Delaware LLC Annual Compliance Calendar (2026)

The whole year on one page

Most compliance failures for non-resident Delaware LLC owners are not disputes about the rules. They are a date that passed while the founder was busy.

The table below is the full recurring set for a foreign-owned single-member Delaware LLC, with what each item costs to do and what it costs to miss.

Why April 15 matters more than June 1

Founders tend to worry about the Delaware franchise tax because Delaware sends reminders and the amount is easy to understand. It is the less dangerous deadline by a wide margin.

Missing June 1 costs $200 plus 1.5% per month on the unpaid balance, which is unpleasant but recoverable, and Delaware will accept payment late and restore good standing.

Form 5472 is the one that can genuinely hurt.

A foreign-owned single-member LLC is treated as a corporation solely for this reporting requirement, and it must file Form 5472 attached to a pro forma Form 1120 to report reportable transactions with its foreign owner.

Capital contributions and distributions count as reportable transactions, so an LLC with no customers and no revenue can still have a filing obligation simply because the owner funded it.

The penalty for failing to file is $25,000 per form, and it applies whether or not any tax was owed.

If you do one thing from this calendar, put April 15 in your calendar with a reminder six weeks earlier so a CPA has time.

The deadlines that do not apply to your LLC

Two entries cause more confusion than the rest, and both are things a Delaware LLC does not do. The first is the Delaware annual report.

Delaware corporations file one by March 1 alongside a calculated franchise tax; Delaware LLCs file no annual report at all and simply pay the flat $300 by June 1.

Guides that blend the two send LLC owners hunting for a form that does not exist for them.

The second is the BOI report. Under the FinCEN Interim Final Rule of March 26, 2025, entities formed in the United States and their beneficial owners are exempt from beneficial ownership reporting.

A Delaware LLC is a US-formed entity, so it does not file, and FinCEN has said it will not enforce penalties against domestic companies.

The requirement now reaches only entities formed under foreign law that register to do business in a US state.

Plenty of older articles still describe a 90-day deadline and a per-day penalty for domestic LLCs; that guidance is out of date.

Building the reminders so this runs itself

The practical system is short.

Put two recurring calendar entries in place: one on March 1 to start gathering figures for the CPA, and one on May 1 to pay the Delaware franchise tax a month early at icis.corp.delaware.gov using your file number.

Paying early removes any risk from a payment processing slowly across borders, and there is no benefit to holding the $300 until the deadline.

Then handle the registered agent separately, because it is the obligation with no fixed date and therefore the one most likely to lapse.

Confirm each year that the agent is paid and that the renewal is not sitting on a card that has since expired.

A lapsed registered agent quietly costs the LLC its good standing, which is discovered at the worst possible moment: when a bank, a payment processor, or a counterparty asks for a Certificate of Good Standing and Delaware will not issue one.