State of california LLC fees [Definitive Guide]

Last updated : Sept 7, 2022

What are the state fees for LLC in California?

Every LLC that is doing business or organized in California must pay an annual tax of $800. This yearly tax will be due, even if you are not conducting business, until you cancel your LLC.

Is the $800 LLC fee deductible for California?

If your LLC's gross receipts are $5,000,000 or more, the gross receipts fee is $11,790. Deductibility: The $800 franchise fee is not deductible on the LLC's California tax return. The gross receipts fee is deductible for California income tax purposes.

Why is California LLC fee so high?

Every business pays the $800 annual franchise tax, which is applied to taxes owed, but LLCs are the only ones subject to California Gross Receipts tax. This is one of the biggest reasons why a California LLC is so expensive.

Is LLC fee waived in California?

California LLCs don't pay an $800 fee for their 1st year (if the LLC is formed after January 1st, 2021).

How can I avoid $800 franchise tax?

The only way to avoid the annual $800 California franchise fee is to dissolve your company, file a 'final' income tax return with the FTB and to submit the necessary paperwork.

Is the $900 LLC fee deductible for California?

According to information provided by the California Tax Service Center, annual taxes are not considered to be deductible, but generally speaking, these limited liability fees are considered to be deductible as necessary and ordinary business expenses.

Is CA LLC fee waived first year?

A corporation that incorporates or qualifies to do business in California is exempt from paying the minimum franchise tax in its first taxable year. Business entities such as LLCs, LLPs, and LPs are subject to an $800 annual tax.

How do I pay the $800 franchise tax?

The state requires corporations to pay either $800 or the corporation's net income multiplied by its applicable corporate tax rate, whichever is larger. You may pay the tax online, by mail, or in person at the California Franchise Tax Board Field Offices.

How much can an LLC write off?

If you have $50,000 or less in startup costs and are in your first year of business, the IRS allows you to deduct $5,000 in startup costs and $5,000 in organization costs from your taxes. If your startup expenses exceed $50,000, the total deduction will be reduced by however much your expenses exceed $50,000.

How do I avoid LLC fees in California?

LLCs are not subject to the annual tax and fee if both of the following apply: They did not conduct any business in California during the taxable year; and. Their taxable year was 15 days or less. (refer to R&TC 17946 ).

Is an LLC worth it in California?

Is LLC Worth It in California? Having an LLC in California offers liability protection, which is worth the additional costs. In addition, an LLC protects all of your assets should your business get sued or be unable to pay its debts.

How often do you have to renew your LLC in California?

This form lets you do business under a name other than the one listed in your LLC's Articles of Organization. You must renew this statement every five years and you expect to pay a renewal fee.

Is LLC tax deductible in California?

You can deduct CA LLC Tax under Taxes and Licenses, from your Federal return but how do you omit these from your State return or does TT do that automatically for CA? The CA franchise tax would likely be deductible on your federal return if you itemized your deductions on Schedule A.

How much does an LLC cost?

You can file the LLC filing documents online, by mail, or in-person when visiting the local SOS office. The filing costs usually vary from $50 to $150 which is a single-time fee. If you plan to form your company in another state, then you might have to provide additional documentation and pay a higher formation fee.

How long does it take for an LLC to be approved in California?

Mail filings: In total, mail filing approvals for California LLCs take 2-3 weeks. This accounts for the 3-5 business day processing time, plus the time your documents are in the mail. Online filings: In total, online filing approvals for California LLCs take 3-5 business days.

Who is exempt from California Franchise Tax?

Under California law, taxpayers are exempt from the minimum franchise tax if they did not conduct business in the state during the taxable year and the taxable year was 15 days or less. An entity that qualifies under the 15-day rule does not count that period as its first tax year.

What happens if you don't pay California Franchise Tax?

The California Franchise Tax Board imposes a penalty if you do not pay the total amount due shown on your tax return by the original due date. The penalty is 5 percent of the unpaid tax (underpayment), plus 0.5 percent of the unpaid tax for each month or part of a month it remains unpaid (monthly).

