Formation · ranked
Holding a US company long term
For founders who expect the company to still exist in five years, where the annual cost matters more than the setup cost.
Disclosure Links to providers on this page earn this site nothing. They go to the provider’s own site unmodified, with no tracking parameters. Affiliate relationships are planned from June 2027, and this notice changes on the day that does. Full disclosure.
- Northwest Registered Agent — Deluxe9.3Score 9.3 out of 10, Excellent tier, rubric 2026.1
Northwest Registered Agent
Visit Northwest Registered Agent (opens the provider’s site)- Year-one total
- $239Calculated from attributes verified 16 Sep 2026
- Annual thereafter
- $185Calculated from attributes verified 16 Sep 2026
- Formation fee
- $139Verified against the source 16 Sep 2026
- Fee basis
- One-timeVerified against the source 16 Sep 2026
- Agent renewal
- $125/yrVerified against the source 16 Sep 2026
- States available
- Any state — priced for WyomingVerified against the source 16 Sep 2026
- Year-one total
- $397Calculated from attributes verified 16 Sep 2026
- Annual thereafter
- $357Calculated from attributes verified 16 Sep 2026
- Formation fee
- $297Verified against the source 16 Sep 2026
- Fee basis
- Annual subscriptionVerified against the source 16 Sep 2026
- Agent renewal
- In planVerified against the source 16 Sep 2026
- States available
- Any state — priced for WyomingVerified against the source 16 Sep 2026
- Year-one total
- $498Calculated from attributes verified 16 Sep 2026
- Annual thereafter
- $359Calculated from attributes verified 16 Sep 2026
- Formation fee
- $99Verified against the source 16 Sep 2026
- Fee basis
- One-timeVerified against the source 16 Sep 2026
- Agent renewal
- $299/yrVerified against the source 16 Sep 2026
- States available
- Any state — priced for WyomingVerified against the source 16 Sep 2026
- Year-one total
- $449Calculated from attributes verified 16 Sep 2026
- Annual thereafter
- $409Calculated from attributes verified 16 Sep 2026
- Formation fee
- $349Verified against the source 16 Sep 2026
- Fee basis
- Annual subscriptionVerified against the source 16 Sep 2026
- Agent renewal
- In planVerified against the source 16 Sep 2026
- States available
- Any state — priced for WyomingVerified against the source 16 Sep 2026
- Year-one total
- $500Calculated from attributes verified 16 Sep 2026
- Annual thereafter
- $500Calculated from attributes verified 16 Sep 2026
- Formation fee
- $500Verified against the source 16 Sep 2026
- Fee basis
- One-timeVerified against the source 16 Sep 2026
- Agent renewal
- $100/yrVerified against the source 16 Sep 2026
- States available
- Delaware onlyVerified against the source 16 Sep 2026
date checked against the provider’s own pagecalculated; oldest date among its inputspast its recheck window
Segments show the tier reached, not the score:BasicStandardStrongExcellent
This is the same verified dataset as the formation table, re-ordered on one column. The overall score is still shown, and it does not order this page — which is why the leader here can differ from the leader there.
Scoring weights
rubric 2026.1
- Year-one total cost40%
- Annual cost thereafter60%
Set once per vertical and versioned. Changing a weight is a logged version bump, not routine upkeep — methodology.
Verification state
- Dated fields in this table
- 40
- Oldest check
- 16 Sep 2026
- Most recent check
- 16 Sep 2026
- Recheck window
- 90 days
- Past that window
- 0
What this ranking does not say
One column answers one question. It is not a verdict on the products underneath it.
- Ranking first here means leading on annual thereafter alone. Where the overall score disagrees, the difference is the weighting, published in full beside this table.
- Ranking last here is not a warning. A product can be the right choice for something this column does not measure — its own page says what its figures do and do not capture.