All 50 states › Washington
Washington's annual report is, on its face, one of the more forgiving in the country: it's due by the last day of the month your LLC was formed or registered (the Secretary of State calls this your "expiration date"), you can file it up to 180 days early, and the state even mails and emails a courtesy reminder 60 days ahead. The trap is what the statute says about that reminder. RCW 23.95.255(7) is blunt: "Failure of the secretary of state to provide any such notice does not relieve a domestic entity or registered foreign entity from its obligations to file the annual report required by this chapter or to pay any applicable annual renewal fee." If the notice goes to a stale address, a departed registered agent, or a spam folder, the deadline stands — and behind it sits a delinquency fee and an administrative-dissolution track.
| Item | Washington LLC |
|---|---|
| What's due | Annual Report to the Washington Secretary of State (all domestic and foreign entities, to keep the UBI in good standing) |
| Deadline | The last day of your anniversary month each year — the SOS calls it the "expiration date" |
| Early filing | Up to 180 days before the due date (an LLC due January 31 can file from August 1). Filing early does not move next year's date |
| Fee | $70 for profit entities, codified at WAC 434-112-085(7) |
| Late | $25 delinquency fee ($95 total), delinquent status, and eligibility for administrative dissolution |
| Reinstatement | $140 + every missed annual report fee (SOS fee schedule) |
| Where | SOS Corporations & Charities filing system |
Find your month first. Your due date is tied to the month the LLC was originally formed or registered — it never changes, even if you file early. An LLC formed on March 14 owes its report by March 31 every year, and can file any time from October 1. If you're unsure of your month, look up your entity in the SOS business search; the registration date is on the record.
The immediate cost of a miss is modest: a $25 delinquency fee on top of the $70, and the entity's status flips to delinquent. But delinquency is also the on-ramp to losing the company. Under RCW 23.95.605, an annual report that still hasn't been delivered 120 days past its due date is grounds for administrative dissolution. Once the Secretary of State serves notice of that determination, RCW 23.95.610 gives the entity 60 days to cure; if it doesn't, the secretary "shall administratively dissolve the entity." A dissolved LLC continues to exist only to wind up its affairs — it may not carry on business — and getting back means reinstatement at $140 plus every annual report fee you skipped along the way.
| Where you are | What it costs |
|---|---|
| On time (by the last day of your anniversary month) | $70 |
| Late | $70 + $25 delinquency fee = $95, status delinquent |
| 120+ days late | Grounds for administrative dissolution (RCW 23.95.605); SOS serves notice, 60 days to cure |
| Cure window missed | Administratively dissolved — wind-up activities only (RCW 23.95.610) |
| Reinstating | $140 + all missed annual report fees |
Three reasons come up repeatedly. First, the anniversary-month system means every Washington entity you own can have a different due date — nothing about January or April 15 to anchor on, so multi-entity owners lose track. Second, the courtesy notice creates false security: owners assume "the state will tell me," and for most of them it does — until an address change, an agent change, or an email filter breaks the chain, and RCW 23.95.255(7) puts the miss entirely on the company. Third, the SOS itself points out that the annual report is not the whole job: its Maintain Business Compliance page covers the other moving parts (new entities also owe a one-time $10 Initial Report, and Washington businesses separately renew licenses through the Department of Revenue's business-licensing system) — so even owners who file the SOS report can be surprised by a second renewal elsewhere. When in doubt, work from the official record, not memory.
At $70, Washington sits mid-pack — more than Colorado's $25 or Wyoming's $60 license tax, far under Massachusetts's $500 or Nevada's $350 stacked filings. Its written no-notice-no-excuse rule makes it a sibling of New Jersey, which states the same principle almost word for word. And like Virginia and Illinois, it's an anniversary state — every entity adds a different date to your calendar. Already missed a deadline here or anywhere else? The recovery path is in what to do if you missed your annual report.
Washington tells you the reminder is your problem. EntityMinder pins your anniversary-month due date — and every other state's — to a calendar with reminders that don't depend on a notice arriving. The beta waitlist is open; planned pricing is $9/month.
Try EntityMinder free →