Dataset current to Oct 2026

Stripe Atlas

Year-one total
$500
Annual thereafter
$500
Formation fee
$500
Fee basis
One-time

Disclosure Links to providers on this page earn this site nothing. They go to the provider’s own site unmodified, with no tracking parameters. If that ever changes, this notice changes with it. Full disclosure.

Who this is for

The summary is editorial. The two lists beneath it are read from this product's verified attributes against the rest of its table, and change when a figure does.

Forms Delaware entities only, and Delaware charges $400 a year against Wyoming's $60 — which is most of why it ranks last on a pure cost comparison. That comparison does not capture what the $500 also buys: founder equity issuance, the 83(b) election filing, and $2,500 in Stripe credits. Priced for a startup raising money, not for a holding company.

Who this suits

  • Founders who want the setup cost to end after year one. The formation fee is charged once rather than renewed annually.

Who it doesn’t

  • Founders who want the cheapest company to maintain. At $500 a year it is the most expensive here to keep standing, and ongoing cost is weighted above setup cost in this vertical's rubric because it repeats.

  • Founders who want a state other than Delaware. This provider forms Delaware entities only, and Delaware's own annual charge is the largest state fee in this table.

The score, taken apart

Every criterion, its published weight, what it earned and what that contributed.

How this score is calculatedRubric 2026.1. Each criterion scores 0–5 from verified attributes, then is weighted. Nothing here is entered by hand.
CriterionWeightScorePoints
Year-one total cost40%2.501.00
Annual cost thereafter60%1.110.67
Total100%1.7

Basic tier. Weights are published on the methodology page; a change to any of them is a rubric version bump, not a silent edit.

Every stored figure

One row per attribute, each with the source it was read from and the date it was read. Every row has its own anchor, so a single figure can be linked to directly — for example /formation/stripe-atlas#form-5472-filing.

AttributeValue
Form 5472 filingNone on pricing pagestripe.comVerified against the source Sep 2026
Formation fee$500stripe.comVerified against the source Oct 2026
Fee recurs annuallyOne-timestripe.comVerified against the source Oct 2026
registered agentA person or company with a physical street address in the state of formation, designated to receive legal notices and state correspondence for the company. Every US state requires one and a PO box does not qualify, which is why founders living outside the US almost always pay a service for it.$0stripe.comVerified against the source Oct 2026
registered agentA person or company with a physical street address in the state of formation, designated to receive legal notices and state correspondence for the company. Every US state requires one and a PO box does not qualify, which is why founders living outside the US almost always pay a service for it.$100/yrstripe.comVerified against the source Oct 2026
EINEmployer Identification Number — the federal tax identification number the IRS issues to a business. A US bank account, a federal return and payroll all require one. Applicants without a Social Security Number cannot use the online application and must apply by fax or post instead.Includedstripe.comVerified against the source Sep 2026
States availableDelaware onlystripe.comVerified against the source Oct 2026
Articles of OrganizationThe document filed with a state to bring an LLC into existence, naming the company, its registered agent and its address. Some states call it a Certificate of Formation. The state's filing fee is charged for processing it.$0stripe.comVerified against the source Oct 2026
franchise taxA charge some states levy for the privilege of keeping an entity registered there, owed whether or not the company trades or makes a profit. States calculate it differently — some charge a flat annual amount, others base it on assets held in the state.$400corp.delaware.govVerified against the source Oct 2026

Sources

Checked between Sep 2026 and Oct 2026.

Use this record

The figures above are meant to be quoted and checked, not just read.

Cite this pageplain text or BibTeX

Plain text

Points Architect. "Stripe Atlas: verified product record." Rubric 2026.1. Verified Sep 2026. https://pointsarchitect.com/formation/stripe-atlas

BibTeX

@misc{pointsarchitect-formation-stripe-atlas,
  title        = {Stripe Atlas: verified product record},
  author       = {{Points Architect}},
  year         = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://pointsarchitect.com/formation/stripe-atlas}},
  note         = {Verified Sep 2026; rubric 2026.1}
}

Canonical URL https://pointsarchitect.com/formation/stripe-atlas. Every row in the attribute table has its own anchor, so a single fee can be cited without citing the whole record.

Guides that use this record

Specific questions answered from the same verified figures.

Figures on this page are dated individually to the day each was checked against its source. Nothing here is an estimate, and the score is calculated from the attributes above rather than entered by hand. See methodology.