The North Carolina LLC annual report requirement

Forming an LLC in North Carolina is a one-time filing. Keeping it in good standing is a yearly one, and it is the obligation new owners most often forget because nothing reminds them of it in the first year. The rule is short and sits in one section (G.S. 57D-2-24 — annual report required).

The statute says every North Carolina LLC, and every foreign LLC authorised to transact business in the state, must deliver an annual report to the Secretary of State each year on the form the Secretary prescribes. Professional LLCs organised under G.S. 57D-2-02 are excluded. 'Every' means what it says: a one-person company with no employees and a website that takes three bookings a month is inside it.

It lives within the LLC Act (Chapter 57D — NC Limited Liability Company Act), the statute that has governed North Carolina LLCs since January 1, 2014. The same Act sets how the company is formed, by filing articles of organization, and its default management rule, under which management is vested in the managers unless the operating agreement says otherwise. The annual report is the recurring piece of that structure — the state's yearly confirmation that the company still exists and who runs it.

What we will not print is the fee and the exact due date. Both are set outside the statute, in the Secretary of State's administrative guidance, and that guidance was not available to us when this page was written. Rather than repeat a figure from memory, we point you to the Secretary of State's own site. Check it each year; administrative details change more often than statutes.

Why a web design agency writes about this. Your company's legal name, registered agent and status are public, and the name on your website, your invoices and your privacy policy should match the name on file. When a client's company falls out of good standing, the problems show up in odd places: payment accounts, domain ownership, contracts signed in a name that is no longer active. We add the annual report to the same calendar as a client's domain renewal because both are small annual chores that cause outsized trouble when missed.

The site itself carries its own continuing duties. The Justice Department's position is that the ADA applies to websites of public-facing businesses, whatever their legal form, so a change in the company's standing does not change what the site must do.

File every year, check the fee and date on the Secretary of State's site rather than trusting a number from anywhere else, and keep the name on your website identical to the name on the report.