Louisiana LLC filing: $100 to form, $35 a year, and a two-strike rule that dissolves the company on the second miss

Every figure on this page comes from the Louisiana Secretary of State, not an aggregator. Louisiana’s filings are inexpensive: $100 to form the LLC and a $35 annual report to keep it in good standing, and with the corporate franchise tax repealed for 2026, the annual report is now the only recurring state cost. The feature to understand is not the price; it is the deadline rule. Louisiana does not dissolve an LLC the first time it misses an annual report. It dissolves on the second consecutive miss. That two-strike structure sounds forgiving, and owners treat it that way, which is exactly why the second miss catches them: administrative dissolution ends the company’s good standing and, with it, the liability shield the entity exists to provide.

Forming the company

Formation is a single filing through the state’s business portal.

Louisiana forms an LLC on Articles of Organization filed with the Secretary of State through the GeauxBIZ portal for $100.

You create a Louisiana LLC by filing the Articles of Organization with the Secretary of State through the GeauxBIZ portal for a $100 fee, plus a small credit-card convenience charge, and an initial report identifying the registered agent and the members or managers is filed with the articles. Louisiana requires a registered agent with a physical Louisiana address. There is no publication requirement and no minimum tax at formation, so the filing fee is effectively the full cost of standing the entity up. The management structure chosen in the articles, member-managed or manager-managed, sets who owes the fiduciary duties covered on the governance page, so it should match the operating agreement.

The $35 report, and the only recurring cost

The ongoing obligation is a single modest filing, now that the franchise tax is gone.

Louisiana requires a $35 annual report on the anniversary of formation, and with the franchise tax repealed it is the only recurring state cost.

Every Louisiana LLC files an annual report with the Secretary of State, $35 online or $30 by mail, due on the anniversary of the date the LLC was formed. Because the deadline is tied to each entity’s own anniversary rather than a single statewide date, an owner with several LLCs has several dates to track. With the corporate franchise tax repealed for periods beginning in 2026, covered on the structure and cost page, the annual report is the entire recurring state cost of a Louisiana LLC, which makes the state inexpensive to hold entities in, especially a multi-entity structure that a series state would consolidate but Louisiana cannot.

The two-strike rule

Here is the Louisiana-specific trap, and it turns on how many misses it takes.

Louisiana dissolves an LLC administratively after two consecutive missed annual reports, not after one, and the second miss is the one that ends the shield.

Louisiana does not administratively dissolve an LLC for a single missed annual report the way some states dissolve after one lapse or a fixed grace period. It dissolves after two consecutive misses. The practical danger is that the one-year grace reads as leniency, so an owner who misses the first report assumes there is time and misses the second, and the second miss triggers administrative dissolution. A dissolved LLC has lost its good standing, and with it the reliability of the liability shield, which matters especially in Louisiana because the protections that make the state attractive, the single-member charging-order result and the affiliate-separateness law on the protection page, all assume an entity in good standing. Reinstatement is available and restores the company, but the exposure that arose during the dissolved period is not always cleanly erased, so the two-strike rule is best treated as a single deadline that matters, not a free pass on the first year.

Multiple entities and the no-series reality

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

Because Louisiana has no series LLC, each property held in a separate LLC is a separate filer with its own $35 report and its own anniversary date.

A series state lets one entity hold several properties and file once. Louisiana has no series statute, so an investor who wants each property insulated forms a separate LLC for each, and each is a separate filer owing its own $35 annual report on its own anniversary. That is a light per-entity cost, lighter now that no franchise tax rides on top, but it is several deadlines rather than one, and each entity is independently subject to the two-strike dissolution rule. A Louisiana multi-property structure is inexpensive to maintain and, after the 2024 affiliate-protection law, structurally sound, but it requires calendaring every entity’s anniversary so none of them drifts into a second consecutive miss.

The bottom line

A Louisiana LLC forms on Articles of Organization filed through the GeauxBIZ portal for $100, with a Louisiana-address registered agent and an initial report filed with the articles.

The recurring obligation is a $35 annual report on the anniversary of formation, and with the franchise tax repealed for 2026 it is the only recurring state cost.

Louisiana dissolves an LLC administratively only after two consecutive missed reports, so the second miss, not the first, is the one that ends the shield.

A dissolved LLC loses the good standing that the state’s charging-order and affiliate protections depend on, so the two-strike rule should be treated as a real deadline, not a free pass.

Because Louisiana has no series LLC, a multi-property plan is several separate LLCs, each with its own $35 report and anniversary, each independently subject to the two-strike rule.

What this page does not cover

This page is about fees, forms, and deadlines. How creditors reach a member’s interest, the charging order a court made exclusive, and the 2024 law that protected affiliated companies are on the protection page. What Louisiana’s civil-law fiduciary duties require, and how self-dealing is judged, is on the governance page. Louisiana’s flat income tax, the repealed franchise tax, the community-property treatment of an LLC interest, and the lack of a series LLC are on the structure and cost page.

Last verified August 2026.