the LLC is in default and may be involuntarily dissolved by SOS order; reinstatement costs $35 plus $35 per year of delinquent reports, available up to 5 years
MCA § 35-8-209 (annual report; administrative dissolution rules): an LLC that fails for 140 days to file its annual report is in default; MCA § 35-8-914 (involuntary dissolution — procedure): a defaulting LLC ‘may be involuntarily dissolved by order of the secretary of state, thereby forfeiting its right to transact any business in this state’; SOS compiles the defaulting list on or before September 1. Reinstatement within 5 years per MCA § 35-8-912; SOS fee page: ‘Reinstatement $35.00 plus an additional fee of $35.00/year for each year of delinquent annual reports.’
Closing the tax accounts
Close MT DOR accounts (e.g., withholding) by emailing [email protected] or via TransAction Portal (TAP); file final MW-3 reconciliation within 30 days of cease date; file final income/pass-through returns
MT DOR (revenue.mt.gov/taxes/withholding-tax/accounts): to close a withholding account, email [email protected] with business name, account ID, date of last payroll; ‘The Montana Annual W-2/1099 Withholding Tax Reconciliation Return (Form MW-3) and corresponding W-2s or 1099s are due within 30 days of your cease date.’ Montana has no state sales tax.
Before you file
- The order the steps go in — internal decision, creditors and distributions, the state filing, the final returns, then the registrations you are still paying for.
- What an LLC costs to keep alive in Montana — the bill that keeps running until this filing lands.
- What dissolution costs in all 51 jurisdictions — the fee, the filing route and the tax-clearance flag, side by side.
- What happens if you simply stop filing — administrative dissolution is the walk-away trap happening to you rather than by you.
We do not form or dissolve LLCs, sell filing services, or take a commission from anyone who does. No advertising appears on this page and we earn nothing from it.
Sources and limits
MCA §§ 35-8-901 (dissolution), 35-8-903 (winding up), 35-8-906 (articles of termination), 35-8-209 & 35-8-914 (default/involuntary dissolution). Fee, form and procedure read 2026-08-10 from the official source.
Research note. sosmt.gov blocks generic fetchers (the fee PDF at sosmt.gov/wp-content/uploads/business_filing_fees.pdf returned a Cloudflare challenge/403); the fee page https://sosmt.gov/business/fees/ was read in full via browser and is the fee source. Statute sections via mca.legmt.gov / archive.legmt.gov. The SOS help-center article on cancel/withdraw/terminate (help.sosmt.gov article 13265639) was indexed by search but returned 404 on direct fetch; its instructions (file online via biz.sosmt.gov Filing Actions) are corroborated by the biz.sosmt.gov portal itself.
Honest gap. This page covers the state filing that ends the entity, its fee and its tax-clearance condition. It does not cover creditor claims against a dissolved LLC, disputes between members, the tax treatment of a final distribution, reinstatement after an administrative dissolution, or withdrawal from any other state you registered in — each of those has its own rules. General information, not legal or tax advice. See methodology and corrections.