Maryland LLC filing: $100 to form, then $300 a year for every LLC, whether it did anything or not

Every figure on this page comes from the Maryland State Department of Assessments and Taxation, not an aggregator. Maryland’s formation cost is ordinary, $100 to file, but its ongoing cost is not. Every Maryland LLC owes a flat $300 annual report each year, due April 15, whether the company earned a dollar or sat idle. There is no franchise tax, so that $300 is the recurring state cost of keeping the entity alive, and it is one of the higher annual fees in the country. The number matters more than it looks, because Maryland has no series LLC, so an asset-protection plan that puts each property in its own entity pays the $300 once per entity, and the fee scales with the structure.

Forming the company

Formation is a single filing with the state’s assessment agency, not a Secretary of State.

Maryland forms an LLC on Articles of Organization filed with the State Department of Assessments and Taxation for $100, with expedited service for $50 more.

You create a Maryland LLC by filing the Articles of Organization with the State Department of Assessments and Taxation, known as SDAT, for a $100 fee, with expedited same-day service available for an additional $50 and a small processing surcharge on online payments. Business entities file with SDAT rather than a Secretary of State, which is where people from other states look first and come up empty. The articles name the company, its resident agent, and the management structure, member-managed or manager-managed. Maryland requires the resident agent to be an individual Maryland resident or a Maryland-authorized entity with a physical in-state address. Confirm the current fee at SDAT before filing, because online and expedited options change the total.

The $300 report every LLC owes

Here is the feature that defines Maryland’s ongoing cost.

Every Maryland LLC files a $300 annual report by April 15, regardless of income or activity, and it doubles as the personal property return.

Under SDAT’s rules, every Maryland LLC must file an annual report, Form 1, by April 15 each year, with a $300 filing fee, and the same form serves as the business personal property return. The obligation does not depend on revenue, profit, or activity: a dormant LLC that holds a single parcel and does nothing else still owes the $300. A 60-day extension to June 15 is available if requested by the deadline, and qualifying employers who enroll in the state’s retirement-savings program can have the fee waived, but for most LLCs the $300 is simply due. That is a meaningfully higher recurring cost than a biennial-report state like Indiana or a no-report state like Missouri, and it is the number to build into any Maryland plan.

Why the fee scales with the structure

The annual fee interacts with a structural fact from the other pages, and the interaction is expensive.

Because Maryland has no series LLC, a multi-property plan needs a separate LLC for each property, and each separate LLC owes its own $300 annual report.

In a state with a series LLC, one entity can hold many properties in walled-off series and file one report. Maryland has no series statute, covered on the structure and cost page, so an investor who wants each property insulated has to form a separate LLC for each one. Every one of those LLCs is a separate filer that owes its own $300 annual report every April 15. A ten-property portfolio held the safe way, one property per LLC, is $3,000 a year in annual reports alone, before registered-agent fees and tax filings. That is the real cost of Maryland’s combination of a high flat fee and no series option, and it is a reason some Maryland investors form their holding entities in a state with a series statute or a lower annual fee and qualify into Maryland only where the property requires it. The trade-off between that approach and the simplicity of forming where the property sits is on the nexus and foreign qualification guide.

What a missed report costs

The consequence of skipping the report reaches past the late fee to the shield itself.

A missed Maryland annual report leads to forfeiture of the LLC’s good standing, and the back reports and penalties stack until it is reinstated.

If the $300 report goes unfiled, SDAT charges a penalty and, if it stays unpaid, forfeits the LLC’s charter, which ends its good standing. A forfeited LLC has lost the standing its liability shield depends on, and reinstatement requires paying the missed reports, which stack at $300 per year, plus penalties and a reinstatement filing fee, before the state will restore the entity. So the cost of forgetting April 15 is not a single late fee; it compounds each year the lapse continues and, while it lasts, leaves the company outside the good standing that makes the shield reliable. The protection page covers why an entity out of good standing is a weak place to be when a creditor comes. Keeping the report current is the cheapest insurance a Maryland LLC buys.

The bottom line

A Maryland LLC forms on Articles of Organization filed with SDAT for $100, with expedited service for $50 more, and a Maryland-address resident agent is required.

Every Maryland LLC owes a flat $300 annual report by April 15, regardless of income or activity, and it doubles as the personal property return.

There is no franchise tax, so the $300 report is the recurring state cost, higher than a biennial or no-report state.

Because Maryland has no series LLC, a multi-property plan needs one LLC per property and pays $300 per LLC per year, so the fee scales with the structure.

A missed report forfeits the LLC’s good standing, and back reports and penalties stack until reinstatement, which is why keeping the April 15 filing current matters.

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 strong veil are on the protection page. What Maryland’s law lets your operating agreement do, and the duties the statute leaves to common law, are on the governance page. Maryland’s high income and capital-gains taxes, the transfer taxes on moving property, and the absence of a series LLC are on the structure and cost page.

Last verified August 2026.