How we score LLC formation services

This is version 1.0 of the LLC formation model, and it's published: these weights are final. The table below comes from the model itself, so its weights are always the ones we use.

We compare filing services, not legal structures, and nothing here is legal or tax advice. We score what changes from one service to another:

• Three-year cost of the standard basket. What the same basket costs with each service over three years: forming the LLC, getting the EIN, an operating agreement and a registered agent, with yearly renewals. A free package "plus state fees" can hide renewals, so the three-year cost carries the most weight, and the registered agent renewal has its own criterion. A price a service doesn't publish counts as missing, never as zero.
• What the package includes. Whether the EIN, the operating agreement and the first year of registered agent come with the cheapest package, with a higher package or as paid add-ons, and whether the service files in all 50 states. An operating agreement from a filing service is a document or template, not a lawyer's review.
• Refunds and support. How many days the service's own refund policy covers its fees, and whether it offers phone support.

In the Spanish edition of this site, two more criteria count: whether the service itself says people on its team serve customers in Spanish, and whether it has a website in Spanish for US customers. A page for Spain isn't US support, and we don't test it with a call.

Third-party ratings, promotions, commissions and affiliate terms never count toward the score. A service needs enough verified facts before it enters any ranking.

State fees: the same whoever files

The state charges its own fees to form and keep an LLC, and they're the same whether you file yourself or a service files for you. That's why they're left out of every service's cost and score. They depend on the state where your restaurant operates, so we show a declared reference state, Florida, with its official sources:

• forming the LLC: a fee for the articles of organization plus one for the registered agent designation (Florida Division of Corporations);
• the annual report, every year, with a late fee after the deadline (annual report).

Other states charge very different amounts. Texas has its own filing fee for the certificate of formation (Form 205). California charges to file and for the statement of information, and the Franchise Tax Board adds a yearly tax and, above certain income, a fee (FTB). New York adds a newspaper publication requirement whose cost depends on the county (New York Department of State). Forming the LLC in another state doesn't spare you from registering where the restaurant operates.

EIN, tax treatment and BOI

• The IRS issues the EIN for free when you apply yourself. What a service charges for the EIN pays for doing the application for you.
• An LLC is a business structure created under state law, and the IRS taxes it by default according to its number of members unless it elects otherwise (IRS). We don't recommend a tax treatment.
• Beneficial ownership information (BOI): FinCEN states that companies created in the US are exempt from BOI reporting under a final rule effective August 14, 2026; certain foreign companies registered in the US still report. A service that sells BOI filing to a US-created LLC is selling something FinCEN says that company doesn't have to file.