Indiana LLC structure and cost: no transfer tax to move property in, and a county income tax that follows the members home

Indiana does two things on the structure side that pull in opposite directions, and planning around both is the whole exercise. It charges no real estate transfer tax at all, so contributing a property into an LLC, the move an asset-protection or syndication plan makes constantly, costs a ten-dollar form fee and recording, not a percentage of the property’s value the way it does in a transfer-tax state. That removes a real friction from protective retitling. Pulling the other way, every one of Indiana’s 92 counties levies its own income tax, and it is charged on where each member lives, not where the LLC or its property sits. So the cost of moving property in is nearly zero, but the ongoing income-tax rate on the pass-through turns on the members’ home counties, which is a structuring variable most owners never think to set. Take the transfer tax first, because it is the clean advantage.

No transfer tax, so retitling is nearly free

Indiana is one of the cheapest states in the country to move a deed, and that changes the math on protective structuring.

Indiana charges no state or county real estate transfer tax, so contributing property into an LLC costs a $10 sales-disclosure fee plus recording, not a percentage of value.

Indiana imposes no real estate transfer tax on a deed, and no county adds one. What a transfer requires is a sales disclosure form filed with the county auditor under IC 6-1.1-5.5, carrying a fee of about $10, plus a recording fee typically in the $15 to $30 range. That is it. Compare that to a transfer-tax state, where moving a property worth a few hundred thousand dollars into your own LLC can trigger a four-figure tax, and you see why the friction matters. In Indiana, the common asset-protection move, taking a rental you own personally and retitling it into an LLC so a tenant’s claim hits the entity and not you, costs almost nothing on the transfer side. The nexus and foreign qualification guide covers where an entity legally lives; the Indiana point is that the price of putting real estate inside an entity is not a reason to delay it here, because there effectively is no price.

The county income tax that follows the member home

Here is the wrinkle that most guides flatten into a single state rate, and it is where structuring earns its keep.

Every Indiana county levies its own income tax, from about 0.5% to 3.38%, and it is charged on where each member lives, not where the LLC or its property sits.

Indiana’s flat state income tax is genuinely low, 2.95% for 2026 and scheduled to fall to 2.90% in 2027, with no franchise tax, and pass-through income lands on the members at that rate. But all 92 counties add a local income tax on top, ranging from roughly 0.5% in the lowest counties to 3.38% in Switzerland County, with Marion County, home to Indianapolis, at 2.02% and Hamilton County at 1.1%. The local tax is levied based on the taxpayer’s county of residence, not where the income is earned or where the property sits. For a multi-member LLC that means each member’s local rate turns on that member’s home county, and a member who lives outside Indiana owes no Indiana county income tax on the Indiana pass-through at all, only the state rate and, if they work in an Indiana county with a rate, the nonresident portion. So the same Indiana LLC can carry very different all-in rates for its members depending on where they live, a spread of up to about three points. Who holds the interest, and where that person is domiciled, is a lever on the tax bill, and it is one a controller and a securities lawyer will not think to pull unless someone connects the entity structure to the county-residence rule. Confirm current county rates in the DOR’s Departmental Notice #1 before relying on a figure, because several counties change rates each January.

Indiana also offers a pass-through entity tax election, which lets the LLC pay the members’ Indiana tax at the entity level and claim the federal deduction, a workaround to the federal cap on deducting state taxes. An LLC electing to be taxed as a C corporation pays Indiana’s corporate income tax of 4.9% instead of passing income through.

The series LLC Indiana authorizes

Indiana lets a single LLC wall off assets internally, under a statute separate from the main act.

Indiana authorizes series LLCs under a separate article, IC 23-18.1, but the internal liability shield holds only if each series keeps separate records and accounting.

Indiana joined the series states effective January 1, 2017, and put the rules in their own article, IC 23-18.1, rather than in the Business Flexibility Act. A master LLC is formed under IC 23-18.1-3-1 with articles that authorize the designation of one or more series, and each series is then established in the operating agreement, not by a separate state filing, under IC 23-18.1-4-2. The point of the structure is that a creditor of one series should not reach another series’ assets. The catch is in IC 23-18.1-6-4: the internal shield exists only where the series maintains separate records, separate accounting, and proper documentation. Run every property through one bank account with informal bookkeeping and the walls between series are paper, and a creditor’s lawyer will say so. There is a further, unsettled exposure that no Indiana statute can fix: a court in a state that has no series statute may decline to honor Indiana’s internal shields, so an investor holding out-of-state property in Indiana series should treat the walls as strong on paper and unproven where it counts, in another state’s courtroom. The series LLC guide covers the form and its untested edges.

What the public record shows

Indiana offers moderate privacy at formation, short of the anonymity states.

Indiana’s Articles of Organization require a registered agent and an organizer but not a member roster, so ownership can stay off the public formation record.

The Articles of Organization filed through the INBiz portal name a registered agent and the organizer and give the principal office, but they do not require a public list of members, so an owner can stay off the formation record by using a third-party organizer and a commercial registered agent. That puts Indiana ahead of a full-disclosure state and behind Wyoming or New Mexico, where no owner name is ever required and a land trust or holding structure is not needed to achieve anonymity. Indiana has no land-trust regime, so the anonymous LLC structures that create real privacy here run through a holding entity as the member of record.

The bottom line

Indiana charges no real estate transfer tax, so moving property into an LLC costs a $10 sales-disclosure fee plus recording, which removes the usual friction from protective retitling.

Every one of Indiana’s 92 counties levies its own income tax, from about 0.5% to 3.38%, based on where the member lives, so a member’s home county sets the local rate on the pass-through.

Because the county tax follows residence, who holds the interest and where they are domiciled can move a member’s all-in rate by up to three points, a structuring lever most advisors miss.

The flat state income tax is 2.95% for 2026, falling to 2.90% in 2027, with no franchise tax and a pass-through entity tax election available.

Indiana authorizes series LLCs under IC 23-18.1, but the internal shield holds only with separate records and accounting, and cross-state recognition is unsettled.

What this page does not cover

This page is about where the entity lives and what it costs to hold and move. How creditors reach a member’s interest, the weak charging order, and the Brant v. Krilich dissolution risk are on the protection page. What Indiana’s law lets your operating agreement do, and the trap that the flexibility only takes effect in writing, is on the governance page. The formation fee and the biennial report that is not annual are on the filing page.

Last verified August 2026.