What registering a foreign LLC in Washington costs

The state fees, in one table

The Secretary of State publishes every LLC fee in one schedule. The registration itself is $180 in addition to an online processing charge, and the table below is that schedule, line by line, with the foreign LLC's year mapped onto it.

Nothing on the list is a guess. Every figure is the office's own published fee for limited liability companies, checked on the date shown on each row's source, and the optional rows are marked as optional because the schedule prices them as services, not requirements.

The one fee this table cannot carry is the certificate from your home state, because each state sets its own. Order it the week you start, and add its price to the first-year column by hand.

$180The Secretary of State's LLC fee schedule lists original filings at $180, annual reports at $70 or $95 delinquent, amendments and reservations at $30, and reinstatement at $140 plus missed reports. — Washington Secretary of State, retrieved 2026-09-29

The first year, added up

The unavoidable first-year state total is $180 plus the online processing charge and the certificate of existence from your home state. That is the whole mandatory bill from the Secretary of State.

The second line of the first year depends on timing. An annual report is due by the last day of the month in which you registered, so a registration in January faces its first $70 eleven months later, and one in December faces it the following month.

A full first year, then, is $250 in state fees: $180 to register and $70 for the first annual report, plus the home-state certificate and the processing charge. Add $100 if the three-working-day expedite matters to a start date.

$250 first yearA foreign LLC registering in Washington pays $180 plus an online processing fee, then $70 for its first annual report due by the last day of its registration month. — Washington Secretary of State, retrieved 2026-09-29

The certificate of existence from home

The registration must attach a certificate of existence, or good standing, from the LLC's home jurisdiction, issued no more than 60 days before the submission. It is the one cost in the stack the Washington schedule does not set.

Order a second one if the first goes stale. A certificate that misses the 60-day window sends the whole filing back for correction, and the wait restarts from the front of the queue, so a reissued certificate is cheaper than a refiled registration.

If your LLC ever needs Washington to certify its own registration, that certificate is $20 under the same schedule. The LLC will need exactly that document if it later expands into a third state, which is how the certificate line item becomes a permanent line item on every expansion after this one.

60 daysThe Foreign Registration Statement requires a certificate of existence from the home jurisdiction issued within 60 days of submission, or the filing is returned. — Washington Secretary of State, retrieved 2026-09-29

$20The Secretary of State's fee schedule lists a certificate of existence or good standing at $20. — Washington Secretary of State, retrieved 2026-09-29

The years after, and the free part most people miss

The steady state is one $70 annual report a year. That is the whole recurring Secretary of State cost of keeping a registered foreign LLC, provided the report is on time.

The schedule's no-fee lines are worth reading twice. A change of registered agent or office is free, a resignation is free, and a statement of withdrawal, the filing that ends the registration entirely, is free. Moving an agent or ending the registration costs nothing but the attention.

The expensive years are the missed ones. A late report costs $95 instead of $70, delinquency can end in administrative dissolution, and reinstatement is published at $140 plus every missed annual report fee. The repair costs multiples of the filing it repairs.

no feeUnder the Secretary of State's fee schedule, statements of withdrawal, changes of registered agent or office, and agent resignations each carry no fee. — Washington Secretary of State, retrieved 2026-09-29

The filings that are not Secretary of State filings

Two more costs arrive outside the schedule above, and both can be larger than the registration. The first is the business and occupation tax, which can attach on gross receipts over one hundred thousand dollars from Washington or on physical presence that need only be more than a slightest presence.

The second is the business license itself. Registering with the Secretary of State is a prerequisite, not a substitute: the Department of Revenue requires an LLC to file with the Secretary of State before the Business License Application, and city endorsements add their own fees on top of the processing charge.

A third cost, the trade registration, depends entirely on the work. An electrical contracting LLC stacks a license with a $4,000 bond on top of the corporate filing, while a house-cleaning LLC stacks nothing but the city license. The B&O page and the trade pages carry those numbers, and the services page prices the option of paying someone else for the typing.

The Department of Revenue requires an LLC to file with the Secretary of State before filing the Business License Application, which assigns the UBI number. — Washington Department of Revenue, retrieved 2026-09-29

$100,000RCW 82.04.067 gives an out-of-state business entity substantial nexus with Washington on over $100,000 of Washington gross receipts, or on physical presence. — Washington State Legislature, Revised Code of Washington, retrieved 2026-09-29

The budget that survives contact

Plan the expansion on three lines, not one. Line one is the Secretary of State: $250 in the first year, $70 a year after, plus the home-state certificate and the online processing charge.

Line two is the tax registration and the city, which starts at the business license processing fee and climbs with endorsements. Line three is the trade, which is zero for some trades and a bond and an insurance policy for others.

What no line of the budget can absorb is a missed annual report, because the repair, $95 late or $140 plus every missed report on reinstatement, exceeds the filing it replaces. The annual report guide fixes the calendar, and the expansion checklist fixes the order of everything else.

$140Washington annual reports for a foreign LLC are due by the last day of the registration month, at $70, or $95 delinquent, with reinstatement at $140 plus missed reports. — Washington Secretary of State, retrieved 2026-09-29

Questions