What Is the Cheapest Way to Start an LLC in Florida? An Honest Ranking
October 10, 2026 · 8 min read
The cheapest way to start an LLC in Florida is to file the Articles of Organization yourself on Sunbiz for $125 — $100 for the filing itself plus $25 to designate your registered agent. There is no cheaper legitimate path. No coupon, no service, no “free LLC” offer gets you under that number, because $125 goes to the Florida Division of Corporations, not to a company.
That’s the answer. The useful part is what comes next: what that $125 actually buys you, what it doesn’t, and how the “$0 + state fee” offers from national brands compare once year two arrives. Below is the honest ranking, with real numbers.
Florida’s price floor: $125, and why nothing goes lower
Every Florida LLC starts with the same two line items on the same state form:
| Line item | Amount | Who gets it |
|---|---|---|
| Articles of Organization filing fee | $100.00 | Florida Division of Corporations |
| Registered agent designation fee | $25.00 | Florida Division of Corporations |
| Total to form | $125.00 |
The $25 is not optional and it is not a service charge. Chapter 605, Florida Statutes — the Florida Revised Limited Liability Company Act — requires every LLC to maintain a registered agent with a physical Florida street address (no P.O. boxes) who accepts service of process during business hours. The $25 is what the state charges to record that designation. You pay it whether you name yourself, your cousin, or a commercial agent.
Online filings at Sunbiz are typically processed in about 3–5 business days. Florida does not sell expedited LLC processing for online filings, so nobody — no national brand, no local filer — can legitimately sell you a “rush to the state” upgrade. What a service can do is submit your paperwork the same day instead of sitting on it, which affects when the state’s clock starts, not how fast the state moves.
Two things Florida doesn’t charge you for, which keeps the floor genuinely low: there’s no general state business license (licensing in Florida is industry-specific and local, more on that below), and no state personal income tax, so a single-member LLC’s profit isn’t hit with a state return on top of the federal one.
The cheapest way to start an LLC in Florida, ranked
Here’s where the money actually goes across the first five years. The one number that never changes is the $138.75 annual report, due every year by May 1. It opens January 1, and if you miss May 1 the state adds a $400 late fee — the single most expensive mistake in Florida LLC ownership. An LLC still unfiled by the fourth Friday of September is administratively dissolved.
| Approach | Year 1 | Years 2–5 (per year) | 5-year total |
|---|---|---|---|
| DIY on Sunbiz, you as registered agent | $125 | $138.75 | $680 |
| DIY + commercial registered agent (~$99/yr) | $224 | $237.75 | $1,175 |
| National brand “$0 + state fee” tier | $125 + their renewals | Agent + compliance renewals, often $199–$249/yr each | See /compare/ |
| Basic plan, $164.99 all-in | $164.99 | $138.75 state fee + $69 plan renewal | $995.96 |
The DIY row is the honest champion on raw dollars, and I’m not going to pretend otherwise. If you have a Florida street address you’re comfortable publishing, you’re organized enough to calendar May 1 four years running, and you’re willing to spend an evening with the Sunbiz form, $125 is the cheapest start and $680 is the cheapest five years. That’s a real option and plenty of Florida business owners should take it.
What it costs is attention. Everything else on that table is you buying back attention.
The four costs people forget when they say “I’ll just DIY it”
The $125 figure is accurate but incomplete. These are the items that move the real number:
1. Your registered agent address becomes public. Sunbiz is a free, fully searchable public database, and your registered agent’s street address is published with your record. If you’re running a business from your house, that address is now on the open internet, attached to your name, and it’s where a process server shows up. Using a commercial agent instead runs roughly $99–$249 per year depending on the provider. That’s the single biggest swing factor between “cheap” and “not cheap.”
2. The annual report is not a formality. $138.75 every year, forever, and the $400 penalty is assessed without discretion. There’s no grace period and no fee waiver for first-time misses. Two late filings cost more than five years of most compliance services.
3. A fictitious name, if you use one. If your LLC is “Gulf Coast Holdings LLC” but your signage says “Gulf Coast Pressure Washing,” Florida requires a registered fictitious name — a separate Sunbiz filing with its own fee, renewable every five years. Skip the DBA and operate under the exact LLC name and you skip this entirely.
4. Local business tax receipts. Florida has no statewide general business license, but most counties and many cities require a local business tax receipt, and amounts and rules vary widely by jurisdiction — Miami-Dade is not Marion County. Some home-based businesses need a home occupation permit on top of it. Check your county tax collector and city clerk directly; don’t trust a blanket answer from any website, including this one.