Who must pay CA franchise tax?

Every corporation that is incorporated, registered, or doing business in California must pay the $800 minimum franchise tax.

Does a California LLC file a federal tax return?

LLCs are treated as disregarded entities by the federal government and are not taxed. The only taxes paid are by the members of the LLC. They can file using Form 1040 for single-member LLCs, IRS Form 1065 for LLCs treated as partnerships, or IRS Form 1120 for LLCs treated as corporations.

Does a single member LLC need to file a California tax return?

Even though an SMLLC may be a disregarded entity for federal tax purposes, the SMLLC is considered a separate, taxable entity for California's LLC tax and LLC fee and must report its income on a separate state tax return. The tax and fee are payable to the California Franchise Tax Board (FTB).

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do I have to pay California's $800 franchise fee for my LLC Amanda here from the business finance coach where I'm simplifying accounting taxes and business planning if this sounds like something you're interested in you can subscribe to my youtube channel while still watching this video by clicking the watermark in the bottom right corner of your screen back to the California Franchise Tax fee of $800 so do you really have to pay this fee you can see the state web site behind me you just search ftb.ca.gov and you can just search FTB $800 LLC California and up will come the links for this site it does sound a little confusing as you'll see in this graph here where they talk about the annual California fee and then they talk about incomes greater than two hundred and fifty thousand dollars now just to verify I actually called and spoke to the state and part of why this is confusing is because there's two fees or taxes that apply to your LLC if you have an LLC in the state you have to pay the $800 franchise tax fee every year everyone really pays the $800 fee for any LLC formed in the state the second aspect is if you have an annual LLC fee which is in addition to that $800 fee which you pay every year as long as the income is less than 250,000 in your business you don't have to worry about an additional tax but once your gross income sales goes above 250,000 then you will have an additional tax to pay to the state of California the next thing I want to show you is the amount of that additional tax here we are in the instructions and this is where you'll see the amounts of the second feed two hundred fifty thousand to four hundred and ninety nine nine nine nine a dollar short of five hundred thousand pay $900 five hundred to a million right before million pay twenty five hundred dollars a million to almost five million pay six thousand dollars and then the next bracket over five million pay eleven thousand seven ninety like many things taxes you know it's like the person making 1 million is paying the same as the person making four point five million so you know is it fair I don't know but regardless this is the tax for California and then you can see that they give a an example down here and they go through for each business the annual tax which is that eight hundred dollar fee plus the LLC fee so the annual tax is eight hundred and the LLC fee is based on if you earn more than two hundred fifty thousand and your income and so I know that that's a little confusing I'd love to hear any questions you have in the comments below if you enjoyed this video let me know otherwise subscribe I'll see you next time have a beautiful day bye

Thanks for your comment Hayden Cossette, have a nice day.
- Noble Einfeldt, Staff Member

