Ohio Foreign Registration › Yearly reports
Yearly filings for an Ohio foreign LLC: none, with one exception to watch
Ohio asks a registered foreign LLC for no annual report and charges no yearly fee. The recurring duty is a statutory agent, and updating one costs $25 on Form 521.
Recurring filings at a glance
- LLC annual report
- None
- LLC yearly fee
- None
- Statutory agent update
- Within 30 days of a change, $25
- Limited liability partnership
- Biennial report, $25
- Nonprofit corporation
- Statement of continued existence every 5 years, $25
- Trade names
- Renewal every 5 years
What the Secretary of State lists
The office publishes a page called maintaining active business status. It names biennial reports for limited liability partnerships, a statement of continued existence for nonprofit corporations, renewals for trade and fictitious names, trademark renewals and statutory agent updates. It names no annual report for an LLC or for a for-profit corporation. Reminder notices are sent to the email address or the registered agent's address on record.
The statutory agent is the upkeep
Because there is no report, the agent is the one thing that can quietly end the registration. The company must maintain a statutory agent continuously, and the Secretary of State cancels the registration if a default in maintaining the agent or reporting a change stays open 30 days after the mailed notice. The cancellation takes place without further notice.
Fixing a cancellation
A cancelled registration can be reinstated within 2 years by filing Form 525A, with a new agent's appointment and acceptance, for $25. Past that point the form says the business cannot be reinstated, and the company would register again. The agent page lists the triggers.
Reports that belong to other entity types
A limited liability partnership files a biennial report between April 1 to July 1 of odd-numbered years, on Form 520 for $25, and failing to file cancels it. A foreign nonprofit corporation files a statement of continued existence if it has made no other filings in 5 years, and the Secretary of State may also ask for verification of its existence, with a 30-day deadline after notice.
Filings that belong to other agencies
Three duties sit outside the Secretary of State and are easy to mistake for an annual report. Each business in Ohio, including one with nothing to hand over, files a yearly report on unclaimed funds. A business with employees carries workers' compensation and may need an unemployment tax account. And the commercial activity tax asks a business to register within 30 days of passing $6,000,000 in taxable gross receipts. None of those is part of the registration and none is handled by Form 617.
What changes need a filing
A corrected statement uses the certificate of correction, Form 612, for $50. A home-state name change that makes the name noncompliant with Ohio's rule bars the company from transacting business until the correction is filed. New members or managers are not an Ohio filing, because the registration never listed them.
If the home state has a yearly charge
The home state's charges are its own. A Delaware LLC still owes Delaware its annual tax, and a Wyoming LLC its annual minimum. Ohio adds nothing to either, which the Delaware page and the Wyoming page set out in numbers.
A short yearly checklist
Once a year, confirm that the statutory agent still serves and that its Ohio address has not changed. Confirm that the email address on file receives notices. Check whether the company's Ohio gross receipts are near the commercial activity tax threshold of $6,000,000. And remember that every business reports unclaimed funds each year, even when there are none.
Leaving instead
A company that is done with Ohio can cancel on Form 618 for $50 rather than keep an agent for a registration it does not use. See the cancellation page.
Yearly report questions
Does an Ohio LLC pay a yearly fee?
No. Ohio asks no annual report or yearly fee of a registered foreign LLC.
What actually keeps the registration alive?
Keeping a statutory agent on file and updating Ohio when it changes.
How quickly must an agent change be filed?
Within 30 days of the change, for $25.
What if I miss it?
Ohio sends notice, and the registration is cancelled once the default has stayed open 30 days.
Is an unclaimed funds report an annual report?
It is a yearly report to the Department of Commerce, not to the Secretary of State.
Our fee and Ohio's
Register in Ohio
- Form 617 typed from what you tell us
- The statutory agent paperwork finished, whether the agent is ours or yours
- The name checked against Ohio's naming rule before the form goes in
- The approved registration handed back to you
- Renewal: after the first year, the agent service renews at $149 a year
$199
+ $99 Ohio fee
Ohio's fee is $99. It is listed apart from our own. $199 plus the state fee, including your first year of registered agent service; after that the agent service renews at $149 a year.
Sources
- Ohio Secretary of State, filing forms and fee schedule
- Form 617, Registration of a Foreign Limited Liability Company
- R.C. 111.16, fees of the Secretary of State
- Form 530A, Foreign For-Profit Corporation Application for License
- R.C. 1703.27, foreign nonprofit corporations
- Form 521, Statutory Agent Update
- Ohio Secretary of State, maintaining active business status
- Ohio Secretary of State, starting a limited liability company
- R.C. 1706.09, agents of limited liability companies
- Form 525A, Reinstatement and Appointment of Agent
- Ohio Secretary of State, how to start a business
- Ohio Department of Taxation, commercial activity tax
- Form 612, Certificate of Correction for a Limited Liability Company
- R.C. 1706.511, foreign limited liability company registration
- R.C. 1706.513, complying name for registration
- Form 618, Certificate of Cancellation of Registration of a Foreign Limited Liability Company
Ready to register in Ohio?
Order now and the form is typed from your answers.