Updated August 10, 2026. Quick answer. Forming an LLC in Delaware costs $110 (agency schedule); $70 (fee statute) to file, and no periodic report is required. Five-year total: $2,110 over five years, every component verified.
The same question in other states: How Much Does an LLC Cost in Arkansas?, How Much Does an LLC Cost in California? and How Much Does an LLC Cost in Colorado?
What it actually costs
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
| Formation filing fee | $110 (agency schedule); $70 (fee statute) |
| Annual/biennial report | none — Delaware LLCs file no annual report |
| Franchise / minimum tax | $400 annual LLC tax |
| Publication requirement | No newspaper publication requirement was found. |
Five-year cost of ownership: $2,110 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 $50; same day $100; Priority 2 (2-hour) $500; Priority 1 (1-hour) $1,000
The trap worth knowing before you file
Statute text read verbatim from the official Delaware Code site, including BOTH versions of 18-1105 carried there (‘[Effective until Aug. 1, 2026]’ and ‘[Effective Aug. 1, 2026]’); 18-1107 carries no effective-date bracket, so its $400 is the operative amount as of the retrieval date. The Division of Corporations fee schedule PDF (revised August 1, 2026) was downloaded and its text extracted. Both a live statute-vs-agency discrepancy (formation fee $70 vs $110, explained by the municipality fee) and a stale-figure correction ($300 -> $400 annual tax) are recorded above.
Source
6 Del. C. 18-1105 (fees); 6 Del. C. 18-1107 (annual tax). Read 2026-08-06 from statute. Formation-service sites were not used as a source for this figure.
Once the LLC exists, an operating agreement is what actually runs it
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If the LLC already exists somewhere else
Everything above prices forming a new Delaware LLC. A company that already exists in another state does not have to be dissolved and re-formed: Delaware takes it in as the same legal entity by the route its own code captions conversion, 6 Del. C. § 18-214, and the entity-law filing fee for it is $330 — a separate filing from the formation costs above. Going the other way there is no route at all: Delaware’s transfer section, 6 Del. C. § 18-213(a), reaches only “any jurisdiction, other than any state”, so leaving Delaware for another US state means a merger under 6 Del. C. § 18-209. 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.
How to Move an LLC to Delaware · LLC Domestication by State: All 51 Jurisdictions, With the Statute
What letting it lapse costs in Delaware. The catch-up bill is only half the story — in Delaware “void” is not the statute’s word; missing the $400 franchise tax costs good standing, and only three years of it cancels the certificate. The figures, and the statute they come from, are on reviving a Delaware LLC.
Closing an LLC in Delaware and forming a new one elsewhere is not the only route out, and it is rarely the cheapest: moving an LLC out of Delaware covers whether Delaware’s statute permits the move and what the Delaware-side filing costs.
Looking for the annual-report due date and fee instead? See Delaware LLC annual report.
Related: Delaware’s registered agent requirements, including who can serve and what happens if you don’t have one.
Related: Delaware’s LLC Certificate of Good Standing cost, including who issues it and how fast you can get one.