Florida LLC for Non-Residents: What It Costs, the Deadline That Bites, and How It Compares With Texas

A Florida LLC is the second most common US company we form for founders abroad, and unlike some states its appeal survives examination.

A Florida LLC carries no state personal income tax, no franchise tax, a filing fee at the lower end of the range, and a Division of Corporations that frequently approves filings the same day they are submitted. For a non-resident choosing where to put a US company, that is a genuinely strong combination — cheap to enter, cheap to keep, fast to get moving.

It is also a real economy rather than a registration venue. Florida is the gateway state for Latin American trade, it has deep logistics and import infrastructure, and a Florida address carries weight with customers and suppliers across the Americas in a way a Wyoming address does not. Founders selling into that region often choose Florida for commercial reasons before tax enters the conversation at all.

These two states get compared constantly, usually badly, because both are summarised as "no income tax" and left there. The differences that actually affect a US company are elsewhere.

Read the first three rows together and the Florida LLC is clearly the cheaper entity: less than half the formation cost, and no franchise tax at any revenue. Read the next two and the picture sharpens — Florida charges every year where Texas charges nothing, and Florida punishes lateness in a way Texas does not.

The honest summary is that a Texas LLC is more forgiving and a Florida LLC is cheaper. Which matters more depends on whether you have someone reliably watching your compliance calendar.

A Florida LLC is the second of the three structures we recommend for staffing and recruiting businesses, and here too the deciding factor is insurance rather than tax.

Florida requires workers' compensation cover at thresholds that depend on the industry:

• Construction — one or more employees. Cover is required from the first person on the books, including non-exempt LLC members.
• Non-construction — four or more employees. The usual threshold for a staffing business placing office, clerical, healthcare or technical workers.
• Agriculture — six regular employees, or twelve seasonal workers working more than 30 days in a season or more than 45 days in the calendar year.

Exemptions can be elected by individual owners and officers, but they are personal: an exempt member gives up their own benefits and the business still needs cover for everyone else. Exemptions do not remove the obligation, they remove one person from the count.

What a Florida LLC shares with a Texas one, and what both have over Wyoming, is a competitive private insurance market: workers' compensation, employers' liability and professional indemnity can be placed with commercial carriers through a single broker. Wyoming cannot offer that, which is why we do not recommend it for staffing whatever its other merits.

The requirements for a Florida LLC are short, and none of them exclude a non-resident.

• A distinguishable name ending in "Limited Liability Company", "L.L.C." or "LLC", different from every other entity on the Division of Corporations register.
• A registered agent with a physical Florida street address who has signed to accept the designation.
• A principal address and a mailing address. The principal address must be a physical address, but it may be outside Florida — and outside the United States.
• At least one member or manager. Managers and managing members are named on the public record.
• An authorised representative who signs the Articles of Organization.

No citizenship, no residency, no visa, no Social Security Number. As with every US LLC, ownership is open to anyone. A founder in Bogotá, Lagos or Chennai can own a Florida LLC outright, and the fact that the principal address may sit abroad makes Florida unusually workable for a US company run entirely from overseas.

Every Florida LLC must keep a registered agent, and that agent must have a physical street address in Florida — a post office box is not accepted, and neither is a mail-forwarding address. The agent must sign to accept the appointment, and an entity acting as agent must itself be active on the state's records.

A company cannot serve as its own registered agent in Florida. For a non-resident this is not a formality to be minimised: it is the state's route to reach you, and it is where service of process lands. A lapsed or uncontactable agent is how founders discover lawsuits after a default judgment has already been entered.

A commercial registered agent service holds the address, forwards what arrives and keeps the designation current — which also matters because the annual report asks you to confirm it every year.

Step 5 is where non-resident timelines slip, and it has nothing to do with Florida. The IRS online EIN tool is closed to applicants without a Social Security Number, and the open routes range from same-day to over a month — our guide to getting an EIN without an SSN sets them out.

