South Carolina Business Entity Search: Why Some LLCs Pay $0 and Others Pay $25

South Carolina charges most LLCs nothing to stay current, then charges some LLCs $25 or more every year for the same privilege — and the difference is not the entity type, it is a tax election. A standard South Carolina LLC files no annual report and owes no recurring state filing fee. An LLC that elects to be taxed as a corporation moves onto the corporate track: an annual report and license fee paid to the Department of Revenue, calculated as $15 plus $1 for every $1,000 of capital stock and paid-in surplus, with a $25 floor (S.C. Code § 12-20-50).

Here is the catch. The Secretary of State's Business Entities Online system — the register behind every South Carolina corporation search — has no field for that election. The election is made with the IRS, the license fee is paid to the Department of Revenue, and neither fact is filed with the Secretary of State. Two LLCs can sit side by side in the public record, both "Good Standing," while one of them owes a yearly filing the other does not.

This guide covers the statute behind the split, the exact license-fee arithmetic, what a "Forfeited" status means, and a worked verification of a named illustrative company.

1. What the South Carolina Corporation Search Actually Covers

South Carolina's business register is Business Entities Online, the Secretary of State's free filing, search and document-retrieval system. One search box covers every domestic and foreign entity type. It supports "Begins with," "Contains" and "Exact Match" queries and strips noise words such as "the" and "a" before matching, per the Secretary of State's December 2019 presentation to the House Legislative Oversight Committee.

LLCs dominate the traffic. The office logged 68,198 LLC filings in FY 2018–19, up from 48,268 three years earlier — a 41% rise — and described LLCs as "the type of entity with the highest volume of filings."

A record holds name, type, status, formation date, registered agent and filing history. It does not hold tax classification, Department of Revenue compliance or members. Articles of organization must list the organizer, the registered agent and — only for a manager-managed company — the initial managers (S.C. Code § 33-44-203). Members are never a required field.

2. The Tax-Election Split: Why Some LLCs Pay $0 and Others Pay $25

The mechanism is two statutes that never mention each other. Chapter 20 of Title 12 requires every domestic and qualified foreign corporation, and any other corporation required to file income tax returns, to file an annual report and pay a license fee (§§ 12-20-20, 12-20-50). The Department of Revenue reads that through federal classification: "An LLC taxed as a corporation for federal purposes is taxed as a corporation for South Carolina purposes," and its list of entities outside the license fee starts with "a Limited Liability Company (LLC) not taxed as a corporation."

The LLC Act sets no annual report; the corporate tax code pulls in any LLC that files a corporate return. A corp-taxed LLC is, for the Department of Revenue, a corporation.

	Standard LLC	LLC taxed as a C corporation	LLC taxed as an S corporation
Annual report to the Secretary of State	None	None	None
Initial filing with SCDOR	None	CL-1 + $25 within 60 days of starting business	CL-1 + $25 within 60 days of starting business
Annual return carrying the license fee	None	SC1120, 15th day of 4th month	SC1120S, 15th day of 3rd month
Recurring state fee	$0	$15 + $1 per $1,000 capital, minimum $25	$15 + $1 per $1,000 capital, minimum $25
Visible in Business Entities Online?	—	No	No

The S-corporation row is the detail most summaries miss: the Department of Revenue lists the license fee on both forms, but the SC1120S is due a month earlier — March 15 for a calendar-year filer.

3. The License Fee Formula: How $25 Becomes $198

The $25 is a floor, not a flat fee. Section 12-20-50(A) sets the fee at fifteen dollars "plus one dollar for each thousand dollars, or fraction of a thousand dollars, of capital stock and paid-in or capital surplus," measured on the first day of the taxable year. The Department of Revenue states the same rule as 0.1% of capital stock and paid-in surplus plus $15, and adds that retained earnings are excluded.

Three mechanics change the number in practice:

• Fractions round up. $10,001 of capital is eleven thousands, not ten.
• The floor binds below $10,000. At $10,000 the formula gives exactly $25; below it, the minimum takes over.
• Apportionment cuts the formula, never the floor. A multistate corporation apportions the fee by its income-tax ratio, but "the minimum license fee, however, may not be apportioned" (§ 12-20-60). In a combined return the minimum applies to each corporation in the group (§ 12-20-70).

