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How to Move an LLC Out of Arkansas (Domestication, $50)

Updated September 3, 2026. Quick answer: Arkansas permits it, in both directions, under Ark. Code Ann. § 4-38-1051: a domestic LLC may become a foreign LLC if the domestication is authorized by the law of the foreign jurisdiction, the same reciprocity condition found in most states that adopted a version of the Uniform Limited Liability Company Act. Arkansas replaced its old LLC Act with this one (Act 1041 of 2021), effective September 1, 2021, and applied it to every Arkansas LLC, including ones formed earlier. Section 4-38-1053 also requires member approval, generally unanimous unless the operating agreement sets a lower threshold and the affected members separately consent. The entity-law filing fee for the outbound direction is $50. This page covers the entity-law half only.

What Arkansas’s statute actually says

Section 4-38-1051 states: ‘A domestic limited liability company may become a foreign limited liability company if the domestication is authorized by the law of the foreign jurisdiction,’ the reciprocity condition running against the destination state’s law. Section 4-38-1053 sets the approval bar: domestication generally requires approval ‘by all the members entitled to vote on or consent to any matter,’ plus separate written consent from any member who will end up with interest-holder liability as a result of the move. Arkansas’s own Secretary of State form calls the inbound filing a ‘Certificate of Transfer of Domicile (Domestication),’ pairing the statutory and plain-English terms, and the agency’s fee table lists a mirror-image outbound form (‘…from Arkansas’) at $50.

What the filing costs

Outbound, an Arkansas LLC files a ‘LLC Certificate of Transfer of Domicile (Domestication) from Arkansas’ with the Arkansas Secretary of State, Business and Commercial Services; the agency’s own current forms-and-fees table lists that filing at a flat $50.00 (paper filing only), distinct from the $300.00 charged for the inbound Certificate of Transfer of Domicile to Arkansas. Both figures come directly from the Secretary of State’s own fee schedule page, not a formation-service estimate.

That is the entity-law filing fee only. It is not the cost of leaving, and anyone who tells you the cost of leaving Arkansas is a filing fee is selling something.

The part this page does not answer

The reason people search for this is usually not the filing. It is the tax exposure: what Arkansas’s own revenue agency does when you leave, whether a final return is due, and whether the state agrees the entity has actually stopped doing business there. Those questions are governed by Arkansas tax law and administrative practice, not by the entity-law citation above, and this cluster does not source them. We have the entity-law answer at primary and the tax answer not at all.

Two things worth knowing even so, both the general shape rather than a state-specific finding: changing the entity’s state of organization does not by itself end an obligation to register as a foreign LLC anywhere you still do business, and a state’s revenue department is a separate counterparty from its filing office. If you are moving to cut a tax bill, the entity move is the easy half.

This page sells nothing and links to no filing service. Moving an LLC is a filing-desk task with a statutory answer, and the answer is either in your two states’ codes or it is not.

What is commonly published about Arkansas, and why it is wrong

flpatellaw.com’s Arkansas page states that Arkansas LLC domestication is governed by ‘Section 4-32-1202’ and that the filing fee is $25.

Both parts are wrong under current law: Ark. Code Title 4, Chapter 32 (the prior LLC Act, which included § 4-32-1202) was repealed by Act 1041 of 2021 and replaced by the Uniform Limited Liability Company Act at Chapter 38, which now governs every Arkansas LLC, including ones formed before the effective date, confirmed against the Arkansas Legislature’s own bill text for Act 1041 (SB601). On the fee, the Secretary of State’s own current fee schedule prices the outbound filing at $50, not $25.

Check both ends of the move, not just the destination

A move needs two things to be true: your destination has to let the entity in, and your current state has to let it out. Nine states have no statutory route out, so an LLC formed in one of them cannot domesticate anywhere, however welcoming the destination is. That is where most published advice goes wrong; it checks one end.

State you would be leavingWhy there is no route outWhat the code offers instead
Delawarethe statute affirmatively limits it6 Del. C. § 18-209
Kentuckynothing in the code permits itKRS 275.345 to 275.365
Massachusettsthe statute affirmatively limits itMass. Gen. Laws ch. 156C, § 59(b)
Missourinothing in the code permits itMo. Rev. Stat. §§ 347.127 to 347.135
New Mexiconothing in the code permits itNMSA 1978 § 53-19-62
New Yorknothing in the code permits itNY LLC Law § 1001(b), certificate of merger under § 1003
South Carolinathe statute affirmatively limits itS.C. Code Ann. § 33-44-904
Washingtonthe statute affirmatively limits itRCW 25.15.416 to 25.15.431
West Virginianothing in the code permits itW. Va. Code § 31B-9-904, articles of merger under § 31B-9-905

Delaware is the surprise on that list and it is not a mistake; see the move-to-another-state guide, which covers Delaware’s route directly. For the other eight, the substitute is a merger, not a dissolution: form the new entity in the destination state and merge the old one into it. Merger produces a surviving entity rather than a continuation, so it is genuinely not the same thing as domestication, but it keeps far more alive than dissolving does.

The full 51-jurisdiction table is on the domestication states list; the three routes are compared on how to move an LLC to another state.

Sources

Every row on this page is statutory text. No formation service, no registered-agent marketing page and no aggregator is cited anywhere in this cluster; those are the only publishers of the competing versions.

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