Montana requires the initial members (if member-managed) or initial managers (if manager-managed) — names and business mailing addresses on its public LLC filing. Montana publishes the initial member's or manager's name on the Articles of Organization and reprints it on every Annual Report, so real privacy here depends entirely on a Wyoming holding LLC occupying that member/manager slot instead of an individual. See our Wyoming holding company guide and full list of anonymous LLC states for more.
$35
Articles of Organization filing fee
Names public
Initial members/managers listed and reprinted on Annual Report
WY parent
Holding LLC named as member for privacy
§ 35-8-705
Charging order exclusive on paper, foreclosure permitted
Montana is not a name-privacy state on its own filing. The Articles of Organization ($35), filed under Mont. Code Ann. § 35-8-202, require the names and business mailing addresses of the initial members or managers, and that information is public at biz.sosmt.gov and republished every year on the Annual Report (due a fixed April 15, with the on-time fee waived through the 2027 filing season). Montana's real appeal is its low-tax profile — no sales tax, no franchise tax, and a cheap $35 filing fee — not privacy. To keep an individual's name off the record, a Wyoming holding LLC is named as the member instead, so Montana's public filing traces to the Wyoming entity rather than a person. Montana's charging-order statute (Mont. Code Ann. § 35-8-705) also permits foreclosure of the charged interest, and Montana single-member LLCs face an additional, well-known risk from White v. Longley — both reasons many owners keep the ownership and asset-protection layer in Wyoming and use Montana only for the operating entity.
Montana's Articles of Organization, filed under Mont. Code Ann. § 35-8-202, require a statement of whether the LLC is member-managed or manager-managed and the names and business mailing addresses of those initial members or managers. That information is public and searchable at biz.sosmt.gov, and Montana's Annual Report — due every April 15 — republishes the same member/manager information each year. Montana is a genuine disclosure state on its own filing; there is no field that stays private the way Wyoming's or New Mexico's does.
Because Montana's Articles of Organization require a named initial member or manager — and its Annual Report republishes that name every April 15 — the only way to keep an individual owner's name off the Montana record is to name a Wyoming holding LLC as the member instead. The Montana public record then traces to the Wyoming entity, and Wyoming's own filing discloses nothing about who owns it. This is worth setting up before the first Montana filing rather than fixing later, since Montana's annual report reprints whatever name is on file: correcting it after the fact means amending a public record that already showed an individual's name for at least one filing cycle. Montana's charging-order statute (Mont. Code Ann. § 35-8-705) is also weaker than Wyoming's — it allows a court to foreclose the charged interest — so a Wyoming parent above a Montana LLC adds real asset-protection value on top of the privacy fix.
A Wyoming holding LLC named as the Montana member keeps an individual's name off Montana's public record, but it doesn't change federal law: beneficial owners of both the Montana LLC and the Wyoming holding LLC must still be reported to FinCEN under the Corporate Transparency Act, which is not a public database.
Mont. Code Ann. § 35-8-705 — exclusive remedy on its face, but statutory foreclosure of the charged interest is permitted. Mont. Code Ann. § 35-8-705 calls the charging order the judgment creditor's exclusive remedy and applies that rule uniformly regardless of member count, which reads as protective. But subsection (3) expressly lets a court foreclose the lien on the charged distributional interest and order it sold — something Wyoming's statute does not allow — so the protection is real but thinner than Wyoming's. Montana carries a separate, more consequential risk for single-member LLCs worth flagging here: in White v. Longley, 2010 MT 254, the Montana Supreme Court let a plaintiff hold a sole member/manager personally liable without any veil-piercing analysis at all, by reading the liability-shield statute to protect only conduct undertaken solely in an LLC capacity. That case is about the liability shield, not the charging-order statute itself, but it is the single most important asset-protection fact for a Montana LLC and a strong independent reason many owners site the holding layer in Wyoming and use Montana only for operating subsidiaries.
Montana requires one Annual Report per LLC, due on a fixed April 15 date each year (not the anniversary month). Montana's Secretary of State has waived the on-time filing fee for LLCs and corporations filing between January 1 and April 15 for 2024 through 2027; a late filing after April 15 has been reported at $35 in recent guidance, though confirm the exact current late fee at biz.sosmt.gov, since it is not the figure some internal LLC Attorney reference files use (see volatilityNote). Montana has no franchise tax and no state sales tax — one of only five states without one. Pass-through profits are taxed to members at Montana's graduated personal income tax rates of 4.7% and 5.65% for 2026 under HB 337.
Note: Confirm the $35 formation fee and the current Annual Report late fee directly at biz.sosmt.gov before relying on either figure: apps/LLA/data/states/single-member-llc/mt.ts cites a $15 late fee while apps/LLA/data/states/anonymous-llc/mt.ts and apps/LLA/data/states/holding-company/mt.ts describe a $20 fee that has been waived, and independent web sources describing the 2026 filing season put the late fee at $35 — these do not agree and should be reconciled against the Secretary of State's current fee schedule rather than treated as settled. The on-time fee waiver itself (through the 2026 and 2027 filing seasons) is corroborated by Montana Secretary of State public announcements as of this writing.
Yes. Montana's Articles of Organization, under Mont. Code Ann. § 35-8-202, require the names and business mailing addresses of the initial members (if member-managed) or initial managers (if manager-managed), and that information is public at biz.sosmt.gov and reprinted every year on the Annual Report.
Name a Wyoming holding LLC — not yourself — as the member or manager on the Articles of Organization. Montana's public record then shows the Wyoming entity, and because Wyoming's own filing discloses no owners, an individual's name stays off both states' records.
Not quite. Mont. Code Ann. § 35-8-705 calls the charging order the exclusive remedy, but the same statute lets a court foreclose the lien and order the interest sold — something Wyoming's statute bars outright. Montana single-member LLCs also carry a separate, better-known risk from White v. Longley (2010 MT 254), where the Montana Supreme Court held a sole member personally liable without any veil-piercing analysis, which is a strong independent reason owners often site the holding layer in Wyoming.
Bottom line: Montana discloses the initial member or manager on its own filing and reprints it annually, so anonymity here requires naming a Wyoming holding LLC in that slot — worth doing given Montana's weaker charging-order statute and White v. Longley's added risk for solely-owned Montana LLCs.