Timing is strict: an extension of time to file "does not extend the time for paying the license fee due" (§ 12-20-20(C)), and the Department of Revenue treats the license-fee period as one year ahead of the income-tax period.

4. What It Costs to Form or Register in South Carolina

Formation fees show the same split at birth. An LLC pays a single $110 filing fee under § 33-44-1204. A business corporation pays three components under § 33-1-220 — a $10 filing fee, a $100 tax remitted to the State Treasurer and the $25 minimum license fee submitted with the CL-1 — for $135. The Secretary of State's 2019 oversight exhibit confirms the $135 "includes a $25.00 fee for the CL-1 form."

The corporation pays its first license fee before it exists. Section 12-20-40 requires the initial annual report and minimum fee to travel with the articles of incorporation. A corp-taxed LLC has no articles to attach it to, so the CL-1 goes directly to the Department of Revenue "within 60 days after commencing business in South Carolina." The form is explicit: "LLCs should only complete the CL-1 if they're taxed as a corporation."

Filing	LLC (§ 33-44-1204)	Corporation (§ 33-1-220)
Formation	$110	$135 ($10 + $100 + $25)
Amendment	$110	$110 ($10 + $100)
Change of registered agent/office	$10	$10
Reinstatement after administrative dissolution	$25	$25
Annual report	None	Filed with SCDOR; license fee per § 12-20-50

5. How to Run a South Carolina Business Entity Search, Step by Step

1. Open Business Entities Online from the Secretary of State's website. Name search needs no account and no fee.
2. Start with "Contains." It catches "The Lowcountry Marine Supply, LLC" and "Lowcountry Marine Supply Co." in one pass. Switch to "Exact Match" once you know the registered name.
3. Confirm the match on three fields: entity type, formation date and registered agent.
4. Read the status literally. "Good Standing" is the Secretary of State's view only. "Forfeited" means administrative dissolution (section 6).
5. Open the filing history. Articles of organization show the organizer and, for a manager-managed LLC, the managers.
6. Close the tax question separately. Nothing in the record says whether the LLC files an SC1120 or SC1120S. That answer sits with the company and the Department of Revenue.

The same six steps run a South Carolina LLC lookup, a South Carolina company search or an SC corporation search — it is one database. For how this register compares structurally with the other 49, see the guide to Secretary of State business entity searches.

6. What a "Forfeited" Status Is Telling You

The Department of Revenue obligation is invisible until it fails. Then it becomes a status. The Secretary of State told the House Legislative Oversight Committee in 2019 that administrative dissolutions "are most commonly due to a failure to comply with a requirement of the Department of Revenue," and that a dissolved entity "will have a status of 'forfeited'" in the database.

The statutes run on two 60-day clocks. For an LLC, the Secretary of State may start a proceeding once a "fee, tax, or penalty imposed by this chapter or other law" is unpaid sixty days after it is due (§ 33-44-809) — "other law" reaches the Chapter 20 license fee. The company then has sixty days after service to cure before dissolution (§ 33-44-810). For a corporation, failing to deliver the annual report to the Department of Revenue is itself a ground (§ 33-14-200(a)(2)).

Reinstatement is where the two agencies finally meet. An LLC application must "contain a certificate from the Department of Revenue reciting that all taxes owed by the company have been paid" (§ 33-44-811(a)(4)). The Department issues it on Form C-268 for a $60 non-refundable fee after reviewing every tax type, with thirty days to clear any delinquency. Reinstatement relates back to the dissolution date. The asymmetry matters: a corporation can reinstate at any time, an LLC only within two years.

7. Worked Example: Lowcountry Marine Supply LLC

"Lowcountry Marine Supply LLC" is an illustrative Charleston-area boating-supply company — not a real, currently registered entity. A regional distributor is about to extend $60,000 of trade credit to it.

Step 1 — the search. A "Contains" search for "Lowcountry Marine" returns one domestic LLC, status Good Standing, formed four years ago, registered agent a Charleston law firm. No annual report is due — true of every LLC in the state, so it proves nothing about the tax track.

Step 2 — the filing history. The articles name one organizer and a single manager. Members are not named.

Step 3 — the tax question. The distributor's credit file asks for the most recent state return. The company sends an SC1120: it elected C-corporation treatment in its second year. On January 1 its balance sheet shows $1,000 of member capital and $181,500 of additional paid-in capital — $182,500 in total. Retained earnings are excluded.