Note the shape of that table against Texas. Florida is USD 175 cheaper to start and USD 138.75 more expensive to keep, so the two states cross over in the second year and Florida stays ahead from there — provided nothing is ever filed late. One missed deadline erases roughly three years of the saving. State fees are set by Florida and change from time to time; verify at dos.fl.gov before filing, and our Florida formation page sets out what our own service includes, quoted in writing before any payment.

Every Florida LLC files an annual report with the Division of Corporations by 1 May, beginning the calendar year after formation. It carries no financial information — it confirms the principal and mailing addresses, the registered agent, the managers or managing members, and the company's federal EIN.

The fee is USD 138.75. File it on 2 May and the fee becomes USD 538.75.

What makes Florida different from almost every other state is the wording the Division of Corporations uses about that penalty: there is no provision to abate or waive the USD 400 late fee. It is not discretionary, there is no reasonable-cause route, and the state says explicitly that entities must pay it even if they never received a reminder.

The penalty is not the end of the sequence. If the annual report is still outstanding by the third Friday of September, the company is administratively dissolved at the close of business on the fourth Friday of September.

Dissolution is categorically worse than a fine. The Florida LLC stops existing as a legal person. Its contracts, its bank account, its ownership of its own assets and the liability protection you formed it for all come into question from that date. Payment processors and banks that monitor state records may act on the status change before you have noticed it.

Reinstatement is available at USD 100 plus the annual report fee for every year outstanding, and it restores the company — but it is a far worse position than the USD 138.75 that would have prevented it, and there is a gap in the record that a careful counterparty can see.

Florida has no state personal income tax. A Florida LLC treated as a disregarded entity or a partnership pays no Florida corporate income tax either — the 5.5% corporate rate reaches only entities taxed federally as corporations, and there is an exemption on the first tranche of income even then. There is no annual franchise tax of any kind, which is a real and permanent advantage over Texas.

The tax that does catch a Florida LLC is sales tax. Florida charges 6% at state level plus a county discretionary surtax, and a business selling taxable goods must register with the Department of Revenue before its first taxable sale, not after. E-commerce sellers shipping into Florida are the group most often caught by this, and the obligation is independent of where the owner lives.

Florida compliance is half the calendar for a Florida LLC. The federal half attaches because the company is a foreign-owned US entity, not because it is in Florida, and every foreign-owned US LLC carries the same set.

• Form 5472 with a pro forma Form 1120, for a single-member Florida LLC owned by a non-US person. Due even at zero revenue, cannot be e-filed, USD 25,000 penalty per form per year. Our Form 5472 guide covers what counts as reportable.
• Form 1065 with Schedules K-1, where the LLC has two or more members, plus any withholding on foreign partners.
• An EIN, which every US company needs before banking or payments are possible, and which a Florida LLC obtains the same way any other US LLC does.
• Federal income tax, where income is effectively connected with a US trade or business.

Beneficial ownership reporting no longer applies: a FinCEN final rule effective 14 August 2026 permanently removed the requirement for companies formed in the United States, leaving only foreign-formed companies registered to do business in a US state within scope. A Florida LLC is a domestic entity and files nothing. This area has moved repeatedly, so confirm at fincen.gov before relying on it.

Nearly every Florida LLC that gets into trouble does so through one of these, and the first three are all the same mistake at different stages.

We form Florida LLCs for non-resident founders end to end, and we set up the same US company in any other state when Florida is not the right answer: name check, registered agent with a compliant Florida street address, the Articles of Organization, the EIN by whichever route is open to you, the operating agreement, and sales tax registration where the business needs it.

The part worth paying attention to is what comes after your Florida LLC exists. Because Florida's USD 400 penalty cannot be waived and the September dissolution is automatic, compliance and accounting support keeps the 1 May annual report and the federal Form 5472 on one calendar, with the reminder going somewhere a person actually reads. That is a mundane service that saves more money in Florida than in most states.

Our team includes US-credentialed CPAs, IRS Enrolled Agents and Certified Acceptance Agents. We are a document filing, taxation and accounting firm and do not provide legal advice or insurance advice; where either is needed, we work alongside independent attorneys and licensed brokers. A written quote is provided before any payment, normally within 4 to 24 hours. If you are building a staffing business, say so when you enquire — it changes the state recommendation.