2026 tax year
Forming in Wyoming
Cheap to form. That is not the same as cheap to use.
Forming in Wyoming, Delaware or Nevada does not remove tax or registration obligations in the state where your business actually operates. An out-of-state entity doing business in its owner's state must usually register there as a foreign entity and pay that state's taxes anyway.
Wyoming genuinely is inexpensive. There is no personal income tax, no corporate income tax, no franchise tax on income and no gross receipts tax. The formation fee is among the lowest in the country and the annual report is a flat charge for any business with modest assets in the state.
None of that is in dispute. What is in dispute is whether any of it reaches you, if the work happens somewhere else.
What Wyoming charges
| State | Entity | Formation | Foreign registration | Annual report | Annual tax |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wyoming | LLC | $100 | $150 | $60 | not established |
| Wyoming | Corporation | $100 | $150 | $60 | not established |
The part the fee schedule cannot tell you
Wyoming has no income tax because Wyoming is not taxing your income, your own state is. Pass-through profit is taxed where the owner lives and where the income is earned, so a Wyoming LLC run from anywhere else does not move a dollar of income tax.
And the low fees do not replace your own state’s fees, they sit alongside them. You register in your operating state as a foreign entity, pay its registration fee, file its annual report, pay its taxes, and keep a Wyoming registered agent on top because you have no Wyoming address.
The result is two sets of filings and two states that can dissolve you for missing a deadline, in exchange for a formation fee that was cheaper once.
What it costs you to use Wyoming
Set where you live and where the work actually happens. The comparison keeps your operating state's obligations on every column, which is the whole point, because those do not go away when you form somewhere else.
What decides the numbers
Registered agent prices are a typical market range, not an official fee. Acting as your own agent needs an address in that state, so it is only offered where you live or work.
What changes the warnings, not the arithmetic
Set your states and figures above, then press Compare.
Questions
Does a Wyoming LLC keep my name off public records?
Wyoming does limit what appears in state filings. Whether that amounts to anonymity in 2026 is a different question, and one this page will not answer: federal beneficial-ownership reporting is under active regulatory development and any firm statement here would age badly. Check the current position with FinCEN and the statute.
What if I have no employees and work entirely online?
It narrows the question but does not remove it. You still live somewhere, and your state still taxes what you earn. Where the customers are can create obligations of its own, which this calculator does not compute.
Is Wyoming ever the right answer?
Yes, when you actually live or work there, in which case it is simply your home state and an unusually cheap one. The comparison on the hub shows it winning in exactly that case.
Related
- Compare every state
- Forming in Delaware
- Forming in Montana or South Dakota
- Delaware franchise tax calculator
- Sole proprietor, S corp or C corp?
General information about what states charge, not tax advice. And not legal advice either. Choosing where and how to form a business involves legal questions beyond cost. Take advice before filing.