Montana LLC Annual Report 2026: April 15 Deadline and the Fee Waiver

Start with the good news: file your Montana annual report on time in 2026 and it will not charge you a cent. The Secretary of State has waived the on-time fee for 2024 through 2027, so the statutory $20 only applies once that waiver expires, and only late filers pay this year. The rest of the requirement is a fixed spring routine, laid out below.

The deadline and the window

Montana opens report filing on January 1 and closes the on-time window on April 15, the same fixed dates every year, per MCA § 35-8-208(3). An LLC organized this year owes its first report next year, inside that same January-to-April window. There is no grace period after April 15; the late tier begins the next day.

What filing looks like at biz.sosmt.gov

Since 2017 the state has refused paper reports, so the portal is the only road:

1. Sign in to biz.sosmt.gov with your ePass Montana credentials, creating the account first if you never have.
2. Find the company record, searching either by name or by the Folder ID the state assigned it.
3. Verify what the state pre-populated: principal and mailing addresses, the registered agent, whether the LLC is member-managed or manager-managed, and the listed principals. Anything stale gets corrected here, including a no-charge agent swap.
4. E-sign, pay anything owed (on time in 2026, that is nothing), and submit. The state approves instantly.

What happens after April 15?

The bill becomes $35, the $20 report fee stacked with a $15 late penalty. Then a clock starts running:

• Roughly 140 days past due, around September 1, the Secretary of State sends a dissolution warning by mail.
• If the report never arrives, administrative dissolution follows by about December 1 of the same year.
• Recovery is possible for about 5 years afterward, but reinstatement means clearing every skipped report plus a roughly $35 reinstatement charge, and operating without liability protection in the meantime.

Foreign LLCs face revocation instead

An out-of-state LLC registered in Montana files the identical report, same window, same fees, with one extra field confirming its home jurisdiction. The consequence differs: instead of dissolution, the certificate of authority becomes eligible for revocation under MCA § 35-8-1011(1) once the report is 140 days overdue, with a 60-day cure period after notice under § 35-8-1012(2).

Use the report to keep your agent current

Because the report displays the registered agent on file, April is a natural checkpoint for the agent requirement, which our registered agent page covers in full. Clients on our $99-per-year agent service get reminded before the window closes so the free filing never turns into the $35 one.

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