Formation fee
$135
last verified 2026-08-22
record 34 of 51 · /llc/north-dakota/
North Dakota LLC
North Dakota's trade name can support a suit
The FirstStop portal is where a North Dakota LLC forms, with an annual report landing in the middle of November. The record carries verified absences in a row: no recurring entity tax, no expedited lane, no published standard processing time. Each of those was checked against the office rather than assumed.
the rest of this note
The trade name registers at state level, must be distinguishable from names already on record, and its statute lets the registered holder bring a civil suit prohibiting another's use of the name. The company itself is barred from the registered agent seat, a researched refusal on this sheet. An individual residing in the state may hold it, and a filed address must be a street address or rural route box in the state.
every claim above is a line below
Should you form your LLC in North Dakota?
If the answer is yes, the home-state rule points to North Dakota.
Office or storefront in North Dakota?
Yes, it will
A business with a real footprint in North Dakota files in North Dakota. Forming anywhere else adds a foreign registration back home: two filings, two annual bills, two registered agents. The out-of-state discount does not survive that arithmetic.
No, it will not
This one answer cannot choose a state. Use the full four-question wizard with the place where the business will actually operate. Open the full wizard .
Annual report
$50
Due Nov 15, printed as the state writes it.
last verified 2026-08-22
Franchise tax
none
No recurring state-level tax on an LLC here. The absence is verified against the state, not missing data.
verified absent 2026-08-08
Anonymous LLC
no
Member or organizer names reach the public formation record here.
last verified 2026-08-10
Processing time
none published
This state publishes no standard processing time, which is not the same as filing instantly. This state sells no expedited service.
verified absent 2026-08-07
no source in the snapshot
Name designators
Must contain the words "limited liability company" or the abbreviation "LLC" or "L.L.C."
Statute: N.D.C.C. § 10-32.1-11.
last verified 2026-08-04
Name reservation
$10
Optional filing that holds the name for 1 year before you form.
last verified 2026-08-04
DBA
trade name
One statewide register; the filing costs $25.
last verified 2026-08-04
An individual as the agent
allowed
Whether a person may hold the seat, so nobody has to be hired. The terms North Dakota attaches, and the entity question, sit in the registered agent section.
last verified 2026-08-09
Late filing penalty
$50
North Dakota charges this as a flat penalty on a late report. What follows a missed filing is in section 09.
last verified 2026-08-10
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 North Dakota DBA rules?
North Dakota calls it the trade name, and keeps one statewide register for it. The state filing costs $25.
- Where an LLC files
- How long it lasts
-
5 years
A registration remains in force for five years from the date of the original registration and may be renewed within the ninety days before its expiration date by reregistering in the same manner as an original registration; the Secretary of State notifies the registrant at least ninety days before expiration (§ 47-25-04).
- Newspaper publication
-
not required
- What the filing protects
-
exclusive to the registrant
A North Dakota trade name carries more weight than most states' DBAs. Section 47-25-01(2) lets a person or organization that has registered a trade name institute a civil suit prohibiting any other person from using the name; § 47-25-03(1)(c) requires a trade name to be distinguishable in Secretary of State records from names already reserved or registered there; and § 10-32.1-11(1)(e)(4) folds registered trade names into the LLC name screen, so an active trade name blocks a later entity name that is not distinguishable from it.
- Where to search existing names
-
Registered trade names appear in the FirstStop business search alongside entity names.
one record, verified 2026-08-04 · N.D.C.C. § 47-25-01
What does it take to register a foreign LLC in North Dakota?
Registering an LLC formed elsewhere is its own filing in North Dakota. The registration costs $135. That price belongs to a separate filing event, so it enters no cost total on this site.
- Registration fee
-
$135
Flat $135.00 filing fee for the Foreign Business Limited Liability Company Certificate of Authority Application filed online through the FirstStop Portal; the LLC fees page prices registration the same for domestic and foreign LLCs.
- The official form
-
Foreign Business Limited Liability Company Certificate of Authority Application
- Filed with
-
North Dakota Secretary of State
- After registration
-
File the annual report each year (due November 15 for LLCs) and maintain a North Dakota registered agent with a physical address in the state.
one record, verified 2026-08-08
The same fee for every other jurisdiction sits on one page: foreign qualification fees for every jurisdiction.
Who can be the registered agent in North Dakota?
Who may serve as an LLC's registered agent is its own rule in North Dakota. North Dakota 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 An individual residing in this state
- The LLC as its own agent
-
Not allowed
- A mailbox service as the address
-
not read at this pin
- Address rule
-
Whenever a provision of this chapter, other than subdivision d of subsection 1 of section 10-01.1-11 requires that a filing state an address, the filing must state: 1. An actual street address or rural route box number in this state; and 2. A mailing address in this state if different from the address under subsection 1.
one record, verified 2026-08-09
The same four answers for every other jurisdiction sit on one page: registered agent rules for every jurisdiction.
What happens if you don't file the North Dakota annual report?
A missed report has its own record in North Dakota: the penalty, the dissolution clock, and the way back. The penalty is a single flat figure.
-
Late filing penalty
$50
-
Administrative dissolution
after 6 months of delinquency
The first stage the state publishes, in its own unit: after this interval the state may dissolve the LLC by administrative action.
-
Reinstatement
$135
as the record reads A $135 reinstatement fee, payable with the past-due annual report and its own filing and penalty fees, and only within one year of the involuntary termination; after that year reinstatement is no longer an administrative filing at all but a petition to the district court serving Burleigh County.
one record, verified 2026-08-10
The same three answers for every other jurisdiction sit on one page: late fees and reinstatement 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.sos.nd.gov/business/business-services/business-structures/limited-liability-company-llc
- Recurring state tax https://www.tax.nd.gov/business/corporate-income-tax
- Naming statute https://ndlegis.gov/cencode/t10c32-1.pdf
- Name reservation https://firststop.sos.nd.gov/
- Who may be the registered agent https://ndlegis.gov/cencode/t10c01-1.pdf
- DBA filing https://sos.nd.gov/business/business-services/trade-name-franchise-name
- North Dakota Secretary of State - Business Services https://www.sos.nd.gov/business/business-services
- Business entity search https://firststop.sos.nd.gov/search/business
The rule behind every figure here, and what a card does when one cannot be verified, sits on how a figure gets verified.