Ask HN: How much does it cost to incorporate?

First, there is no federal incorporation in the USA, incorporation is handled at the state level.

Second, you can go to service providers such as legalzoom.com and incorporate for as little as $100 to $300 (plus state filing fees). Lawyers will cost more but should be under $1000.

State filling fees range from $50 to $400, with most in the $100 to $200 range. Here's a list: http://www.incorporatefast.com/filingfee.asp

All that said, IMO, the one-time cost of incorporating should not be a major factor in which state you decide to incorporate in. Moreover, remember that incorporating in another state does not mean anything wrt taxes or franchise fees. And you may even have to pay a foreign corporation fee (foreign state, not foreign country).

As far as I know, you don't incorporate federally, you incorporate at the State level. Hence the terms you hear thrown around like "Delaware Corporation," etc. You just need to incorporate in one state, but then some (maybe all) other states just require you to file certain paperwork (and possibly pay some fees) if you intend to do business in their state. If you're doing a webapp though, I don't think anybody really tries to enforce making you register in every state where somebody might try to use your app. But if you're selling a product you might run into sales tax issues, see Amazon's battles with North Carolina, Texas and some other states.

All of that said, the act of incorporating - in and of itself - isn't terribly expensive. IF you pay a laywer to do it for you, I've heard prices thrown around anywhere from $500.00 to $1000.00, but some lawyers who specialize in working with startups might do it for equity or on a deferred basis. Ask around.

If you do it yourself, it can be done for basically whatever the fee is to the State. I organized as an LLC in North Carolina, did all the paperwork myself, and it cost me like $200.00 or so. The downside to an LLC is that I'll have to reincorporate later if I get outside funding, but I figure if I reach the point where somebody wants to invest, then it'll be worth it to reincorporate as a traditional C corporation then. YMMV.

Hi. It really depends, if you want to do it yourself it can be significantly cheaper. I paid less than $100 for the incorporation of my company(c-corp). I'm a solo founder, so I didn't have to deal with partnership agreements and such.

As rmah said, there is no federal incorporation in the US, it's all done on a state level. I'd suggest, if you're not going to take any investments to register your company in the state you live(to avoid double taxation). Also, if you're going to file for a corporation and still don't plan on raising capital, make sure you file for election of a S-Corp after you've received your certificate of incorporation - that'll also lower the taxes.

Hope the process goes well...I'll be sure to write up a detailed blog post for ya on how I incorporated.

Everyone's already said it, but between 100 and 200$ depending on what state your from. You can just google something along the lines of "(your state) corp filing form" and it should pop up, fill the forms out, and mail them in.

You most likely want to register as an "S-Corp" as opposed to a C-corp for tax purposes.

If you live in NY, you probably don't want an LLC either due to the required advertising in print publications. I'm not sure if other states have this, it could be just NY. http://www.yourincorporation.com/lawbrary/publication-requir...

Thanks everybody, these were all very helpful answers. I purposefully omitted that I am from Canada (to get more answers), so it will be a little different, but this really helps me to ball park it. Thanks again!!

Last that I knew, Delaware used to be the cheapest state to incorporate in.