Pennsylvania's new annual report requirement
For most of its history, Pennsylvania was one of the easiest states for ongoing compliance: LLCs did not file an annual report at all. That has changed. Under Act 122 of 2022Pennsylvania introduced an annual report requirement for LLCs and most business entities, with filings beginning in 2025. If you own a Pennsylvania LLC, this is a genuinely new obligation, and it is easy to miss precisely because it did not exist for so long.
The annual report is an informational filing with the Pennsylvania Department of State. It confirms the LLC's name, jurisdiction, registered office address, the principal office, and the names of at least one person authorized to manage the LLC. It is not a tax return and not a financial statement, its job is to keep the public record current, the same role the annual report plays in other states.
What changed from the old decennial report
Pennsylvania did not go from nothing to an annual report, it went from a decennial report to an annual one. The old system required most entities to file a report only once every ten years, chiefly to confirm they still existed and wanted to keep their name. That decennial report has been replaced by the yearly annual report under Act 122.
The practical effect is a large increase in frequency: from once a decade to once a year. For an owner used to the old cadence, or used to Pennsylvania asking nothing at all in most years, the mental model has to shift. This is now an annual habit, like Florida or California, not a once-in-a-decade afterthought.
When is the Pennsylvania annual report due?
Act 122 staggers deadlines by entity type. For LLCs, the annual report is due by September 30 each year. Corporations file by June 30, and limited partnerships, limited liability partnerships and other associations by December 31. Because the requirement is new and the Department of State is still bedding in its processes, confirm the current LLC deadline on the Department's website rather than relying on any single guide, including this one, for the exact date.
How much it costs and how to file
The fee is small: around $7 for LLCs and most for-profit associations, and $0 for non-profit entities. That figure comes from the Act 122 framework; confirm the current amount with the Department of State when you file. You file online through the Department of State's business filing portal, which is the fastest route and gives immediate confirmation.
To file you need the LLC's name and Department of State entity number, its registered office address, the principal office address, and the name of at least one authorized manager or member. If nothing has changed since the prior year, you still file, the annual report is required regardless.
What happens if you miss it?
Because the requirement is brand new, Pennsylvania built in a transition period before it begins enforcing failure-to-file consequences in full. Over time, however, an LLC that does not file its annual report can be administratively dissolved and lose the exclusive right to its name, after a statutory grace period. The state has signaled a phased, forgiving approach in the earliest years, but the prudent assumption is that this becomes a real obligation with real consequences, treat it as mandatory from the start rather than gambling on leniency.
It is worth being clear about who this affects, because the change is broad. The annual report requirement reaches domestic Pennsylvania LLCs, foreign LLCs registered to do business in the state, and most other entity types, corporations, limited partnerships, limited liability partnerships and non-profits, each on their own deadline. If you formed a Pennsylvania LLC years ago and have quietly kept it going with almost no state contact, this is precisely the situation the new rule changes: an entity that used to need attention roughly once a decade now needs it every year. The safest assumption is that if you have a registered Pennsylvania entity of any kind, an annual report now applies to it, and you should confirm your specific deadline and fee on the Department of State's portal.
A note on tax clearance, good news for closing
Here is a point where many older guides are simply wrong, and it matters if you are thinking about closing the LLC. Pennsylvania used to require a tax-clearance certificate before it would allow a business to dissolve, a slow, paperwork-heavy step. Act 122 of 2022 repealed that requirement. You no longer need to obtain tax clearance from the Department of Revenue and the Department of Labor & Industry before terminating a Pennsylvania entity. If a resource tells you to get tax clearance first, it is out of date.
How dissolving the LLC ends the obligation
The annual report exists only while the LLC is registered in Pennsylvania. Close the LLC and the yearly filing stops. Terminating the LLC ends the annual report obligation going forward.
In Pennsylvania you close an LLC by filing a Certificate of Termination with the Department of State; the state filing fee is around $70, confirm the current amount when you file. Thanks to the Act 122 repeal, there is no tax-clearance certificate to obtain first, which makes the process meaningfully simpler than it once was. We set out the full sequence on our guide to dissolving an LLC in Pennsylvaniawith the general mechanics on how to dissolve an LLC.
Once the termination is processed, no further annual reports are due. If the LLC ever obtained an EIN, terminating with the state does not close your IRS business accountthat is a separate federal step to complete the closure.
Deciding what to do next
If the LLC is active and you plan to keep it, add the new annual report to your calendar: file by September 30 each year, pay the small fee, and keep the LLC in good standing. If the LLC has served its purpose, the arrival of a new yearly obligation is a natural prompt to ask whether it is worth keeping open at all, especially now that terminating it no longer requires tax clearance.
We do not sell annual-report filing; our work is dissolution, terminating a Pennsylvania LLC properly so the Department of State agrees it is done and no more reports are due. If you are unsure whether to keep the LLC or close it, a specialist can talk it through first with no obligation. See the wider view on the LLC annual report hub.