The Texas Franchise Tax PIR: How to File It Yourself Before May 15 (and What Happens If You Don’t)

“It’s 9:00 PM on May 14th and you’re on YouTube frantically searching how to file your Texas franchise tax report. Don’t worry. We’re going to get this done before midnight.”

That’s how I open the video, and I’m only half joking, because that is exactly when a lot of business owners discover this filing exists. So whether you found this article in a panic or you’re being responsible and reading it in February, here’s everything you need to know about the Texas franchise tax Public Information Report: who has to file, what the form is asking, and what it costs you if you blow it off.

(If you’re an existing client of mine and you got this by email rather than by frantic searching: this is your reminder. You can absolutely do this yourself, and I’ll show you how. If you’d rather we take it off your plate, we’re happy to. Either way, I promise it’s easy.)

The Texas franchise tax is a privilege tax imposed on entities that are formed or doing business in Texas, under Chapter 171 of the Texas Tax Code. Here’s the twist that catches people: most small businesses don’t actually owe any franchise tax, because Texas sets a “no tax due” revenue threshold — $2.47 million in annualized total revenue as of this writing, though the Comptroller adjusts it periodically, so check the current year’s figure. Below that number, your state franchise tax bill is zero.

Zero tax, though, does not mean zero paperwork. Even if you owe nothing, your entity generally must still file an annual information report with the Texas Comptroller by May 15 (the usual deadline — confirm the current year’s). For most LLCs, corporations, and limited partnerships, that’s the Public Information Report, or PIR (Form 05-102). Certain other entities (some partnerships and trusts) file an Ownership Information Report instead. And as of the 2024 report year, the Comptroller did away with the separate No Tax Due Report that below-threshold entities used to file, which means for a lot of small companies the PIR is now the entire annual filing.

If you skip it, two bad things happen. One is annoying and one is dangerous:

• The annoying one: a $50 late filing penalty (as of this writing). Not the end of the world, but nobody enjoys paying $50 for nothing.
• The dangerous one: forfeiture. If the delinquency goes on long enough, the Comptroller can forfeit your entity’s corporate privileges, and eventually the Secretary of State can forfeit your charter or registration entirely. Here’s why that should scare you more than the $50: under Texas Tax Code § 171.255, once corporate privileges are forfeited, the officers and directors can become personally liable for certain debts of the entity created or incurred after the report was due. Read that again. The entire reason you formed an LLC was to keep business liabilities away from your personal assets, and this is one of the few ways in Texas to give that protection away by pure neglect. An unfiled information report, of all things. (The mechanics here have real nuance — if you’re anywhere near this scenario, call your lawyer before it compounds.)

So let’s not mess this up. The form takes maybe fifteen minutes.

Search for “Texas franchise tax form” and look carefully at the results before clicking. You want comptroller.texas.gov, the actual Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts. What you don’t want is one of the private “filing service” websites that will happily charge you a pile of money to submit a free government form, exactly like the EIN and DBA scams I’ve covered in other videos.

On the Comptroller’s franchise tax page you’ll find report forms organized by year. A couple of navigational notes:

Each report year covers the entity’s activity in the prior accounting period, and the forms are year-specific. Use the current year’s form for the current filing.

If you’ve been very bad and haven’t filed since, say, 2008, the prior years’ forms are all there too, and yes, you’ll generally need to file each missed year. Rewatch my walkthrough twenty times if it helps — though a multi-year cleanup is one of those projects where a call to your CPA or lawyer pays for itself.

Before you fill anything out, download and skim the current year’s franchise tax instructions. I know nobody does this. Do it anyway; it’s the difference between guessing and knowing on the judgment calls below.

One threshold question before the walkthrough: if your entity’s revenue is above the no-tax-due threshold, you have actual franchise tax calculations to do (the long form, or the EZ computation if you qualify), and at that point you should loop in your CPA. This walkthrough covers the situation most small businesses are in: below the threshold, filing the PIR only.

Taxpayer number. This is your 11-digit Texas Comptroller taxpayer number, which is not the same as your Secretary of State file number and not the same as your federal EIN. You’ll find it on the franchise tax notices the Comptroller mails you, or you can look your entity up for free in the Comptroller’s taxable entity search.

Taxpayer name. The legal name of your entity, exactly as formed. Not your DBA.

Mailing address. If your mailing address has changed since your last filing, check the address-change box and update it. Note this is your business mailing address, not your registered agent’s address.

Comptroller file number. Again, this comes from your state paperwork; check the correspondence you received when the entity was set up, or the taxable entity search.

Principal office and principal place of business. If nothing has changed since last year’s filing, there’s a checkbox that lets you skip re-entering it.

Officers, directors, managers, and members. Here’s where Texas gets a little less private than states like Delaware or Nevada. (Some states let you keep your clothes on — Texas wants to see you in your underwear.) The PIR requires you to disclose the entity’s control people: officers and directors for a corporation, managers or managing members for an LLC. For each person, you list name, title, and mailing address, and for corporate directors, a term expiration date. If you’re a single-member LLC, that’s you. If there are other members, managers, or directors, they get listed too.

Two practical notes. First, this information becomes public record; the Comptroller shares PIR data with the Secretary of State, and anyone can pull it. If privacy matters to you, the addresses you list here deserve some thought (an office address beats a home address), and I’ve done a separate video on anonymity strategies for Texas business owners. Second, use real titles as set forth in your corporate books: President, CEO, Manager, Managing Member. The form does not care that your business cards say Grand Pooh-Bah.

Section A: subsidiaries. This is the part of the form that trips people up the most, so slow down here. Section A asks for each corporation, LLC, LP, professional association, or financial institution in which your filing entity owns an interest of 10% or more. In plain English: does the entity filing this report own 10% or more of some other entity? This is aimed at holding company structures. If your holding company owns an operating company, the operating company gets listed here, with its state of formation, its Texas SOS file number (or “NA” if it’s an out-of-state entity with no Texas registration), and your ownership percentage.

The 10% floor matters. If your LLC owns 8% of some venture, it does not go on the form. If your LLC owns one share of Microsoft, it does not go on the form.

Section B: parent companies. The mirror image of Section A: any corporation, LLC, LP, PA, or financial institution that owns 10% or more of the filing entity. This is essentially the reverse of the previous question.

The mental model: A is what the filer owns; B is who owns the filer. Ten percent or more, in both directions. More entities than fit on the form? Attach additional pages.

Registered agent. The form shows the registered agent and registered office currently on file. If it’s wrong, this is a prompt to fix it (though an actual agent change is a separate Secretary of State filing). And a small sermon you can hear at length in my registered agent video: if you serve as your own registered agent, consider whether to list your office address rather than your home address, because this document is public.

Sign, date, and file. Add your title and phone number, sign, and submit. You can file the paper form with the Comptroller, or file electronically through the Comptroller’s Webfile system, which is faster and gives you a confirmation you can save. Either way, calendar May 15 for next year, because this is an every-single-year obligation for as long as the entity exists.

The PIR is not a hard form. It’s fifteen minutes of looking up numbers you already have and listing people you already know. What makes it dangerous is that it’s forgettable, and the downside of forgetting compounds from a $50 slap on the wrist into potential personal liability for company debts. File it every May, keep your registered agent current while you’re at it, and if your situation involves actual franchise tax owed, holding structures you’re not sure how to report, or years of missed filings to clean up, that’s when to call a professional.