Arizona LLC filing: a $50 formation, no annual report ever, and a newspaper notice most owners forget

Every figure on this page comes from the Arizona Corporation Commission and the Arizona Limited Liability Company Act. Not from an aggregator. Arizona is one of the cheapest states to form and maintain an LLC, with a genuine oddity that saves owners money and one that trips them up. The saving is that Arizona LLCs file no annual report, ever. The trap is a newspaper publication requirement with a 60-day clock that most owners outside the two big counties do not expect. Two things also worth stating up front: Arizona uses the Corporation Commission, not a Secretary of State, and it calls the registered agent a statutory agent.

Forming the company

Formation is a single filing with one of the lowest fees in the country.

Arizona forms an LLC on Articles of Organization filed with the Corporation Commission for $50, not with a Secretary of State.

You create an Arizona LLC by filing the Articles of Organization with the Arizona Corporation Commission, online through its portal or by mail, under A.R.S. § 29-3201. The fee is $50, with expedited and rush tiers available for more. The articles must name a statutory agent with a physical Arizona street address, and they must disclose ownership: every member if the LLC is member-managed, or the managers plus any 20%-or-greater member if it is manager-managed, which is the ownership-disclosure point covered on the structure and cost page. Foreign LLCs registering to do business in Arizona pay a higher fee. Do not confuse the Corporation Commission with a Secretary of State; in Arizona, business entities are the Commission’s domain.

The annual report Arizona does not have

Here is the part that makes Arizona cheap to keep.

Arizona LLCs file no annual report and pay no annual fee, one of the few states where formation is nearly the last thing you pay the state.

The Arizona Corporation Commission is explicit that LLCs are not required to file annual reports; only corporations are. There is no annual statement, no annual fee, and no franchise tax. Once the LLC is formed and its publication is handled, the only ongoing state obligation is to keep a valid statutory agent on file, and losing that agent for 60 days is what puts the LLC at risk of administrative dissolution. This is a real and unusual advantage. Owners coming from states with a yearly report and fee often keep looking for the Arizona equivalent and do not find one, because there is none.

The publication requirement, and the 60-day clock

Now the trap, and it is the one Arizona-specific filing step that catches people.

Most Arizona LLCs must publish a formation notice in a newspaper within 60 days, unless the statutory agent sits in Maricopa or Pima County.

Under A.R.S. § 29-3201, within 60 days after the Commission files your articles, you must publish a notice of the filing in a newspaper of general circulation in the county of your statutory agent’s address, for three consecutive publications. The exception is the one that covers most of the state’s population: if the statutory agent’s street address is in a county with more than 800,000 people, which today means Maricopa County, home to Phoenix, and Pima County, home to Tucson, the Commission posts the notice to its own database and no newspaper publication is required. So an LLC run out of Phoenix or Tucson never thinks about publication, while an LLC anywhere else in the state has a 60-day deadline, a newspaper cost, and an affidavit of publication to keep. The practical advice is to handle it in week one, not week nine, and to weigh the statutory agent’s county when you form, because the choice of county is what decides whether you publish at all.

What you pay the state over time

The recurring cost of an Arizona LLC is close to nothing.

The recurring state cost of an Arizona LLC is effectively zero, because there is no annual report and no franchise tax.

After formation and publication, Arizona charges an LLC no annual report fee and no franchise tax. Income tax flows through to the members at Arizona’s flat 2.5% rate, with the corporate income tax reaching only LLCs that elected C-corporation treatment, and the state tax overlay, including the elective pass-through entity tax and the Transaction Privilege Tax on sales, is on the structure and cost page. If the LLC falls out of good standing, reinstatement is a modest fee plus curing whatever caused the lapse, most often a missing statutory agent.

Why the sourcing matters

One discipline runs under this page, and it is a large part of what this site is for.

A filing figure several websites agree on can be several copies of one stale number, which is why every figure here traces to the Commission or the Act.

The Arizona homestead exemption is the cautionary example on the site right now: for years the correct figure was $250,000, and countless pages still publish it, even though voters raised it to $400,000 and indexed it in 2022. Filing fees and rules drift the same way. Every figure on this page is dated, comes from the Arizona Corporation Commission or the LLC Act, and carries the verification date below. When a fee or a rule changes, the fix is to read the Commission’s own schedule again, not to average what the aggregators say.

The bottom line

An Arizona LLC forms on Articles of Organization filed with the Corporation Commission, not a Secretary of State, for $50.

Arizona LLCs file no annual report and pay no annual fee, one of the few states where nearly nothing is due after formation.

Most Arizona LLCs must publish a formation notice in a newspaper within 60 days, unless the statutory agent is in Maricopa or Pima County, where the Commission handles it.

The only ongoing state obligation is maintaining a statutory agent, and losing that agent for 60 days risks administrative dissolution.

There is no franchise tax, so the recurring state cost is effectively zero, with income taxed to the members at a flat 2.5%.

What this page does not cover

This page is about fees, forms, and deadlines. How creditors reach a member’s interest, the exclusive-remedy charging order, and the community-property shield are on the protection page. The default governance rules and the fiduciary duties you can eliminate are on the governance page. Where the entity lives, the missing series LLC, and the absence of any transfer tax are on the structure and cost page.

Last verified August 2026.