Nevada LLC structure and cost: the tax haven that is neither cheap nor private

Nevada is sold as a cheap and private place to hold an LLC. It is the most expensive of the strong states to keep one, and it puts your managers on a public list every year. The no-income-tax promise is real, with an asterisk for large businesses and a separate tax on the deed when you move real estate into the company.

None of that means Nevada is a bad choice. It means the reasons to choose it are the trust and the charging order on the protection page, not the cost and the privacy the marketing leads with. This page is the honest ledger.

Nevada is the most expensive of the strong states to hold an LLC, and the least private.

Where the entity actually lives

A Nevada LLC has a birthplace and a residence, and the where your LLC lives doctrine decides which one controls what.

Form in Nevada and operate in California, and California still registers you, taxes you, and hears the lawsuit.

Nevada governs the internal affairs, the operating-agreement questions on the governance page. Where you actually do business governs almost everything else, including tax and the courtroom. Own a California rental through a Nevada LLC and California requires the company to register there, pays itself its own fees, and hears any lawsuit, while Nevada’s protections wait behind a state line the fight will not cross. The sound Nevada plan is a holding company that owns and does nothing else, or a genuine Nevada business, not an out-of-state operation wearing a Nevada address.

The real annual cost

Nevada’s reputation for low cost comes from having no income tax. The recurring filing cost tells a different story.

Nevada costs $425 to form and $350 a year, before a registered agent, where Wyoming costs $100 and $60.

Forming a Nevada LLC takes three simultaneous filings totaling $425: the articles of organization, an initial list of managers, and a state business license. Every year after, the LLC owes a $150 annual list and a $200 business license renewal, $350 in recurring state cost before you pay a registered agent. Wyoming’s comparable numbers are $100 to form and a $60 minimum per year. Nevada can still beat California’s $800, but the “cheaper than everywhere” pitch does not survive the fee schedule. The full breakdown is on the filing page.

Privacy is weaker than the pitch

Nevada markets anonymity. Its own annual filing works against it.

Nevada puts your managers on a public list every year; the real privacy tool here is the trust, not the LLC.

NRS 86.263 requires a public annual list naming the LLC’s managers, or its managing members if it is member-managed, with their addresses. A manager-managed structure can keep passive, non-manager members off the public record, but the people in control are disclosed every year. Wyoming, by contrast, requires no member or manager list at all. If privacy is the goal, Nevada’s LLC is the wrong layer to rely on, and the Nevada asset protection trust is the right one. The anonymous LLC page covers the general limits.

No income tax, with two asterisks

Nevada’s constitution bars a personal income tax, and there is no corporate income tax and no franchise tax. Two things qualify the headline.

Nevada’s no-income-tax promise holds until your Nevada revenue passes $4 million.

The first asterisk is the Commerce Tax, a gross-receipts tax that applies only to a business with more than $4,000,000 of Nevada gross revenue in a fiscal year. Below that threshold, most small businesses owe nothing and file nothing for it. The second asterisk is the one that surprises real estate owners, and it is a real difference from Wyoming.

Nevada takes no income tax and then taxes the deed when you move real estate into your own LLC.

Nevada imposes a real property transfer tax under NRS 375, collected by the county when a deed is recorded. The base rate is $1.95 per $500 of value, and Clark County adds $0.60 to reach $2.55 per $500, so a $1,000,000 property transferred in Las Vegas carries roughly $5,100 of tax. Wyoming has no such tax at all.

Here is the part that decides real deals. NRS 375.090 exempts “a mere change in identity, form or place of organization,” including a transfer to an entity with identical common ownership. So contributing your property into a Nevada LLC you already own, with the same ownership on both sides, is exempt, and a straight contribution costs nothing but the affidavit. The catch is written into the same statute: the exemption is denied if the entity was formed for the purpose of avoiding the tax, and a Model 1 affidavit has to state the real purpose of the transfer and confirm it is not a disguised sale. So the line is ownership. Move property into an entity you already own and nothing changes hands, and it is free. Restructure in a way that shifts who owns the property, and Nevada taxes it at the county rate.

Series LLCs

Nevada authorizes series under NRS 86.296, and it is cheaper to create one here than in Wyoming.

Nevada builds a series with a stroke of the operating agreement and no filing fee, and no court has tested the walls.

A Nevada series can be created by adopting an operating agreement, with no separate filing and no per-series fee, where Wyoming charges $10 per series. The internal shield, one series’ debts reaching only that series’ assets, holds only if the articles or operating agreement provide for it and each series keeps separate records. As in every series state, the walls rest on statute and almost no case law. The series LLC page covers what you are actually buying.

Moving a company in or out

Nevada permits conversion, continuance, and domestication, so a company can enter or leave as the same legal entity, keeping its EIN and history. Two cautions carry over from the rest of the site: a clean legal conversion can still trip a change-of-control or assignment clause in the company’s own contracts, so read the paper first, and move while the sky is clear, because a change of states after a creditor appears reads as a fraudulent transfer. Nevada did not follow Wyoming into DAO-specific legislation, so its entity menu is the standard one.

The bottom line

Nevada charges no personal or corporate income tax, but the Commerce Tax reaches businesses above $4,000,000 in Nevada revenue.

Nevada does impose a real property transfer tax, $1.95 to $2.55 per $500 depending on county, where Wyoming imposes none.

A transfer of property into an entity you already own, with identical ownership, is exempt from that tax, but a restructuring that shifts ownership is taxed.

Nevada costs $425 to form and $350 a year, several times Wyoming’s cost, before a registered agent.

Nevada requires a public annual list of managers, so the LLC is not the privacy tool; the asset protection trust is.

Nevada authorizes series with no per-series fee, on the same untested walls as every series state.

What this page does not cover

This page is about where the entity lives, what it can be, and what it costs to hold. How creditors reach you, including the charging order and the asset protection trust, is on the protection page. What the statute lets your operating agreement do is on the governance page. The exact fees, forms, and deadlines behind everything named here are on the filing page.

Last verified July 2026.