One cost people overestimate: the EIN. The IRS issues Employer Identification Numbers free at irs.gov, usually in minutes. Anyone charging you for an EIN is charging for the convenience of not doing it yourself, which is a legitimate thing to sell but should never be presented as a government fee.
For the full verified list of what Florida charges and when, including certified copies and certificates of status, see our every-fee-and-deadline reference for Florida LLCs.
Where the national brands actually land
The “$0 + state fees” headline is real, and it’s also where the comparison gets slippery. Three patterns show up consistently:
- The free tier is a loss leader with a renewal attached. The formation is genuinely $0 in labor, but the checkout flow typically enrolls you in registered agent service, a compliance or “worry-free” plan, or both — often free or discounted for the first year, then renewing at a much higher annual rate. The renewal is where the margin lives.
- Upsells are priced per item. Operating agreement, EIN, banking resolution, and expedited filing are frequently separate line items. On a Florida LLC, “expedited filing” is particularly worth scrutinizing, since the Division of Corporations doesn’t offer paid expediting for online submissions.
- Year two is where the lines cross. A $0 formation with a $249/year agent renewal is more expensive by month 14 than a $164.99 package with a $69 renewal. The headline number only describes the first 30 days.
None of this is deceptive on its face — the terms are disclosed — but it does mean the sticker price answers a different question than the one you asked. Current pricing from the big national filers changes often enough that we keep it on a dedicated page: our side-by-side LegalZoom and ZenBusiness price comparison shows what each tier includes and what it renews at.
Where $164.99 all-in fits in the ranking
Straight math: $164.99 is $39.99 above Florida’s $125 floor. That $39.99 buys preparation and submission of the Articles of Organization, confirmation that your name clears the state’s distinguishability check before filing, and your stamped documents back — with no separate charge for the state fee, because it’s already in the number.
It is not the cheapest option. DIY is. What it is, is the smallest possible gap between a filing service and the state’s own price, which is a different claim and a more honest one. Our Standard plan at $204.99 adds a year of registered agent service, which is where the comparison tightens considerably against a $0 formation that renews agent service at $199–$249. If you want to run your own numbers with your own assumptions about agent service and years in business, the Florida LLC cost calculator will do the five-year math for you.
Is the cheapest way to start an LLC in Florida always the smartest?
Not always, and the deciding factors aren’t about the filing — they’re about the four years after it.
Go DIY if: you have a Florida street address you’re fine publishing, you’re a single-member LLC with simple ownership, you’re comfortable reading the Sunbiz form carefully, and you’ll put May 1 on a calendar you actually check. Save the $40 and spend it on something that generates revenue.
Pay for help if: you don’t want your home address in a public database, you have co-owners (Chapter 605 supplies default rules on profit splits, management, and member exits when you don’t have an operating agreement, and those defaults rarely match what partners actually intend), you’re forming late in the year and need to understand how the first annual report timing works, or you know from experience that administrative deadlines are not your strength. The $400 late fee prices that self-knowledge pretty clearly.
The worst outcome isn’t paying $40 too much to form. It’s forming for $125, forgetting May 1 in year three, paying $538.75 to catch up, and losing your name to administrative dissolution in September. Cheap at formation and expensive at maintenance is the most common way Florida LLC owners lose money on this.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I really start a Florida LLC for $125 with no other costs? Yes, if you act as your own registered agent using a Florida street address, operate under your exact LLC name with no fictitious name, and get your EIN free from the IRS. Your only recurring obligation is the $138.75 annual report each year by May 1, plus any local business tax receipt your county or city requires.
Is “free LLC formation” actually free in Florida? The service labor can be free, but the $125 in state fees never is, and most free tiers attach a registered agent or compliance subscription that renews at full price after the first year. Read the renewal terms at checkout, not the headline — that’s where the real five-year cost is decided.
Do I have to pay for expedited filing to get my Florida LLC faster? No. The Division of Corporations processes online filings in roughly 3–5 business days and doesn’t sell paid expediting for them, so there’s no state-level rush option to buy. The only thing a service controls is how quickly it submits your paperwork after you order.
What happens if I miss the May 1 annual report deadline? Florida adds a $400 late fee on top of the $138.75, with no grace period and no first-time waiver. If the report still isn’t filed by the fourth Friday of September, the state administratively dissolves the LLC, and reinstatement costs more and requires a separate filing.
Do I need a Florida business license after I form my LLC? Florida has no general statewide business license, but many professions are licensed at the state level and most counties and cities require a local business tax receipt. Requirements and amounts vary by jurisdiction, so check directly with your county tax collector and city clerk before you open.
This article is general information about Florida LLC costs and procedures, not legal or tax advice.
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