SHEET AZ-01 · FORMATION DOSSIER

Arizona

Form an LLC in Arizona as a non-resident: the verified state fee, the duty that follows you every year, the agent rule, and the traps that are specific to this state — each figure sourced on this sheet.

State formation fee: $50
Total with Formation Complete: $449
Annual duty cost: $0/yr
Report pattern: No recurring report

On fee alone, Arizona is the 4th cheapest of the 49 jurisdictions in this Atlas to form in. Fee is the smallest part of the decision — the duty below is the part that repeats.

What it takes here

You form a Arizona LLC by filing Articles of Organization with the Arizona Corporation Commission, Corporations Division. The state fee is $50, collected by us at cost as a pass-through — the state keeps its fee; our $399 is separate and labelled as ours on the pricing page. Arizona business filings are with the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC), not a Secretary of State. Statutory agent rules follow the ACC's L010i Articles of Organization instructions. The no-annual-report rule is stated in ACC publications (the ACC FAQ page lists the question 'Do LLCs file annual reports?' and ACC's own annual report publication notes LLCs are not required to file one; only corporations file annual reports in Arizona). New in 2025: ACC Policy 3 adds an attestation of existence for LLCs with no ACC filings for 2 years - it is not an annual report, carries no fee, and its effective date was still TBD in the ACC's May 30, 2025 announcement.

Name rules

Your company name must contain a limited-liability designator — “Limited Liability Company” or an accepted abbreviation such as “LLC” — and must be distinguishable from names already on the records of the Arizona Corporation Commission, Corporations Division. A name that implies a regulated activity (banking, insurance, trust) or a government affiliation invites rejection or a consent requirement in Arizona as in most states. For a non-resident there is a second, quieter naming point: the name on the Articles of Organization is the name the IRS will print on your EIN confirmation (the CP 575), and it is the name your bank and payment processors will match against your documents. Pick the final name before filing; amending it later is a second state filing with a second fee.

The publication step

Arizona adds a publication step most states have dropped. Under A.R.S. § 29-3205, an LLC whose known place of business is outside Maricopa and Pima counties must publish a copy of its articles of organization in a newspaper of general circulation in that county for three consecutive publications; for Maricopa and Pima the Corporation Commission’s own publication of the filing satisfies the step. Because a non-resident’s Arizona address on file is usually its registered agent’s, the county of that address decides whether the newspaper step applies to you — confirm the county before filing, not after.

Forms, office and processing

The filing office is the Arizona Corporation Commission, Corporations Division. The formation document is the Articles of Organization; most Arizona filings can be made online, and online filings are acknowledged faster than paper ones as a rule. The Corporation Commission posts its Corporations Division processing times weekly and sells speed in print: expedited examination for $35 on top of the filing fee, then accelerated tiers — Next Day $100, Same Day $200 (received before 10 a.m.), Two-Hour $400 (received before 3 p.m.). Its posted table put new LLC filings at roughly 9–11 business days unexpedited when last checked for this sheet. (Processing source: the office’s own page — checked 2026-11-05.) What we commit to in writing, before anything is filed, is the fee, the duty and the due pattern on this sheet.

The foreign-registration warning

Forming in Arizona does not licence you to operate everywhere. If your LLC will have an office, employees, inventory or a sustained physical presence in another state, that state will generally require foreign qualification there — a second registration, a second agent and a second set of duties, on top of this one. Non-residents most often trip on this by forming in a low-fee state while living-adjacent operations, warehousing or staff sit somewhere else. The state of formation should follow the business, not the other way round; the diagnostic on this site asks where your customers and operations are for exactly this reason.

Your registered agent in Arizona

Arizona uses the term 'statutory agent' (A.R.S. Section 29-3115). The agent may be an individual who is a permanent, full-time resident of Arizona with a permanent, full-time physical/street address in Arizona (any mailing address must also be in Arizona), or an LLC, or a foreign corporation or LLC authorized to transact business in Arizona. The LLC cannot be its own statutory agent; the agent must accept the appointment in writing (ACC form M002).

Formation Complete includes the registered agent for year one. From year two the renewal is $149 a year — the same figure on every sheet in this Atlas, because the agent’s job (a real address, a person or service that can receive process, and forwarding that actually reaches a founder overseas) costs the same diligence in Phoenix as anywhere else. If you move the agent elsewhere, the duty calendar below does not move with it: the report duty belongs to the LLC, not to the agent.

