Form an LLC · NC

How to form an LLC in North Carolina

North Carolina LLCs are formed by filing Articles of Organization, Form L-01 with the North Carolina Secretary of State, Business Registration Division — the official filing fee is $125 (see the fee notes below). Corpus prepares and files it for $250 all-in, including your first year of registered-agent service.

Form your North Carolina LLC

What North Carolina requires

Formation document

Articles of Organization, Form L-01 verified 2026-09-24

Filing office

North Carolina Secretary of State, Business Registration Division verified 2026-09-24

North Carolina filing fee for the Articles of Organization, Form L-01

$125 Articles of Organization filing fee. verified 2026-09-30

Optional: $10 application for reserved name (optional; not required to file articles). source

Online filing

Yes — You can form a North Carolina LLC online through the Secretary of State’s business portal. verified 2026-09-24

Standard processing time

Entity creation is listed as 5-10 business days; online is faster. verified 2026-09-30

Expedited options

Same-day guaranteed filing $200 (additional fee; document received by 12:00 noon in proper form; examination time only); 24-hour guaranteed filing $100 (additional fee; document received in proper form; examination time only) verified 2026-09-30

Regular process has no finer duration than the 5-10 business day entity-creation listing. source · source 2

Name requirement

The name must contain “limited liability company,” “L.L.C.,” or “LLC.” verified 2026-09-24

Registered agent

Required — A North Carolina LLC must appoint and maintain a registered agent. verified 2026-09-24

LLC statute

North Carolina Limited Liability Company Act, N.C. Gen. Stat. ch. 57D verified 2026-09-24

What you’ll need

The Corpus intake collects this information to prepare the filing. Some questions are asked only when they apply — for example, the management question is asked only when the company has more than one owner.

What do you want to name the company?
In a sentence, what will the business actually do?
Where should official mail go — street, city, state, ZIP?
What email should we use for this order?
Which industry code fits this business?
Besides you, will anyone else have authority to make decisions for the business?
Who owns this company?

North Carolina also asks:

Whether to list members/managers on the state record.

What it costs with Corpus

State fees (filing fee + the state's processing charges): $128
Registered agent, year one: $100
Corpus service: $22
Total at checkout: $250

$128 = North Carolina’s $125 in formation fees for an online filing + $3 of other state processing charges for the way Corpus files (expedite, card or online-portal fees).

Registered agent renews at $99/yr after the included first year — cancel anytime. Itemized pricing for every state is on the price grid; how Corpus compares to other formation services is on the comparison page.

After you form: staying in good standing

Annual report

Annual report — april 15 of the year after formation, then every April 15. verified 2026-09-30

A mailed annual report is $200; online payment adds the card or ACH charge. source

Report fee

$200 verified 2026-09-30

Conditional: $3 credit-card transaction fee on an electronic annual report (only if the report is paid by credit card). source
Conditional: $2 ACH transaction fee on an electronic annual report (only if the report is paid by ACH). source

Franchise or privilege tax

$200 annual franchise-tax minimum — only if the LLC elects to be taxed as a corporation. verified 2026-09-30

Rates, caps, thresholds, apportionment and exemptions: see North Carolina Department of Revenue; an LLC owes franchise tax only after a corporate tax election. source

Comparing what registered-agent service costs after year one across providers? The comparison page publishes renewal prices.

Form it with your AI agent

You don’t have to do the intake here. Any agent that can open a link can run the whole thing — Corpus’s formation tools give it North Carolina’s requirements and live price, it asks you the questions above, and it hands back a prefilled link you review and pay. Paste this into your assistant:

Form an LLC in North Carolina for me with Corpus (corpuslaw.us). Use its formation tools to get North Carolina's requirements and price, ask me what you need, and give me the prefilled link.

The guide is on /agents, the protocol reference is /docs/mcp, and the installable skill for this state is the North Carolina SKILL.md.

Sources

Every verified fact above names where Corpus read it and the date it was last verified. Sources marked secondary are third-party write-ups used only where an official page did not publish the answer.

https://www.sosnc.gov/forms/by_title/_Business_Registration — Formation document, Filing office, Online filing; verified 2026-09-24
https://www.sosnc.gov/fees/by_title/_Business_Registration_limited_liability_companies — State filing fee, State filing fee (note); verified 2026-09-30
https://www.sosnc.gov/divisions/business_registration — Standard processing time, Expedited options (note); verified 2026-09-30
https://www.sosnc.gov/webfiles/documents/forms/Business_Registration/business_Entities_common/cover_sheet_for_corporate_filings.pdf — Expedited options, Expedited options (note); verified 2026-09-30
https://www.sosnc.gov/manual/launching_a_business/limited_liability_company_name — Name requirement; verified 2026-09-24
https://www.ncleg.gov/enactedlegislation/statutes/html/bychapter/chapter_57d.html — Registered agent, LLC statute; verified 2026-09-24
https://www.sosnc.gov/manual/register_a_foreign_business/maintaining_registration — Annual report, Report fee, Annual report (note), Report fee (note); verified 2026-09-30
https://www.ncdor.gov/documents/bulletins/2024-corporate-income-franchise-and-insurance-tax-bulletin/open — Franchise or privilege tax, Franchise or privilege tax (note); verified 2026-09-30