March 1: Important Deadline for Delaware Corporations

If you have a corporation – not a Limited Liability Company (LLC) or Limited Partnership (LP) – incorporated in the state of Delaware, then March 1 is the deadline for filing and paying the annual Franchise Tax. 

This means if you have a Delaware corporation and have not yet filed and paid for the annual Franchise Tax report, then it needs to be filed right away. The state of Delaware will impose a $200 late penalty plus assess 1.5% monthly interest if the annual report is not filed and paid by the March 1 due date.

Please note that this deadline does not apply LLC/LP entities. The due date for making an LLC/LP Franchise Tax payment is June 1 annually.

Every company incorporated in Delaware is required to file and pay the annual Franchise Tax report to maintain a good standing existence. Even if your company has not conducted any business, generated any income, obtained an EIN, or opened a bank account, the annual Franchise Tax report must be filed and paid. 

If you need to take care of this mandatory obligation, then Harvard Business Services, Inc. can help you get this done. The fastest and easiest way to proceed is by paying the Franchise Tax online on our website.

Once we have received your online order, we will submit the filing to the state of Delaware. You will receive an email copy of the documentation for your records.

Our office processes thousands of annual Franchise Tax reports each year. In order to make sure all the filings are processed on time, we must enforce a cut-off time for accepting any new orders.

Here's how our deadline processing typically works:

• For several days leading up to the deadline our office will be accepting Franchise Tax payments online, via fax, email or telephone during regular business hours.
   
• If the deadline is on a weekday, on the day of the deadline, we accept the same payment methods for only part of the day, typically until early afternoon in Eastern time. Then we will begin accepting payments online ONLY until 8:00 pm EST, at which point we cannot accept any additional payment of any type.

After 8 pm EST on March 1, we will no longer be able to take any Franchise Tax filing requests in any form. You will need to contact the state of Delaware directly to make arrangements. Their direct contact details are as follows:

• Website: corp.delaware.gov
• Telephone: 302-739-3073

Don’t wait until the last minute to submit your annual Franchise Tax report filing. Let us help you to take care of it now.