New Hampshire LLC filing: $100 to form, $100 by April 1, and a business-tax return even a one-owner LLC may owe

Every figure on this page comes from the New Hampshire Secretary of State and the Department of Revenue Administration, not an aggregator. At the Secretary of State, New Hampshire is simple and cheap: $100 to form the LLC and a $100 annual report due April 1. But the front-counter fees are not the whole compliance picture, because a profitable New Hampshire LLC also files a business-tax return with a different agency, and it files that return even if the IRS treats the company as invisible. The two things that catch New Hampshire owners are the April 1 deadline and the business-tax filing that the state’s tax-free reputation obscures.

Forming the company

Formation is a single cheap filing through the state portal.

New Hampshire forms an LLC on a Certificate of Formation filed with the Secretary of State through NH QuickStart for $100.

You create a New Hampshire LLC by filing the Certificate of Formation with the Secretary of State through the NH QuickStart portal for a $100 fee, naming the company and a registered agent with a New Hampshire address. There is no publication requirement and no minimum tax at formation, so $100 is effectively the full cost of standing the entity up.

The $100 report and the April 1 deadline

The recurring report is cheap, with one firm date.

New Hampshire requires a $100 annual report due between January 1 and April 1, with a $50 late fee and administrative dissolution for a prolonged miss.

Under RSA 304-C:191, every New Hampshire LLC files an annual report with the Secretary of State, $100, in a window that opens January 1 and closes April 1. Miss April 1 and a $50 late fee applies, and a continued failure leads to administrative dissolution, which ends the good standing the liability shield depends on. That matters especially in New Hampshire, where the statutory single-member weakness on the protection page already leaves a sole owner exposed and a dissolved entity is weaker still. The report is a quick filing, but the April 1 date belongs on the calendar every year.

The tax return the reputation hides

Here is the compliance point New Hampshire owners miss most.

A profitable New Hampshire LLC files the Business Profits and Enterprise taxes with the Department of Revenue, even a single-member LLC the IRS disregards, once it passes the threshold.

New Hampshire’s Business Profits Tax and Business Enterprise Tax, covered on the structure and cost page, are filed on the BT-Summary return with the Department of Revenue Administration, a different agency from the Secretary of State that receives the annual report. The obligation does not depend on federal tax treatment: New Hampshire taxes the business organization, so a single-member LLC that is a disregarded entity for the IRS still files the business-tax return once its gross receipts pass the roughly $298,000 threshold. So a profitable New Hampshire LLC has a two-agency compliance minimum, the Secretary of State for the report and the Department of Revenue for the business taxes, and an owner who files the $100 report and assumes he is done in a “no income tax” state has missed the return that actually carries the tax. A smaller LLC below the threshold files no business-tax return, which is part of why New Hampshire feels tax-free at small scale and does not at larger scale.

Multiple entities and the missing series

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

Because New Hampshire has no series LLC, each property held in a separate LLC is a separate filer with its own report and its own business-tax exposure.

A series state lets one entity hold several properties and file once. New Hampshire 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 $100 annual report on the April 1 cycle and its own business-tax analysis with the Department of Revenue. The per-entity cost at the Secretary of State is low, but the filings scale with the number of entities across two agencies, so a New Hampshire multi-property structure needs a calendar that tracks both the April 1 report and the tax filing for every LLC that clears the threshold. That discipline also serves the protection goal, because the statutory single-member weakness rewards entities that are genuinely maintained and genuinely multi-member.

The bottom line

A New Hampshire LLC forms on a Certificate of Formation filed through NH QuickStart for $100, with a New Hampshire-address registered agent.

The annual report is $100, due between January 1 and April 1, with a $50 late fee and administrative dissolution for a prolonged miss.

A profitable LLC files the Business Profits and Enterprise taxes with the Department of Revenue, even a disregarded single-member LLC, once past the roughly $298,000 threshold.

The cheap $100 fees are only the Secretary of State’s part; the business-tax return is the filing the “no income tax” reputation obscures, and it lives at a different agency.

Because New Hampshire has no series LLC, a multi-property plan is several separate LLCs, each with its own report and its own business-tax exposure 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 statutory single-member weakness, and the homestead are on the protection page. The freedom-of-contract act and the broad power to exculpate managers are on the governance page. New Hampshire’s business profits and enterprise taxes, the meals and rentals tax, and the transfer tax are on the structure and cost page.

Last verified August 2026.