Formation fee
$500
One-time state fee for the formation certificate.
last verified 2026-07-17
record 21 of 51 · /llc/massachusetts/
Massachusetts LLC
The Massachusetts business certificate is a municipal filing
The certificate of organization files with the Corporations Division, and a Massachusetts LLC then repeats a report on its formation anniversary every year. The commonwealth's record shows no separate recurring entity tax, a verified absence. No expedited tier is on sale; the office instead states that a fax filing is processed the same business day or the following one at the latest.
the rest of this note
Naming never touches the state register: a business certificate is filed with the clerk of every city or town where the company keeps an office, and no statewide search covers those records. The statute also bars the company from serving as its own registered agent and requires an individual agent to reside in the commonwealth. Both findings print with their sources.
every claim above is a line below
Annual report
$500
Due Anniversary date, printed as the state writes it.
last verified 2026-07-17
Franchise tax
none
No recurring state-level tax on an LLC here. The absence is verified against the state, not missing data.
verified absent 2026-08-07
Anonymous LLC
no
Member or organizer names reach the public formation record here.
last verified 2026-08-06
no source in the snapshot
Processing time
published, not as a range
The state publishes a processing time in prose rather than as a range, so this sheet links it instead of restating it. This state sells no expedited service.
as observed on 2026-08-09
Name designators
Must contain the words "limited liability company" or "limited company," or the abbreviations "L.L.C.," "L.C.," "LLC," or "LC."
Accepted endings for the legal name. Statute: M.G.L. c. 156C, § 3.
last verified 2026-07-23
Name reservation
$30
Optional filing that holds the name for 60 days before you form.
last verified 2026-07-23
DBA
business certificate
Filed with the county clerk, and each county prices its own filing.
last verified 2026-07-23
An individual as the agent
allowed
Whether a person may hold the seat, so nobody has to be hired. The terms Massachusetts attaches, and the entity question, sit in the registered agent section.
last verified 2026-08-09
field 05 carries the date it was observed, not a promise: of the two halves beside it, only the expedited tiers are prices the state commits to
What are the Massachusetts trade name rules?
Massachusetts calls it the business certificate, and handles it at the county level, so the price and the paperwork are set locally rather than by the state.
- Where an LLC files
- How long it lasts
-
4 years
A business certificate is effective for four years and is renewed by filing again with the same city or town clerk.
- Newspaper publication
-
not required
- What the filing protects
-
no exclusive right
A business certificate, known in Massachusetts as a d/b/a, is a municipal notice filing that identifies who is behind a business name; it grants no exclusive right. Because it is filed with the city or town clerk and not the Secretary of the Commonwealth, it is not part of the state entity-name screen, so it neither blocks nor is blocked by names in the Corporations Division records.
- Where to search existing names
-
Business certificates are held in each city or town clerk's records, not in the Secretary of the Commonwealth's business search, so a full check means contacting the clerk in every municipality where a business operates. There is no statewide index of d/b/a filings.
one record, verified 2026-07-23 · M.G.L. c. 110, § 5
What does it take to register an out-of-state LLC in Massachusetts?
Registering an LLC formed elsewhere is its own filing in Massachusetts. The registration costs $500. That price belongs to a separate filing event, so it enters no cost total on this site.
- Registration fee
-
$500
Flat $500.00 filing fee for the foreign registration of a limited liability company: the Corporations Division filing fee schedule prices the Limited Liability Companies 'Foreign Registration' row at $500.00 and the official application form states 'Filing fee: $500'.
- The official form
-
Foreign Limited Liability Company Application for Registration
- Filed with
-
Corporations Division, Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts
- After registration
-
File an annual report with the Corporations Division on or before the anniversary date of the filing of the registration (the fee schedule prices the foreign LLC annual report at $500.00), and keep a resident agent whose consent to appointment is on or attached to the filing.
one record, verified 2026-08-08
The same fee for every other jurisdiction sits on one page: foreign qualification fees for every jurisdiction.
Who may serve as the registered agent in Massachusetts?
Who may serve as an LLC's registered agent is its own rule in Massachusetts. Massachusetts lets a natural person serve, so no commercial agent is required. The LLC itself may not hold the seat, which is a separate question.
- An individual as the agent
-
Allowed
in the state's words which agent must be an individual resident of the commonwealth
- The LLC as its own agent
-
Not allowed
- A mailbox service as the address
-
not read at this pin
- Address rule
-
an office, which may but need not be a place of its business in the commonwealth at which shall be kept the records required by section nine to be maintained
one record, verified 2026-08-09
The same four answers for every other jurisdiction sit on one page: registered agent rules for every jurisdiction.
Where do these figures come from?
Every figure on this sheet renders from the pinned dataset snapshot, and each card links the page its own figure came from. This list collects those pages in one place, with the duplicates removed and the agency named.
- Formation and annual report figures https://www.sec.state.ma.us/divisions/corporations/general-information/corporations-filing-fees.htm
- Recurring state tax https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartI/TitleIX/Chapter63/Section39
- Expedited service and processing time https://www.sec.state.ma.us/divisions/corporations/filing-methods/corporations-file-by-fax.htm
- Naming statute https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartI/TitleXXII/Chapter156C/Section3
- Name reservation https://www.sec.state.ma.us/divisions/corporations/corporations.htm
- Who may be the registered agent https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartI/TitleXXII/Chapter156C/Section5
- DBA filing https://www.mass.gov/info-details/business-certificates-dba-in-massachusetts
- Business entity search https://corp.sec.state.ma.us/CorpWeb/CorpSearch/CorpSearch.aspx
The rule behind every figure here, and what a card does when one cannot be verified, sits on how a figure gets verified.