What does it cost to dissolve a corporation?

What's the short answer?

There are three cost buckets, and only one of them is fixed. The state filing fee for your certificate or articles of dissolution is set by your state and usually runs from around $0 to roughly $200. The franchise or minimum tax you have to bring current before the state accepts the filing is variable, sometimes zero, sometimes the biggest number on the page. And an optional service fee if you'd rather not do the filings and the federal steps yourself.

For a corporation specifically, remember there's a federal layer that an LLC dissolution may not have: Form 966 within 30 days of the dissolution resolution, the final corporate return, and closing the IRS business account. Those don't always carry a government fee, but they carry work, and getting them wrong is where the real costs hide.

State filing fees by state

These are the fees to file the dissolution itself with the state. They change from time to time, so treat them as the ballpark and confirm the current figure with the agency before you file:

Corporation fees can differ slightly from the LLC figures, confirm your state's exact corporate dissolution fee. A fuller state-by-state breakdown lives on the cost of dissolution.

The franchise tax you have to clear first

This is the cost that surprises people, because it isn't a dissolution fee at all, it's the price of the state letting you dissolve. Most states with a franchise or minimum tax require it to be current before they'll accept the filing. Delaware wants its annual franchise tax paid in full first. Texas requires a Certificate of Account Status from the Comptroller confirming the account is settled. California's $800 minimum franchise tax keeps accruing every year until the corporation is formally dissolved.

For a corporation that's been inactive but never dissolved, this back tax, plus penalties and interest, is frequently the largest line in the whole exercise, dwarfing the filing fee. It's also the strongest argument for dissolving promptly: every year you wait, the number generally grows.

The costs people forget

• Tax-clearance lead time. Not a fee exactly, but states that require clearance add processing time you have to plan around, see how long it takes.
• Final return preparation. The final corporate return and Form 966 may mean accountant time if you don't do your own.
• Final payroll wrap-up. If you had employees, the last payroll filings carry their own effort, covered on final payroll tax.
• Foreign-registration withdrawals. If the corporation registered in other states, each usually has its own withdrawal fee.
• Registered-agent and license cancellations. Small, but they keep billing if you forget them.

DIY vs. using a service

Do it yourself and the out-of-pocket cost is just the state fee (plus any franchise tax, which you owe either way). That's genuinely the cheapest path if you get every step right: the 30-day Form 966 deadline, the final corporate return marked final, the tax-clearance sequence, and closing the IRS business account afterward. The risk isn't the filing fee, it's the missed step. A forgotten IRS account or a rejected filing for missing clearance can cost far more in accrued fees and rework than a service fee would have.

A service makes sense when the sequencing and the federal steps are worth more to you than the fee, which is most people closing a corporation that actually traded, because it has an EIN and the full set of federal steps to finish.

What we charge

Two prices, and state fees always passed through at cost, we don't mark them up. A corporation that traded and has an EIN is a Complete Closure at $399which covers the state dissolution, Form 966, keeping the final return in sequence, and closing the IRS business account. A company that never really operated and never got an EIN can sometimes be the $99 State Filing. If you buy the $99 and it turns out you need the full closure, the difference is fully credited, you're never penalized for guessing.

The cost of not dissolving at all

The most expensive option is usually doing nothing. An inactive corporation that isn't dissolved keeps owing annual reports and franchise or minimum tax, and those compound with penalties until either you dissolve it or the state does it messily through administrative dissolution. The “free” path of letting it lapse quietly runs up a balance that reliably exceeds the cost of a clean dissolution. Acting sooner is the cheapest version of this whole decision.

Rather have it handled at a fixed price?

Closing a corporation properly means the state filing, Form 966, the final return sequence, and the IRS account, handled in the right order, at a fixed $399 for a Complete Closure, with the state fee passed through at cost. If you're weighing DIY against a service, or you're not sure how much franchise tax is hanging over the company, a specialist is on WhatsApp 24/7 and will give you the honest number before you commit to anything.

Fees and franchise-tax rules change and vary by state. This page is general information, not tax or legal advice; confirm current figures with your state agency before filing.