North Dakota LLC filing: $135 to form, $50 a year, and a different report deadline if you farm

Every figure on this page comes from the North Dakota Secretary of State and the Office of State Tax Commissioner, not an aggregator. North Dakota’s filing is inexpensive and ordinary: $135 to form and a $50 annual report. The detail worth noticing is the report deadline, because North Dakota uses two of them. Business and professional LLCs file by November 15, but farming and ranching LLCs file by April 15. That is not a quirk of scheduling. It is the visible tip of a bigger distinction, because a farming or ranching LLC is a separate regulated category with its own ownership rules, and the different deadline is a signal that the state is tracking those companies differently.

Forming the company

Formation is a single online filing.

North Dakota forms an LLC on Articles of Organization filed through the Secretary of State’s FirstStop portal for $135.

You create a North Dakota LLC by filing the Articles of Organization through the Secretary of State’s FirstStop portal for $135, naming the company and a registered agent with a North Dakota address. There is no publication requirement, so $135 is the full cost of forming, and the recurring cost is modest.

North Dakota’s annual report is $50, and missing it leads to administrative dissolution.

Every North Dakota LLC files a $50 annual report with the Secretary of State, with the first one due the calendar year after formation, and letting it lapse leads to administrative dissolution, which ends the good standing the liability shield on the protection page depends on. The fee is low, but the deadline depends on what kind of LLC you have.

Two deadlines, and what they signal

Here is the North Dakota-specific point.

Business LLCs report by November 15, but farming and ranching LLCs report by April 15, which flags them as a separate regulated category.

North Dakota sets the annual report deadline at November 15 for business and professional LLCs, but at April 15 for farming and ranching LLCs. The earlier deadline for farm entities is not an accident of the calendar; it reflects that a farming or ranching LLC is a distinct category the state regulates more closely, as the governance page explains, with a cap of 15 members, citizenship and residency requirements, and a farm-income test. So the deadline difference is a practical flag: if your LLC holds North Dakota agricultural land, you are in the regulated category, your report is due in April rather than November, and the same classification that changes your deadline also constrains who can own the company and what it can do. An investor who forms a farmland LLC and files on the November business schedule has missed more than a date; they have likely missed that their entity is regulated as a farm company at all. For a business or residential LLC, none of that applies, and the November 15 report at $50 is the whole ongoing obligation, with no franchise tax on top.

The bottom line

A North Dakota LLC forms on Articles of Organization filed through the FirstStop portal for $135, with a North Dakota-address registered agent.

The annual report is $50, and missing it leads to administrative dissolution.

Business and professional LLCs report by November 15, but farming and ranching LLCs report by April 15.

The earlier farm deadline is not arbitrary; it flags that a farming or ranching LLC is a separate regulated category with its own ownership rules.

For a business or residential LLC, the November 15 report at $50 is the whole ongoing obligation, with no franchise tax.

What this page does not cover

This page is about fees, forms, and deadlines. How creditors reach a member’s interest, the homestead, and the farmland-protection collision are on the protection page. The uniform act’s fiduciary floor and the farming-LLC ownership limits are on the governance page. North Dakota’s very low income tax, the absence of a transfer tax, and the farmland restriction are on the structure and cost page.

Last verified August 2026.