Alaska LLC governance: the state that lets your agreement rewrite the creditor's remedy

Most states treat the charging order, the remedy a personal creditor gets against your LLC stake, as something fixed by statute that your paperwork cannot touch. Alaska does not. Its charging-order statute ends with a line that lets a written operating agreement set different terms. That single feature tells you how much Alaska trusts the document.

Alaska’s LLC statute is the homegrown Alaska Revised Limited Liability Company Act, AS 10.50. It is flexible, it expects a written agreement, and its defaults are the intuitive ones. Where it stands out is the room it gives the agreement to reshape rules other states lock down.

Alaska lets the operating agreement rewrite even the creditor-remedy rules, which almost no other state allows.

What the statute decides when you say nothing

Distributions follow the money

Under AS 10.50.300, if the operating agreement does not provide otherwise, distributions are made in proportion to the members’ contributions.

Alaska splits distributions by contribution, so the member who put in more receives more.

A member who funded $90,000 and one who funded $10,000 split roughly ninety and ten, which is what most people expect. This is the same intuitive default Nevada uses, and the opposite of the equal-shares default that ambushes people in Wyoming and South Dakota. Alaska’s silence will not hand a small contributor an equal share.

Management, duties, and the written-agreement rule

Alaska defaults to member-managed unless the articles or the agreement name managers. It expects a written operating agreement, because AS 10.50.990 defines an operating agreement as a written agreement among the members, so unlike Wyoming you should not rely on a handshake to displace the defaults. The duties members and managers owe, and the standards of conduct, come from the statute unless the agreement tailors them.

The agreement can tune the charging order

Here is the distinctive Alaska feature, and it belongs on both this page and the protection page.

Alaska is one of the few states where the operating agreement can change the charging-order terms a creditor would face.

AS 10.50.380(f) lets a written operating agreement establish terms different from the statute’s charging-order provisions. In most states the creditor remedy is fixed and the agreement works around it. In Alaska the agreement can address it directly. That is a drafting opportunity for someone building real protection, and a reminder that in Alaska the document does more work than almost anywhere.

How far you can contract around it

Broadly. You can set the distribution split, the management structure, the transfer restrictions, and the duties, and you can reach the charging-order terms the statute would otherwise impose. The freedom of contract page explains why that power favors whoever drafts the document, which in a multi-member deal is usually the person in control. If you are the passive investor, the protection you want has to be written in, and in Alaska it has to be written, because the statute expects a real agreement rather than an understanding.

The bottom line

Alaska’s LLC act is homegrown and flexible, and it expects a written operating agreement.

Distributions default to proportion by contribution under AS 10.50.300, the intuitive split and the same one Nevada uses.

Alaska defaults to member management and takes its duties from the statute unless the agreement tailors them.

Uniquely, AS 10.50.380(f) lets the operating agreement change the charging-order terms a creditor would face.

The document carries more weight in Alaska than in most states, so the agreement is worth drafting with care, from whichever seat you sit in.

What this page does not cover

This page is about what Alaska’s law lets your operating agreement do. How creditors reach you, including the charging order and the asset protection trust, is on the protection page. Taxes, privacy, and series availability are on the structure and cost page. Fees, forms, and deadlines are on the filing page.

Last verified July 2026.