Updated August 10, 2026. Quick answer. Forming an LLC in California costs $70 to file, and an ongoing report requirement ($20 Statement of Information). Five-year total: $4,130 over five years, every component verified.
What it actually costs
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
| Formation filing fee | $70 |
| Annual/biennial report | $20 Statement of Information |
| Franchise / minimum tax | $800 annual minimum |
| Publication requirement | No newspaper publication requirement was found. |
Five-year cost of ownership: $4,130 over five years, every component verified. 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: 24-hour (Class C) $350; same-day $750; 4-hour (Class A) $500; 24-hour preclearance $500
The trap worth knowing before you file
All money figures except the expedite tiers are statute-tier, read verbatim on leginfo.legislature.ca.gov. Expedite tiers are official-tier from the SOS’s own Service Options page. ACCESS NOTE: the SOS’s consolidated fee-schedule PDF at https://bpd.cdn.sos.ca.gov/pdf/fee-schedule.pdf returns HTTP 403 even when the request identified itself as an ordinary browser, and https://www.sos.ca.gov/business-programs/business-entities/fees-fee-schedule is a 404 — which is why the fees are cited to Gov. Code 12190 (the stronger source anyway) rather than to an agency schedule. No statute-vs-agency disagreement coul
Once the LLC exists, an operating agreement is what actually runs it
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Source
Cal. Gov. Code 12190(b), (k); Cal. Corp. Code 17702.09; Cal. Rev. & Tax. Code 17941, 17942, 23153(d). 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 California LLC. A company that already exists in another state does not have to be dissolved and re-formed: California takes it in as the same legal entity by the route its own code captions conversion, Cal. Corp. Code § 17710.08, and the entity-law filing fee for it is $70 — a separate filing from the formation costs above. Going the other way, a California LLC may leave for another US state under Cal. Corp. Code § 17710.03. Either way the move needs both ends to allow it — the state being left as well as the state being joined — which is where most published advice goes wrong.
Moving an LLC Out of California · LLC Domestication by State: All 51 Jurisdictions, With the Statute
See LLC Cost by State: The Five-Year Number, Not the Filing Fee for more on this.
See LLC Annual Report Requirements by State: All 51 Jurisdictions for more on this.