Duty calendar

No annual report for LLCs; corporations file an annual report with the Corporation Commission.

This state sets no recurring report date for an LLC.

This state sets no recurring report for a domestic LLC, which is why the duty-cost figure on this sheet is $0 a year. That is not the same as no duties at all: the registered agent must be maintained continuously, the federal Form 5472 duty below applies to foreign-owned single-member LLCs wherever they are formed, and dissolving or neglecting the entity still leaves a record to clean up.

If the duty is missed altogether. Failure to maintain a statutory agent with a valid address on ACC records at all times subjects the LLC to administrative dissolution (A.R.S. Section 29-3708). Separately, under ACC Policy 3 (adopted May 8, 2025; effective date TBD), an LLC that has filed no documentation with the ACC for 2 years receives an attestation-of-existence notice; no response within 60 days begins a 120-day administrative dissolution process.

Cost of ownership

Formation Complete $399 one-time + state fee at cost; agent renewal $149/yr from year 2; state duty annualised from the verified figure on this sheet.
Horizon	Total paid	What it contains
Year 1	$449	$399 package + $50 state fee; agent year 1 included
By end of year 2	$598	Year 1 + $149 agent renewal
By end of year 5	$1,045	Year 1 + four renewals + four years of state duty

Compare that five-year figure, not the formation fee, against any other state you are considering — the compare tray in the Atlas does it side by side for up to three states. A state that is $100 cheaper to form and $300 a year heavier to keep is the expensive state.

The Atlas arithmetic for Arizona: formation fee $50 (4th of 49), year one $449 including the $399 Formation Complete package, five years $1,045 (2nd of 49). Between year one and year five the only recurring items are the $149 agent renewal and no recurring state duty at all — the state charges nothing to keep the company on the register. Not one dollar of that five-year total is state duty — the recurring part is entirely the registered-agent renewal. That sits below the Atlas median five-year cost of $1,260. A formation fee is a one-afternoon number; the five-year total is the cost of actually owning the company, and on that measure Arizona undercuts the median state.

Non-resident specifics in Arizona

Arizona’s recurring state cost for a domestic LLC is the duty on this sheet — No annual report for LLCs; corporations file an annual report with the Corporation Commission. Two cautions decide whether that stays the whole story. First, tax follows activity, not paperwork: if your customers, property or people are in another state, that state can require foreign qualification there and tax the activity there, whatever this sheet says. Second, an LLC is a state-law shell around a federal tax position: a foreign-owned single-member LLC is disregarded for federal income tax by default, which is exactly the status that carries the Form 5472 duty described in the non-resident section below — the state choice does not change it.

The federal layer, which no state choice removes. A single-member LLC owned by a non-resident is, by default, a disregarded entity for US federal income tax — and since 2017 that status carries an annual information duty: Form 5472 attached to a pro-forma Form 1120, due each year the LLC exists, reporting reportable transactions with its foreign owner (funding the company counts). The penalty for a missing or late Form 5472 starts at $25,000. Multi-member LLCs are taxed as partnerships by default and file Form 1065, with their own withholding questions when US-source income reaches foreign partners. None of this is a reason not to form; all of it is a reason to form with the calendar already drawn. The EIN guide on this site walks the Form SS-4 route for founders with no SSN or ITIN, the CP 575 you receive, and the 5472 duty in full.

Address and banking reality. Your Arizona LLC’s address on the state record is its registered office — the agent’s address — which is a service address, not your trading address, and should never be sold to you as one. Banks and payment processors will ask for the beneficial owner’s foreign address and passport-grade identification, and many will ask why the company sits in Arizona; “my operations and customers are there” is an answer, a fee table is not. Form where the answer is true.

Plot my route — the 5-question diagnostic Compare Arizona in the Atlas

Sources: formation fee and duty verified against official state sources — Arizona Corporation Commission, Corporations Division: https://www.azcc.gov/docs/default-source/corps-files/fee-schedules/fee-schedule-llcs646a1cd0d6b24246ab2253aecbc3ab40.pdf?sfvrsn=debb38e6_5 · duty record: https://www.azcc.gov/docs/default-source/corps-files/instructions/l010i-instructions-articles-of-organization88bf60ed7df74158a58145c66f72aa90.pdf?sfvrsn=fb0a9180_8 · fees verified 2026-11-03, duties verified 2026-11-04. Federal figures (Form 5472 penalty) per IRS instructions for Form 5472.