Line	Amount
Capital stock + paid-in surplus	$182,500
Thousands, fractions rounded up	183
Base fee	$15
License fee ($15 + 183 × $1)	$198
Due (calendar year, SC1120)	April 15

Step 4 — the cost of lateness. If the return and fee are three months late, the CL-1 and DOR penalty schedule applies 5% per month for late filing and 0.5% per month for late payment, each capped at 25%. Three months gives 15% and 1.5% of $198: $29.70 plus $2.97, before interest. Small money. The real exposure is the dissolution clock in section 6, which can leave a counterparty able only to wind up (§ 33-44-810(c)).

Step 5 — the proof. Good Standing plus a filed SC1120 is reasonable comfort. For more, the distributor asks the company for a C-268 Certificate of Tax Compliance — signed by someone who can bind the company, so a third party cannot pull it.

Step 6 — ownership. Nothing so far names who owns Lowcountry Marine Supply. The manager need not be a member.

8. What the Record Proves for KYB and Supplier Onboarding

A South Carolina business entity search proves existence, legal form, formation date, registered agent and Secretary of State status. It does not prove tax compliance, tax classification, ownership or control. For know-your-business (KYB) checks, South Carolina resembles Rhode Island, where a second agency holds an obligation the entity search cannot see.

Corporations carry one advantage LLCs lack. The corporate annual report must list "the names and business addresses of the directors and principal officers," and that information "is open to unrestricted public inspection"; anyone may request a copy from the Secretary of State or the Department of Revenue (§ 12-20-30(A)). An LLC files no annual report, so there is no equivalent officer list to request.

That leaves the ultimate beneficial owner (UBO) — the natural person who ultimately owns or controls the entity — outside the record entirely, and the member of a South Carolina LLC is often another company registered elsewhere. Zephira resolves that chain across official registries covering 640M companies in 220 countries and territories, so the parent behind a South Carolina LLC is traced in one lookup instead of a filing request per state. Ownership and UBO due diligence starts where the Secretary of State record stops. For the legal-owner versus beneficial-owner distinction, see UBO, PSC and shareholders explained.

9. A Verification Checklist for South Carolina Counterparties

1. Legal name and entity type, matched on formation date and registered agent.
2. Status. Good Standing proceeds; Forfeited means administrative dissolution — ask for the reinstatement certificate.
3. Foreign entities need a certificate of authority ($110 LLC, $135 corporation); check the home-state record too.
4. Tax track. Ask whether the LLC files an SC1120 or SC1120S; only those carry the license fee.
5. Tax compliance, for material exposure: a C-268 certificate obtained by the counterparty.
6. Officers for corporations: request the annual report information under § 12-20-30.
7. Owners: collect a member list or operating agreement extract, then trace corporate members to natural persons.
8. Quote the fee correctly. $25 is the minimum; anything above $10,000 of capital and paid-in surplus pays more, and an S-elected LLC files by March 15, not April 15.
9. Re-check on a schedule. Status changes after onboarding; counterparty monitoring catches a forfeiture that a point-in-time check misses.

10. South Carolina vs. North Carolina and Georgia

South Carolina's $0 baseline for standard LLCs is the lowest of the three, and its corporate floor is the lowest too. Georgia charges a flat $50 annual registration for LLCs and corporations, due between January 1 and April 1, with a $25 late penalty. North Carolina charges LLCs $200 a year and corporations a $25 annual report plus a franchise tax with a $200 minimum.

	South Carolina	Georgia	North Carolina
LLC formation	$110	$100 (online)	$125
LLC annual filing	None (unless corp-taxed)	$50 annual registration	$200 annual report
Corporation annual floor	$25 license fee (SCDOR)	$50 annual registration	$25 report + $200 minimum franchise tax
Who collects	SOS for formation; DOR for annual fee	Secretary of State	SOS for report; DOR for franchise tax
Reinstatement fee	$25 + $60 C-268	$250 (online)	$100

The structure matters more than the price. Georgia and North Carolina collect a yearly LLC filing at the Secretary of State, so a missed filing shows in the register a reviewer searches. South Carolina's only recurring entity-level obligation sits at the Department of Revenue, so its register shows a corp-taxed LLC's problem only once it has become a forfeiture. See the Georgia business entity search guide and the North Carolina business entity search guide. For another state where LLCs file no recurring report, see New Mexico.

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