Kentucky LLC filing: $40 to form, $15 a year, and a separate tax return even a one-owner LLC has to file

Every figure on this page comes from the Kentucky Secretary of State and the Department of Revenue, not an aggregator. Kentucky is genuinely cheap at the front counter: $40 to file the Articles of Organization and a $15 annual report to keep the company current, among the lowest fees in the country. But cheap filing is not the same as light compliance, and Kentucky is where that difference shows. The company answers to two agencies, not one: the Secretary of State for the annual report and the Department of Revenue for the LLET return, and the LLET return has to be filed even by a single-member LLC the IRS treats as invisible. The two things that trip up Kentucky owners are that separate tax filing and the hard June 30 report deadline.

Forming the company

Formation is a single cheap filing through the state portal.

Kentucky forms an LLC on Articles of Organization filed through Kentucky Business One Stop for $40, the same online or by mail.

You create a Kentucky LLC by filing the Articles of Organization with the Secretary of State through the Kentucky Business One Stop portal for a $40 fee, identical online or by mail, naming the company and a registered agent with a Kentucky address. There is no publication requirement and no minimum tax at formation, so $40 is effectively the full cost of standing the entity up, which makes Kentucky one of the least expensive states to form in.

The $15 report and the June 30 deadline

The recurring report is small and cheap, with one hard date.

Kentucky requires a $15 annual report due between January 1 and June 30, and missing June 30 leads to administrative dissolution.

Every Kentucky LLC files an annual report with the Secretary of State, $15, in a window that opens January 1 and closes June 30. The deadline is firm: an LLC that misses it heads toward administrative dissolution, which ends the good standing the liability shield depends on, and that matters especially in Kentucky, where the single-member charging-order gap on the protection page already leaves a sole owner exposed and a dissolved entity is weaker still. The report itself is a formality, but the date is not, so June 30 belongs on the calendar every year.

The tax return that is not optional

Here is the compliance point most Kentucky owners miss.

The LLET return goes to the Department of Revenue, separate from the annual report, and even a federally disregarded single-member LLC has to file it.

Kentucky’s Limited Liability Entity Tax, covered on the structure and cost page, is filed on Form 725 with the Department of Revenue, a different agency from the Secretary of State that receives the annual report. The obligation does not depend on federal tax treatment: a single-member LLC that is a disregarded entity for the IRS still files the Kentucky LLET return, and owes at least the $175 minimum once it is over the gross-receipts threshold. So a Kentucky LLC has a two-agency compliance minimum, the Secretary of State for the report and the Department of Revenue for the LLET, and an owner who files the $15 report and assumes he is done has missed half of it. The other common surprise is the county-clerk step for recording property, separate again. None of these is expensive, but they are separate, and treating the $40 formation and $15 report as the whole picture is the mistake.

Multiple entities and the missing series

Kentucky’s lack of a series LLC shapes the filing load.

Because Kentucky has no series LLC, each property held in a separate LLC is a separate filer with its own report and its own LLET return.

A series state lets one entity hold several properties and file once. Kentucky has no series statute, so an investor who wants each property insulated forms a separate LLC for each, and each is a separate filer with its own $15 annual report on the June 30 cycle and its own LLET return with the Department of Revenue. The per-entity cost is low, but the number of filings scales with the number of entities, across two agencies, so a Kentucky multi-property structure needs a calendar that tracks both the June 30 report and the tax filing for every LLC. That discipline also serves the protection goal, because the veil concerns on the protection page reward entities that are genuinely maintained rather than left to lapse.

The bottom line

A Kentucky LLC forms on Articles of Organization filed through Kentucky Business One Stop for $40, with a Kentucky-address registered agent, among the cheapest formations anywhere.

The recurring report is $15, due between January 1 and June 30, and missing June 30 leads to administrative dissolution and a weakened shield.

The LLET return is filed separately with the Department of Revenue, even by a disregarded single-member LLC, so Kentucky has a two-agency compliance minimum.

The cheap $40 and $15 fees are only the Secretary of State’s part; the tax filing and the county-clerk recording step are the two most common Kentucky surprises.

Because Kentucky has no series LLC, a multi-property plan is several separate LLCs, each with its own report and LLET return across two agencies.

What this page does not cover

This page is about fees, forms, and deadlines. How creditors reach a member’s interest, the foreclosable charging order, and the single-member gap are on the protection page. What Kentucky’s law lets your operating agreement do, and the duties it will not soften without a writing, are on the governance page. Kentucky’s flat income tax, the entity-level LLET, the local net-profits taxes, and the lack of a series LLC are on the structure and cost page.

Last verified August 2026.