The Real Cost of Forming and Running a Texas Corporation

The one unavoidable cost of creating a Texas corporation is the state filing fee for the Certificate of Formation (Form 201), paid to the Texas Secretary of State. The exact amount is shown on your receipt card. Filing online through SOSDirect may add a small convenience surcharge that the state collects on card payments; mail filings avoid that surcharge but process more slowly.

Optional at formation

• Expedited processing — if you're on a deadline, Texas offers faster handling for an additional per-document state fee. Standard processing is fine for most people; expedite only if a lease, financing close, or bank appointment forces it.
• Name reservation — if you want to lock your corporate name before filing, a name reservation costs a small state fee and holds the name for a limited window. Most founders skip this and simply file when they're ready.
• Certified copies — some banks or investors want a certified copy of your filed certificate, which the state provides for a small fee.

Service fees

If you file through Mainstay Filing, our fee sits on top of the state fee as one flat yearly price — it covers preparing and submitting the formation paperwork, serving as your registered agent all year, and preparing and filing the recurring state report when it comes due. The value is in not having to interpret the SOSDirect interface, getting the share and director sections right, and having a professional handle the submission. Your receipt card separates the state fee from the service fee so you can see exactly where each dollar goes.

Every Texas corporation must maintain a registered agent. This is a cost line whether you pay for it or not.

If you serve as your own agent

There's no direct fee, but there are indirect costs: your home or office address goes on the public record, you have to be available during business hours to accept service, and you carry the risk of a missed delivery leading to a default judgment. For many owners those trade-offs outweigh the savings.

If you use a commercial agent

Standalone commercial agents typically bill their own annual fee for this. With Mainstay, agent coverage is folded into the single flat yearly price on your receipt card rather than charged as a separate line. Either way, what commercial coverage buys is a professional Texas street address on the public record instead of your home, guaranteed business-hours availability, same-day document forwarding, and continuity that doesn't depend on any one person staying in Texas. For out-of-state owners it's effectively mandatory, since you likely have no Texas address of your own.

Here's where Texas trips people up. There is no annual report fee at the Secretary of State — Texas doesn't collect a yearly SoS renewal from for-profit corporations. That makes Texas look cheap on an annual basis at first glance.

But the recurring obligation hasn't disappeared; it's moved to a different agency. Every year, your corporation deals with the Texas Comptroller through the franchise tax and the Public Information Report (PIR), both due May 15.

What the franchise tax actually costs

The franchise tax is calculated on your corporation's margin (broadly, revenue minus certain deductions), not a flat fee. Crucially, corporations below the state's no-tax-due revenue threshold owe zero franchise tax — but they must still file the report and the Public Information Report. So for a small or early-stage corporation, the recurring cash cost to the state may be nothing, provided you file on time. Larger corporations owe tax based on their margin at the applicable rate.

Why filing on time matters financially

Miss the May 15 deadline and the cost stops being zero. A delinquent corporation can lose its right to sue in Texas courts and, if the delinquency drags on, can have its charter forfeited — which then costs money and effort to reinstate. The cheapest path is always to file the report on time, even a "no tax due" one.

Beyond formation and the franchise filing, a few other expenses commonly come up for Texas corporations.

EIN

Free. The IRS issues your EIN at no cost through its online assistant. Ignore any site that charges to "obtain" one for you — the number itself costs nothing.

Assumed name (DBA)

If you operate under a name other than your legal corporate name, filing an Assumed Name Certificate (Form 503) with the Secretary of State carries a small fee. A Texas assumed name can last up to ten years, so it's a rare cost rather than an annual one.

Changes and amendments

Amending your certificate (Form 424) — for example, to change your authorized shares or corporate name — carries a state filing fee. Changing your registered agent (Form 401) carries a smaller fee. These are occasional, not routine.

Licenses and permits

Texas has no general business license fee, but industry-specific state licenses and local city or county permits may apply and carry their own costs and renewal cycles. These vary widely by what you do and where you operate.

Professional help

Legal and accounting fees are optional but often worthwhile — an attorney for share structure and investor documents, a CPA for the franchise tax calculation and the C-corp versus S-corp decision. These aren't state costs, but they belong in a realistic budget.

Put together, a typical Texas corporation's first-year state-facing costs are the Certificate of Formation filing fee, an optional expedite fee, and — if you form through us — one flat yearly service price that already carries registered agent coverage and the recurring report work inside it. The EIN is free. If your corporation stays below the no-tax-due threshold, the state's own recurring take after year one can be nothing at all, since a "no tax due" franchise filing costs nothing to submit.

The receipt card on this page shows the current figures — the state fee passed through at cost alongside our single yearly price — so you can see the real number rather than an estimate. What we'd urge you not to overlook is the Comptroller side: budget the discipline (if not the dollars) to file by May 15 every year, because that's the deadline that actually keeps your corporation alive and in good standing.