West Virginia LLC filing: $100 to form, free for veterans, and a $25 report due every July 1

Every figure on this page comes from the West Virginia Secretary of State and the Tax Division, not an aggregator. West Virginia’s filing is cheap and simple: $100 to form, free for veteran-owned businesses, and a $25 annual report due every July 1. There is no publication requirement and no franchise tax. The point worth holding onto is that the low cost reflects what kind of state West Virginia is: a light-touch, inexpensive one, not a protective one. As the protection page explains, West Virginia’s homestead and charging-order protections are thin, so the easy, cheap filing should not be mistaken for a strong entity. In West Virginia, the protection comes from insurance and structure, not from the paperwork.

Forming the company

Formation is a single, inexpensive filing.

West Virginia forms an LLC on Articles of Organization filed with the Secretary of State for $100, waived for veterans.

You create a West Virginia LLC by filing the Articles of Organization with the Secretary of State for $100, naming the company and a registered agent with a West Virginia address. West Virginia waives the formation fee entirely for qualifying veteran-owned businesses, which is a genuine benefit not every state offers. There is no publication requirement, so the filing fee is the full cost of forming.

West Virginia requires a $25 annual report due by July 1, and missing it leads to administrative dissolution.

Every West Virginia LLC files an annual report with the Secretary of State for $25, due by July 1 each year, and letting it lapse leads to administrative dissolution, which ends the good standing the liability shield depends on. The fee is small and the deadline is fixed, so it belongs on the calendar. There is no franchise tax to add on top, and no series to complicate the picture.

Because West Virginia has no series LLC, each property held separately is its own LLC with its own $25 report.

West Virginia has no series statute, covered on the structure and cost page, so an investor who wants each property insulated forms a separate LLC for each, and each files its own $100 formation, or free for a veteran, and its own $25 July 1 report. The state-level cost of running several West Virginia LLCs is low, but each entity is separately exposed to any municipal business and occupation tax where its property sits, so the meaningful cost differences among West Virginia properties come from location and from the protection they do or do not actually provide, not from the modest filing fees. The consistent point across the West Virginia pages is that the state makes it cheap and easy to form an entity while giving that entity comparatively weak protection, so the filing is the simple part and the real planning is in insurance and structure.

The bottom line

A West Virginia LLC forms on Articles of Organization filed with the Secretary of State for $100, waived for qualifying veteran-owned businesses.

The annual report is $25, due July 1 each year, and missing it leads to administrative dissolution.

There is no publication requirement and no franchise tax, so the filing is cheap and simple.

West Virginia has no series LLC, so each property is a separate LLC with its own report, each exposed to any local gross-receipts tax.

The low cost reflects a light-touch state, not a protective one, so the real protection work is done by insurance and structure, not the entity.

What this page does not cover

This page is about fees, forms, and deadlines. How creditors reach a member’s interest, the low homestead, and the missing entireties shield are on the protection page. The 1996 act’s at-will and term company distinction and its duty rules are on the governance page. West Virginia’s falling income tax, the municipal gross-receipts tax, and the lack of a series LLC are on the structure and cost page.

Last verified August 2026.