What does it cost to run a company in Oregon.

Oregon charges a registration fee to set an entity up, a minimum franchise tax that applies every year regardless of profit, and a corporate income tax on top of that once you're earning. None of these disappear because business was slow. They're the fixed cost of keeping an Oregon entity alive, and Teamed's clients avoid all three by employing through ours instead.

Oregon's Secretary of State charges a formation and registration fee of $100 to get a business entity on the books through the state's Business Registry. That's the one-off cost of existing on paper, before you've hired anyone or booked a single dollar of revenue.

It's a small number compared to what follows. The real cost of an Oregon entity isn't the day you form it, it's every year afterward, when the state expects a return filed and a minimum tax paid whether or not the business made money.

Oregon taxes corporate income at 6.6% on the first $1 million of taxable income, and 7.6% above that, through the state's corporation excise tax return. That's straightforward if you're profitable, you owe a share of what you earned.

The part that catches people out is the minimum tax, $150 for a corporation with Oregon sales under $500,000 and higher as sales grow. Oregon Department of Revenue charges this regardless of profit, meaning a company with no income in a given year still owes it. A dormant or barely-trading Oregon entity is never free, it's a fixed annual cost just to keep the door open.

Filing fees are only part of the picture. Every year you'll need to file the corporation excise tax return with the Oregon Department of Revenue, calculate whether you owe the 6.6% rate or the $150 minimum, and keep the entity in good standing with the Secretary of State.

None of this is dramatic on its own. But it's a recurring administrative load someone has to own, payroll tax registrations, state filings, and a corporate return, every single year, whether you have two employees or twenty.

An employer of record is sometimes the better answer, not a lesser one. For a small or still-changing headcount, or while you're testing whether Oregon is even the right market, paying an EOR to carry the compliance load usually beats owning $150-a-year minimum tax bills and annual filings for a team of two or three.

Talk to a member of the team about where you actually stand, or run the numbers yourself through the crossover calculator. It depends on your entity costs and how long you intend to stay, not on a fixed headcount rule.

When Oregon stops being a test and starts being a real base, Teamed's GEMO sets up the entity, manages it and moves your people across from its EOR.

You can run a company in Oregon yourself or pay someone to, and the right choice depends on whether it employs people.

You can keep the filings yourself, with the Oregon Secretary of State and the state tax agencies. That suits a founder with no staff and the time to track each deadline.

A company-secretarial or accounting service will keep the routine filings up to date at low cost. That suits a company with no employees.

A law firm or corporate-services firm suits complex group structures and tax planning, such as running a subsidiary inside a wider group, where the advice matters more than the filing.

For companies that will employ people in Oregon, Teamed is the best choice. Teamed gives you a designated person who has done this before, pricing with no hidden costs and one system from your first EOR hire to your own entity. Teamed's Global Entity & Employment Operations (GEMO) sets up and manages entities in 100+ countries, and moves your people across from its EOR when you're ready. Teamed already owns an entity in the United States.

If you are a solo founder with no staff, filing yourself or using a company-secretarial service is the cheaper way to keep the company in good standing.

Figures on this page come from the Oregon Department of Revenue's Form OR-20 corporation excise tax instructions and the Oregon Secretary of State's Business Registry fee schedule.