South Carolina LLC filing: $110 once, then nothing, because a standard LLC files no annual report

Every figure on this page comes from the South Carolina Secretary of State and the Department of Revenue, not an aggregator. South Carolina is one of the least expensive states to keep an LLC alive, and the reason is unusual: a standard LLC files no annual report and pays no annual fee at all. You pay $110 to form the company, and then, for an LLC taxed as a partnership or disregarded, the state asks nothing further to keep it in good standing. That changes the math on holding several entities, and it comes with a quieter risk, because a company with no yearly deadline is a company nothing reminds you to maintain.

Forming the company

Formation is a single filing with the Secretary of State.

South Carolina forms an LLC on Articles of Organization filed with the Secretary of State for $110.

You create a South Carolina LLC by filing the Articles of Organization with the Secretary of State for a $110 fee, naming the company and a registered agent with a South Carolina address. There is no publication requirement and no minimum tax at formation, so $110 is effectively the full cost of standing the entity up.

The annual report that is not there

Here is the feature that sets South Carolina apart.

A standard South Carolina LLC files no annual report and pays no annual fee, so there is nothing recurring at the Secretary of State.

For an LLC taxed as a partnership or a disregarded entity, which is how most real estate LLCs are taxed, South Carolina requires no annual report and charges no annual fee to keep the company in good standing. That is genuinely rare; most states want a yearly report, a yearly fee, or both. It means the ongoing cost of a South Carolina LLC at the state level is essentially the registered agent and the informational tax return, and nothing else. The structuring consequence is one a multi-entity investor should notice.

Because there is no annual report, holding many separate LLCs is unusually cheap in South Carolina, which softens the lack of a series form.

In most states, a separate LLC for each property means a separate annual report and fee for each, and the compliance cost scales with the number of entities. South Carolina flips that: since a standard LLC files nothing yearly, a structure of ten separate LLCs carries no more recurring state filing than one, so the per-property LLC approach the structure and cost page describes, made necessary by the absence of a series LLC, costs little to maintain. For an investor who wants each property in its own entity for the protection reasons on the protection page, South Carolina makes that affordable.

The risk hidden in the absence of a deadline

The missing report is a convenience with a catch.

The absence of an annual report means nothing prompts you to keep the registered agent and taxes current, so the missing deadline is its own risk.

An annual report is a nuisance, but it is also a yearly touchpoint that forces an owner to confirm the registered agent is still in place, the address is current, and the company is still being maintained. South Carolina removes that prompt, and an LLC that no one thinks about for years can quietly lose its registered agent or fall behind on its tax filings, problems that surface at the worst moment, when the entity is needed. And the no-report rule is not universal within South Carolina.

An LLC that elects to be taxed as a corporation does file an annual report and pay the corporate license fee, so the exemption depends on tax classification.

An LLC that elects C-corporation or S-corporation treatment is treated like a corporation for state filing: it files an annual report with the Department of Revenue and pays the corporate license fee, a small amount tied to capital and paid-in surplus. So the “no annual report” rule that makes South Carolina cheap applies to the standard partnership or disregarded LLC, and an owner who elects corporate tax treatment, often to run payroll and take distributions, takes on the annual filing that the standard LLC avoids. The lesson is to know your tax classification, because in South Carolina it decides whether you have an annual filing at all.

The bottom line

A South Carolina LLC forms on Articles of Organization filed with the Secretary of State for $110, with a South Carolina-address registered agent.

A standard partnership or disregarded LLC files no annual report and pays no annual fee, so there is nothing recurring at the Secretary of State.

Because there is no annual report, holding many separate LLCs is unusually cheap, which softens the lack of a series LLC.

The absence of a yearly deadline is its own risk, because nothing prompts an owner to keep the registered agent and taxes current.

An LLC taxed as a corporation does file an annual report and pay the license fee, so the exemption depends on tax classification.

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 missing entireties are on the protection page. The 1996 act’s at-will and term distinction, the buyout a departing member can force, and the duties the operating agreement cannot waive are on the governance page. South Carolina’s 2026 tax reform, the 44% capital gains exclusion, and the lack of a series LLC are on the structure and cost page.

Last verified August 2026.