How this route map is surveyed

Fees, due dates and rules are read straight from each state's fee schedule, filing form or statute, never from a third party. Next to every figure you will see the page it came from and the month we last confirmed it, and each state route gathers those pages again in a list at its foot.

For the LLC ranking, we add the formation fee, the reports due in years two and three (a biennial report is counted once) and any minimum tax charged yearly. The agent ranking uses a single year of state tolls, meaning the report at its yearly rate plus any minimum tax. The foreign LLC ranking adds the entry fee to the reports for years two and three. Some costs have no fixed amount, newspaper publication being the usual example. Those are explained on the route and kept out of the totals. When two states total the same, they share a mile number, and the lightest toll gets mile 1.

1. Three-year charge on the route (35%). What the service bills across years one to three beyond the state fee, from its published first-year and renewal prices. The state fee is the same for every service and appears on the route itself, not in the score.
2. Steps the service takes over (27%). How many of the route's repeating steps are in the price: the agent on record, the periodic report and the EIN application.
3. Year-two price (13%). Whether the service holds its price after the first year or raises it.
4. Fit with the state's route (13%). How well the plan follows the state's report cycle, late penalties and office address rules.
5. Fee line separation (12%). Whether the state fee is shown as its own line and billed at cost.

If two services come out nearly level, the entry names the criterion that broke the tie.

Mainstay Filing appears on every state route because it serves all fifty states, and next to it go the registered agent brands built around that one state. A provider is listed for a topic only when its own website sells that service at a posted price, which we read on the build date printed on the route.

You will not find customer ratings or quoted reviews here, and none of it is legal or tax advice. How the providers are ordered comes down to our own editorial judgment, applied through the criteria listed above.