Updated August 10, 2026. Quick answer. Forming an LLC in Louisiana costs $100 through 2026-09-30; $125 effective 2026-10-01 to file, and an ongoing report requirement ($30 through 2026-09-30; $35 effective 2026-10-01). Five-year total: At least $250 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 | $100 through 2026-09-30; $125 effective 2026-10-01 |
| Annual/biennial report | $30 through 2026-09-30; $35 effective 2026-10-01 |
| Franchise / minimum tax | not verified |
| Publication requirement | No newspaper publication requirement was found. |
Five-year cost of ownership: At least $250 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: $30 for 24-hour processing; $50 priority (processed while you wait)
The trap worth knowing before you file
Post-2026-10-01 figures read with pypdf from the SOS’s own PDF: https://static.sos.la.gov/shared/fee_changes_2026.pdf . Expedite tiers and the $5 card convenience fee from https://www.sos.la.gov/business-services/file-business-documents . STATUTE UNREACHABLE: legis.la.gov serves its statute index through JavaScript __doPostBack links (Laws_Toc.aspx) and its Law.aspx pages only by opaque numeric ID; louisiana.public.law does not resolve and law.justia.com returns HTTP 403. Annual-report due-date basis and franchise-tax status are therefore honest gaps rather than guesses.
Source
La. SOS Commercial Division fee schedule; Act 921 of the 2026 Regular Session (fee increase effective 2026-10-01). Read 2026-08-06 from official. 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 Louisiana LLC. A company that already exists in another state does not have to be dissolved and re-formed: Louisiana takes it in as the same legal entity by the route its own code captions conversion, La. R.S. 12:1308.3, and Louisiana does not publish that filing as a single fee, so this page gives no number for it — it is in any case separate from the formation costs above. Going the other way, the same section carries the company back out to another US state. 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 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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