Form an LLC · SD

How to form an LLC in South Dakota

South Dakota LLCs are formed by filing Articles of Organization with the South Dakota Secretary of State, Division of Business Services — the official filing fee is $150 (see the fee notes below). Corpus prepares and files it for $274 all-in, including your first year of registered-agent service.

Form your South Dakota LLC

What South Dakota requires

Formation document
Articles of Organization verified 2026-09-24
Filing office
South Dakota Secretary of State, Division of Business Services verified 2026-09-24
South Dakota filing fee for the Articles of Organization
$150 Domestic articles of organization: $150 online or $165 paper. verified 2026-09-30
  • Optional: $25 reservation of LLC name. source
  • Online and paper are alternative ways to file the same articles, not two fees that stack. Series LLC formation is a different fee and is outside a standard LLC. source · source 2
Online filing
Yes — South Dakota accepts domestic LLC Articles of Organization online through its own business filing portal. verified 2026-09-24
Standard processing time
Not yet verified by Corpus — check with South Dakota Secretary of State, Division of Business Services
Expedited options
Expedited service $50 (completion sooner than the normal course of business upon request; the fee schedule does not state that normal duration) verified 2026-09-30
  • No ordinary processing time for LLC formation is stated on the fee schedule, the articles form, or the contact FAQ. source
Name requirement
The name must contain “limited liability company,” “limited company,” or an accepted abbreviation such as LLC, L.L.C., LC, or L.C. verified 2026-09-24
Registered agent
Required — The LLC’s formation filing must identify its initial agent for service of process. verified 2026-09-24
LLC statute
South Dakota Uniform Limited Liability Company Act, SDCL Chapter 47-34A 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?

South Dakota asks nothing beyond the standard questions.

What it costs with Corpus

State fees (filing fee + the state's processing charges)
$154
Registered agent, year one
$100
Corpus service
$20
Total at checkout
$274

$154 = South Dakota’s $150 in formation fees for an online filing + $4 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 — every year on the 1st day of the anniversary month of the initial filing. verified 2026-09-30
  • The contact FAQ says filing can begin 2 months before the due date. Limited partnerships and business trusts are the stated exceptions that do not file annual reports; an LLC is not in that exception. source · source 2 · source 3
Report fee
$55 online or $70 paper (one of the listed methods) verified 2026-09-30
  • Conditional: $55 late fee for a delinquent annual report (delinquent annual report; listed under miscellaneous business fees). source
Franchise or privilege tax
None for a standard LLC. verified 2026-09-30
  • Rates, caps, thresholds, apportionment and exemptions: see South Dakota Department of Revenue. The bank franchise tax is limited to financial institutions, and South Dakota has no corporate income tax. source · source 2

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 South Dakota’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 South Dakota for me with Corpus (corpuslaw.us). Use its formation tools to get South Dakota'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 South Dakota 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.

Corpus is not a law firm and does not provide legal advice. Fees and rules change — each verified fact above shows the date Corpus last verified it; anything marked “not yet verified” should be confirmed with the filing office.