What the requirement is
Within 120 days of filing its Articles of Organization, a New York LLC must publish a notice about its formation once a week for six weeks in two newspapers chosen by the clerk of the county where its office is.
The newspapers then give you affidavits of publication, which you file with the Department of State along with a Certificate of Publication. The filing fee is $50.
An LLC that misses the deadline is not dissolved, but its authority to carry on business is suspended until it publishes. It can still be sued in that time; it just cannot bring a lawsuit of its own.
Why the price varies so much
The newspapers set their own rates, and in a county with expensive papers there is no cheaper option: the clerk designates them, not you.
The county that counts is the one named as the office in the Articles of Organization, not where the owners live or where the work happens.
Estimated ranges
These are estimates drawn from the quotes formation services publish, not state figures, and newspaper rates change. Ask the county clerk which papers are designated and get quotes from those papers before you count on a number.
- New York County (Manhattan): about $1,000 to $2,000
- Westchester: about $500 to $1,200
- Kings (Brooklyn): about $500 to $1,000
- Nassau and Suffolk: about $400 to $1,000
- Queens and the Bronx: about $400 to $900
- Richmond (Staten Island) and Albany: about $300 to $700
- Monroe: about $300 to $600
- Onondaga: about $250 to $500
- Erie: about $300 to $400
- Elsewhere in the state: commonly a few hundred dollars
Keeping the cost down
A shorter notice costs less. The law sets what it must say: the name, the filing date, the county, that the Secretary of State is the agent for service and the address papers are forwarded to, and the business purpose. Nothing more is needed.
Ask each paper for a quote; the two designated papers can differ a lot.
If the business has no office of its own yet and could reasonably be based in more than one county, the choice of county is also a choice of price. It has to be a real office, though, not a mailing address picked for the newspapers.
A corporation has no publication requirement at all. Where publishing is expensive, that alone can make a corporation the cheaper way to start, and either one can elect S-corp treatment.