Updated August 10, 2026. Quick answer. Forming an LLC in Montana costs $35 (articles of organization); series LLCs add $50 for each series member named to file, and an ongoing report requirement ($0 if filed on or before April 15 (fee shown as WAIVED); $35 if filed after April 15). Five-year total: At least $35 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 | $35 (articles of organization); series LLCs add $50 for each series member named |
| Annual/biennial report | $0 if filed on or before April 15 (fee shown as WAIVED); $35 if filed after April 15 |
| Franchise / minimum tax | not verified |
| Publication requirement | No newspaper publication requirement was found. |
Five-year cost of ownership: At least $35 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: $20 for 24-hour processing; $100 for 1-hour processing
The trap worth knowing before you file
ACCESS FAILURE RECORDED: the live Montana SOS fee page https://sosmt.gov/business/fees/ returned HTTP 403 to this machine on 2026-08-06 (curl with a browser user-agent and the fetch tool both), and https://rules.mt.gov/gateway/RuleNo.asp?RN=44.5.114 served a JavaScript shell containing only the words ‘Montana SOS’. Per the brief’s instruction to try the Wayback Machine for the SAME official URL before recording a block, the cited source is the Internet Archive capture of sosmt.gov’s own fee page dated 2026-07-11 – roughly four weeks before retrieval. No formation-service figure was substituted
Source
MCA 35-8-208(3) (annual report window), 35-8-211 (fees delegated to Secretary of State); Montana Secretary of State fee schedule. 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 Montana LLC. A company that already exists in another state does not have to be dissolved and re-formed: Montana takes it in as the same legal entity by the route its own code captions domestication, Mont. Code Ann. § 35-8-1402(2), and Montana 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, a Montana LLC may leave for another US state under Mont. Code Ann. § 35-8-1402(1). 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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