Delaware charges $109 to file the document that creates a company

The workload

Forming a Delaware corporation starts with a document, not a tax filing: the Certificate of Incorporation, filed with the state's Division of Corporations. Delaware's own instructions for forming a new business entity state the founder must first obtain a registered agent with a physical Delaware street address, since Delaware law requires every entity to maintain one, and then submit the completed certificate through the state's Document Filing and Certificate Request Service or by mail with a cover sheet stating the filer's name, return address, and phone number. The state's page is explicit that it does not provide legal advice on entity type or share structure, directing that question to an attorney or accountant instead.

What the documents show

Delaware's own Division of Corporations fee schedule, revised August 1, 2026 by its own header, states, verified, a state filing fee of $109.00 for incorporation, including public benefit corporations, a figure the schedule's own note describes as bundling the filing fee with a receiving-and-indexing fee, a data-entry fee, a municipality fee, and a county recording fee for a one-page document, adding $9 per additional page. The same schedule prices an optional same-day fee at $100.00 and a 24-hour fee at $50.00, and a certified copy at $50.00 each. Separately, the how-to-form page states a one-time, non-refundable name-reservation fee of $75.00 for a 120-day hold on an entity name before filing.

The operating cost

The $109.00 base filing fee is one-time, paid at formation, not recurring. It is distinct from Delaware's annual franchise tax, documented separately in this site's first hundred entries, billed every year afterward for as long as the corporation exists, whether or not it ever files another certificate. A founder budgeting formation costs should count the $109.00 filing fee, the optional $75.00 name reservation, any expedite fee, and a registered agent's own annual charge, which Delaware requires but does not price, since agents are private companies setting their own rates.

The stop condition

The filing fee is paid once and does not recur on its own: the entity, once formed, owes no further filing fee under this schedule unless it amends, restates, or converts the certificate later, each priced separately on the same schedule. The condition requiring a comparable fee again is a fresh filing, such as a conversion or restated certificate; ordinary annual compliance afterward runs through the franchise tax system instead, not this one.

• Has a registered agent been secured, and is its annual fee, not on Delaware's own fee schedule, budgeted separately from the state's filing fees?
• Is the $100 same-day or $50 24-hour expedite fee worth paying against the state's standard, unstated default processing time?
• Does the business plan to amend or restate the certificate later, priced as a separate filing on the same schedule?

Delaware's own instructions and fee schedule set a specific, dated cost for the filing that creates the corporation; everything paid afterward to keep it in good standing, the registered agent's fee and the annual franchise tax, runs on a different clock than this one-time number.