hey this is attorney elizabeth weinstein and today we're going to talk about how much money does it really take to start an llc in california so an llc or a limited liability company is not something that you're required to do when you start a business but a lot of people will form an llc to protect their personal assets from the liability of the business sometimes for tax reasons and sometimes because you may be hired by companies who require you to be an llc or corporation because they don't want to be accused of having an accidental employee and owing employment taxes on your earnings but like anything else we do in business forming an llc costs money so what's the minimal amount of money you will have to spend to start your llc and by the way i'm talking about doing it yourself not hiring a lawyer not using legalzoom or some other service but the minimum requirements it takes for all the kind of government filing fees to form your llc in california it's going to cost 70 just to file the forms with the state of california online you also may decide to get a certified copy of what you file which is a good idea so you can use that to open up your bank account and stuff like that and that's an extra five dollars as of the time that i am recording this video the next required expense is going to be a franchise fee this is like an annual tax that's not called a tax it's called the franchise fee that you have to pay for any llc or corporation in california either because you formed in california or you're an out of state business that has an office or some location in california such that you're legally located here or have an office here have a nexus here that annual fee is eight hundred dollars a year minimum it's more if you're making tons of money but if you're starting a brand new business you're probably not in that category yet now there are special rules for s-corporations that you only have to pay for a portion of the year but here's the thing that doesn't necessarily apply to an llc unless you're taxed as an ex-corporation and that gets into details beyond the scope of this video but just assume that you're gonna have to pay that 800 for the calendar year no matter when you file your llc so if you create it in january it's from january december but if you create it in december you have to file the 800 for the whole year so you want to be aware of this issue think about when you're filing when you're creating your llc and see if that rule applies to you specifically the last required filing that you're going to need to do with the state of california is a statement of information this is as of right now a 20 filing fee if you do it online and it's just telling them things like here's your physical address here's your mailing address here are the different members of the llc or the officers of the llc and their locations what your registered agent is which is probably the same register agent as you had on your original form you have to file that in the beginning within 90 days i think of when you create your llc it's best just to do at the same time and then you have to file it every couple years after corporations have to file more often than llcs so those required fees for your first year are almost 900 dollars the second thing we're going to talk about are fees that you're probably going to have to do so the first category is a business license you may or may not need a business license because it depends upon exactly where you're located and the kind of business that you have so if you're in san jose california if you're in the city of los angeles every single business there has to get a general business license which they actually kind of call a tax registration same thing and the fee depends upon the kind of business you have how much money you're making how many employees you have all that kind of stuff depending upon where you are i would budget like 200 a year for that when you start out and you're you have a you know simple one-person business and then it'll go up from there depending upon the complexity of your business occasionally you don't need a business license if you're in an unincorporated area in a rural area sometimes you don't need one so it's something that you're going to have to look into for your particular location the next item you'll probably have to do but maybe not is a dba a doing business as registration in california those are done at the county level so you do a county filing and then you have to publish that information in a newspaper usually a special legal newspaper so those exact requirements are different from county to county so you need to see what they are in your particular location and it only applies if the business name like your trade name that you use on your website in your marketing is a different name than the legal name the llc name you may use the same name so you don't need to do a dba or you may need to do that the third category are things that are a very good idea to set up for your business we're talking about bookkeeping now you can do free bookkeeping where you just have a spreadsheet and you just write down your income and expenses there but you may want to sign up for some kind of service like quickbooks online or xero there's a whole bunch of different ones some of them are there are ones that are free some of them are like seven dollars a month some of them the minimum is 25 a month so you want to budget 100 200 300 a year for your bookkeeping and that's if you do it yourself the second thing that you're probably going to want to set up is taxes so every year you're going to file a tax return for your llc the llc may be taxed as a pass-through entity where you're personally paying taxes on the money it distributed to you but the llc still has to file a tax return sometimes with the state sometimes if you're an s corporation if your llc taxed as an s corporation you'll have to file an s-corporation tax return if you're an llc text as a partnership you have to file partnership tax return okay it can get very complicated and you need to look into whether or not you're going to be able to handle that yourself or if you need to hire someone to do that if you're an llc that is a one-owner business and use a pass-through tax entity so it's just on your schedule c you could use turbotax for that but they don't have a turbo tax for s corporations okay so and then i'll mature tax for partnerships so if you have a more complicated tax situation you're probably going to want to hire someone to do that and that could be 500 a year a thousand dollars a year it really depends upon your location the last aspect is you want to make sure your llc is fully capitalized what does that mean it means that it needs to have enough money sitting inside of it to keep operations continuously going on how much money that is really depends upon the kind of business you have it may be a couple hundred bucks if you have a really simple service-based business it may be thousands of dollars maybe tens of thousands of dollars that needs to be sitting in that bank account it depends upon whether or n

Thanks Ismael your participation is very much appreciated
- Noble Einfeldt

About the author

Noble Einfeldt

I've studied chemical engineering at Lamar University in Beaumont and I am an expert in mathematical optimization. I usually feel moody. My previous job was forest and conservation technician I held this position for 7 years, I love talking about model building and jigsaw puzzles. Huge fan of C. S. Lewis I practice hurling and collect coca-cola.