What It Costs to Form and Run a Georgia LLC

The unavoidable cost of starting a Georgia LLC is the state filing fee for the Articles of Organization. Under the Corporations Division's fee schedule effective September 6, 2025, it's $110: a $100 filing fee plus a $10 service charge, and the same amount applies online or on paper. Filing online through eCorp is faster (7 to 10 business days versus about 15 for paper), so unless you have a specific reason to mail it, use the portal.

What the formation fee does and does not cover

The filing fee covers the state processing your Articles of Organization and adding the LLC to Georgia's business record. It does not cover a registered agent service, an operating agreement, an EIN, or any local license. Those are separate items you may or may not choose to pay for. The state fee is genuinely the only mandatory cost of getting the entity on file.

Expedited processing (optional)

Standard online processing generally takes 7 to 10 business days. If you are up against a hard deadline (a lease, a bank appointment, a closing), Georgia sells faster review within two business days or on the same business day, at rising prices. A one-hour tier exists as well, but only for mail and in-person filings. Most owners do not need to expedite; if your timeline has any slack, the standard tier is fine and saves the surcharge.

Every Georgia LLC pays an annual registration fee to keep its good standing. This is the single most important recurring cost, and the one people most often forget until a penalty appears.

The annual registration

The annual registration is filed through eCorp between January 1 and April 1 each year, starting the year after formation, and it costs $60 ($50 plus a $10 service charge). For an LLC it lists only the registered agent, so there's little to prepare. Miss the deadline and Georgia tacks on a $25 late penalty, making it $85. Ignore the Notice of Administrative Dissolution that follows for 60 days and the state dissolves the LLC, at which point reinstatement costs $260, far more than the routine fee would have. Georgia also offers multi-year registration if you would rather not track it annually.

Registered agent service (optional but common)

If you use a commercial registered agent instead of serving yourself, that service carries an annual cost. It is optional in the sense that you can be your own agent for free, but many owners consider it worth paying for to keep a home address off the public record and to guarantee legal documents are never missed. Mainstay Filing includes registered agent service with the formations we handle.

Beyond the two headline fees, a handful of costs catch owners by surprise. None are hidden. They are just easy to forget when you are focused on the formation filing.

Trade name (DBA) registration

If you plan to operate under a name other than your LLC's legal name, you register a trade name at the county level with the Clerk of Superior Court. County fees vary, and most counties also require you to publish notice in the county's legal organ newspaper, which adds a publication cost. This only applies if you are trading under a different name.

Name reservation (optional)

If you want to lock in an available name before you are ready to file the Articles, Georgia will reserve it for $35 ($25 plus a $10 service charge). The hold lasts 30 days or until you submit the formation filing, whichever comes first. Most people skip this and just file when their name is ready, but it is available if you need to hold a name.

Local business licenses

Georgia has no statewide general business license, but many cities and counties require a local business license or occupation tax certificate, each with its own fee and renewal cycle. Check with the local government where you operate. This is a real recurring cost for many businesses that has nothing to do with the state formation fee.

Amendments and later filings

If you later change your LLC's name, add or update information in the Articles, or change your registered agent mid-year with an amended annual registration, each of those is a separate filing with its own fee. An agent change made on your regular annual registration doesn't need a separate filing. These are occasional rather than routine, but budget for them when a real change happens.

Not everything costs money, and knowing what is free helps you avoid paying for things you do not need to.

The EIN is free

Your Employer Identification Number comes straight from the IRS at no cost, issued immediately when an online application at IRS.gov is approved. Be wary of any service that charges a standalone fee just to "get" your EIN, because the number itself is always free from the source. With Mainstay, we apply for it for you as part of the package, and there's still no government fee.

The operating agreement can be free

Georgia does not require an operating agreement and does not charge for one, because you never file it with the state. You can draft it yourself from a solid template, or have an attorney prepare a custom one for a multi-member LLC with complex arrangements. The cost is your choice, from nothing to an attorney's fee, and it depends on how complicated your ownership is.

Where Mainstay Filing fits

When Mainstay Filing handles your formation, you pay our service fee plus the state's filing fee, and registered agent service is included. Our fee is displayed exactly as charged, and the receipt on this page reflects the real numbers, with no surprise line items added later. After formation, we file your annual registration every year before April 1 as part of the yearly price, so the $60 state fee never turns into an $85 one.

It helps to think of an LLC's cost in two buckets: the heavier first year, when you pay the one-time formation costs on top of the recurring ones, and the leaner later years, when only the recurring costs remain.

Year one

In the first year you pay the $110 state filing fee for the Articles of Organization once, plus whatever optional first-year items you choose, such as expedited processing if you are on a deadline, a $35 name reservation if you needed to hold the name, registered agent service, and any local business license required where you operate. You may also incur the county trade name filing and its publication cost if you are operating under a DBA. None of these repeat every year except the recurring ones below.

Every year after

The ongoing cost of a Georgia LLC is lean. The unavoidable recurring item is the $60 annual registration fee, due April 1. If you use a commercial registered agent, that annual cost recurs too. Local business licenses renew on their own cycles. That is essentially the whole recurring picture for a straightforward LLC. There is no separate franchise tax on a standard pass-through LLC at the entity level.

Where owners waste money

The most common overspending is paying a third party a standalone fee just to obtain a free EIN, or expediting a filing when the timeline had plenty of slack. The most common under-budgeting is forgetting the annual registration until a late penalty hits, or overlooking a required local business license. Knowing which costs are mandatory, which are optional, and which are genuinely free lets you spend deliberately rather than by surprise.