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If you search "Alabama LLC annual report," most of what you'll find is describing a state that no longer exists. Two separate laws dismantled Alabama's recurring filings between 2022 and 2024, and a lot of guides never caught up. Here is the current reality, from the state's own notices: Alabama LLCs file no annual report with the Secretary of State — no entity in Alabama does (HB230, effective October 1, 2024, repealed the last surviving annual-report requirement, the corporate one). And for taxable years beginning after December 31, 2023, an LLC whose Business Privilege Tax comes out to $100 or less is fully exempt — from paying it and from filing the return at all (Act 2022-252; the Department of Revenue's notice says exempt taxpayers "are not required to file a Business Privilege Tax Return (BPTIN/CPT/PPT)"). Because the tax is levied on net worth at rates starting at $0.25 per $1,000, an LLC at the lowest rate stays under $100 with up to roughly $400,000 of Alabama net worth — arithmetic, not a special rule, but it means the typical small LLC now owes Alabama no recurring state filing whatsoever. The catch is the word "calculated": nobody sends you a bill or a waiver. The exemption applies only if the tax you would have computed is ≤$100 — so you still have to run the computation to know you're allowed to do nothing.
| Item | Alabama LLC |
|---|---|
| Secretary of State annual report | None. LLCs were dropped from the annual-report rolls as of January 1, 2024 (Act 2022-252 fallout), and HB230 repealed the corporate requirement (§ 10A-2A-16.11) effective October 1, 2024 — since then no Alabama entity files an SOS annual report |
| Business Privilege Tax (BPT) | Levied on Alabama net worth, rates $0.25–$1.75 per $1,000 scaled by federal taxable income apportioned to Alabama (Ala. Code § 40-14A-22) |
| The ≤$100 exemption | Tax years beginning after 12/31/2023: calculated tax of $100 or less → no payment and no return (no Form PPT, no initial BPT-IN). 2023 was a transition year with a $50 minimum; before that the minimum was $100 every year |
| If you're over $100 | Form PPT (pass-through/disregarded entities) filed with ALDOR, generally due at the same time as the corresponding federal income-tax return — mid-March for calendar-year LLCs taxed as partnerships or S-corps, mid-April for single-member LLCs owned by individuals |
| Who this doesn't cover | Financial institution groups and insurance companies follow their own BPT rules; LLCs electing corporate taxation file Form CPT mechanics instead of PPT |
| Where | My Alabama Taxes (ALDOR) · Business Privilege Tax Section: 334-353-7923 |
The two-question test. (1) Is your Alabama net worth low enough that net worth × your rate ≤ $100? At the floor rate of $0.25/$1,000 that's ≤ $400,000 of net worth; at the top rate of $1.75/$1,000 the exemption runs out near $57,000. (2) Are you sure of your rate? It depends on federal taxable income apportioned to Alabama, which is why "small" LLCs are usually at the floor. If both answers are comfortable, Alabama asks nothing of you this year. If either is close, compute it properly (or have your preparer do it) — the exemption is self-assessed, and the burden of being right is yours.
Alabama's dismantling happened in two awkward stages, and each stage minted its own generation of stale guidance. Stage one: Act 2022-252 (2022's HB391) phased out the minimum tax — $100 historically, $50 for 2023, then a full exemption at ≤$100 for 2024 onward — and, as a side effect, moved annual reports from the Department of Revenue to the Secretary of State starting January 1, 2024, for corporations only. LLCs simply fell off the list. Stage two: that SOS corporate report generated so many complaints that the legislature killed it too — HB230, signed May 7, 2024, effective October 1, 2024. So a guide written in 2022 tells you to file Form PPT with a $100 minimum and an AL-CAR annual report attached; a guide written in early 2024 tells you LLCs are exempt from the report but corporations file with the SOS; only a guide current after October 2024 gets to the right answer: no annual report for anyone, and no BPT filing for most small LLCs. When you read conflicting advice about Alabama, check the date before you check the logic.
A state that asks for nothing annually still has edges. The exemption threshold is a cliff-adjacent line, not a safe harbor: grow your net worth past the ≤$100 point and Form PPT comes back — with a due date tied to your federal return, which lands mid-March for calendar-year multi-member LLCs, a month earlier than most owners' mental "tax day." Alabama's late-filing and late-payment penalties then apply to a return you may not have filed in years. Separately, "no annual report" does not mean "no obligations": your registered agent must stay current with the Secretary of State (a change is its own filing), county-level business licenses renew on their own schedules, and if your LLC is foreign-owned, the federal Form 5472 exposure that catches non-resident owners in no-report states applies in Alabama the same way. The failure mode here isn't a missed state deadline — it's letting "Alabama asks nothing" harden into "nobody asks anything," and then re-crossing the threshold without noticing.
| Where you are | What Alabama wants |
|---|---|
| Calculated BPT ≤ $100 | Nothing — no report, no return, no payment (keep your computation with your records) |
| Calculated BPT > $100 | Form PPT + payment, due with your federal-return timing; late penalties apply |
| New LLC, first year | Same test — the initial return (BPT-IN) is also covered by the ≤$100 exemption per ALDOR's notice |
| Any year | Registered agent current with the SOS; county/municipal licenses on their own cycles |
Alabama now sits with the "no annual report" states, but it got there by a stranger road than the others. New Mexico and Missouri never asked for one; Arizona asks only when something changes. Alabama, by contrast, still runs a tax apparatus with a filing obligation inside it — the obligation just evaluates to zero for most small companies, the way Texas's franchise-tax no-tax-due regime works, except Texas still demands its information report and Alabama demands nothing at all below the line. The nearest cousin is South Carolina, where default-taxed LLCs are likewise fully exempt while differently-taxed ones owe a return — the same "your tax election decides your paperwork" logic. Owners with entities in Alabama plus an anniversary-date state are carrying one deadline that exists and one that doesn't; the 50-state table shows both at a glance.
Zero filings — until the year that quietly stops being true. EntityMinder tracks the Alabama threshold question next to every real deadline you have in other states, and reminds you to re-run the ≤$100 test each year instead of assuming it. The beta waitlist is open; planned pricing is $9/month.
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