US LLC for Non-Residents
A non-resident can own a United States LLC. There is no citizenship requirement, no residency requirement, and no need for a Social Security Number to form one or to obtain its federal tax number. What stops most foreign founders is not the filing, which takes a few days, but the three steps around it: choosing a state, getting an EIN without a US identity number, and opening a bank account from abroad. This guide covers all three, plus the tax position that decides whether a US LLC actually saves you anything.
Can a non-resident legally own a US LLC?
Yes. United States state law places no citizenship, residency or visa condition on the members of a limited liability company. A person living anywhere in the world can be the sole member and sole manager of an LLC in any of the fifty states, sign for it, and own it outright. The only US entity form closed to non-residents is the S-Corporation, whose pass-through election is restricted to US persons.
Two things are commonly confused with a residency rule and are not one. The first is the registered agent: every LLC must have one, with a physical street address in the state of formation, to receive legal process. That is an address requirement for the company, not for you, and it is normally supplied by the formation agent. The second is the bank account: US banks apply their own customer rules, which are stricter than company law, and that is where the residency question genuinely bites.
Owning a US LLC gives you no immigration status. It is not a visa, it does not lead to a green card, and it does not entitle you to work in the United States. Non-residents form US companies to reach the US market and its payment rails, not to move there.
Which state is best for a non-resident LLC?
For a non-resident with no physical presence in the United States, the honest answer is that the state matters far less than the internet suggests. You are not choosing a tax regime, because a properly structured non-resident LLC usually owes no state income tax anywhere. You are choosing filing mechanics, annual paperwork and how much of your name appears on a public register.
The rule that overrides everything else: if the business has a real physical presence in a particular state, an office, a warehouse, inventory or staff, form it in that state. Forming in Wyoming and operating from Florida means registering as a foreign LLC in Florida anyway, so you end up paying and filing in two states instead of one.
Wyoming
The default choice for non-resident founders with no US footprint. Wyoming levies no state corporate or personal income tax, its annual report is a short filing keyed to the anniversary month, and member names are not published on the Secretary of State record, so the public entry shows the company and its registered agent. It also has a well-tested LLC statute and a charging-order provision that limits what a member’s personal creditor can reach.
Delaware
The right answer when investors are in the picture. Almost every US venture-capital term sheet assumes a Delaware entity, the Court of Chancery gives you a specialist judiciary and a deep body of corporate case law, and counterparties recognise the name without explanation. Delaware charges an annual franchise tax on LLCs and requires a registered agent in the state. For a solo founder with no funding plans it is more overhead than the situation needs.
New Mexico
The lightest ongoing administration of the four. New Mexico requires no annual report from an LLC at all, which removes a recurring deadline, and member names are not part of the public filing. The trade-off is that it is less familiar to banks and payment processors than Wyoming or Delaware, and unfamiliarity is friction when you open accounts.
Florida
Worth forming in only when you genuinely operate there, which for foreign founders usually means property, a team or Latin American trade routes run through Miami. Florida requires an annual report with a hard deadline and a steep late penalty, and the managers and members named in it are public.
Montana
Montana appears in search results mostly because of vehicle registration, not company formation. It is a workable LLC state, but for an operating business it offers a non-resident nothing that Wyoming does not, with a smaller ecosystem of agents and bank familiarity.
| State | State income tax on the LLC | Annual filing | Members on the public record | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wyoming | None | Annual report, anniversary month | No | Most non-resident founders |
| Delaware | None on out-of-state income; annual franchise tax applies | Franchise tax, 1 June | No | Venture funding, US investors |
| New Mexico | None on out-of-state income | No annual report | No | Lowest ongoing admin |
| Florida | None for a pass-through LLC | Annual report, 1 May | Yes | Real operations in Florida |
| Montana | None on out-of-state income | Annual report, 15 April | Yes | Rarely the right pick |
How to form a US LLC as a non-resident, step by step
The sequence below is what actually happens, in order. The state filing is the fast part. The EIN and the bank account are the long poles.
- Pick the state and confirm the company will have no physical presence anywhere else in the United States.
- Clear the name against the Secretary of State register and reserve it if the filing is not going in the same week.
- Appoint a registered agent with a street address in that state. This is mandatory and cannot be a PO box.
- File the Articles of Organization (called the Certificate of Formation in Delaware) with the Secretary of State. Approval is usually a few business days, faster on an expedited track.
- Sign an operating agreement setting out members, managers, capital contributions, profit allocation and transfer restrictions. No state requires you to file it, every bank asks to see it.
- Apply for the EIN on Form SS-4. Without a Social Security Number this cannot be done through the online portal, so it goes by fax or phone to the IRS international unit.
- Open the bank account once the EIN letter arrives, and connect Stripe, PayPal or the processor the business needs.
- Register for state sales tax in any state where the business crosses an economic nexus threshold, and diarise the federal and state filing dates.
Realistic end to end timing for a non-resident is two to four weeks from first document to an operating company with a funded account. The Articles come back in days; the EIN and the bank decide the rest.
Getting an EIN without an SSN or ITIN
You do not need a Social Security Number or an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number to get an EIN for your LLC. The IRS issues Employer Identification Numbers to foreign-owned entities as a matter of course. What changes is the route: the online application requires a US taxpayer identification number for the responsible party, so a non-resident applicant uses Form SS-4 submitted by fax or by telephone to the IRS international operation instead.
Three details cause most rejections. On the responsible party line, a non-resident writes the word Foreign where a US identity number would go. The responsible party must be a natural person who actually controls the entity, not another company. And the reason for applying and the business activity must match what the company will really do, because an obvious mismatch is a common cause of the application being sent back.
The EIN is not a tax status and it does not by itself create a US tax liability. It is an account number. You will need it for the bank, for Stripe, for any federal filing and for a state sales-tax registration.
Opening a US bank account as a non-resident
This is the step that fails most often, and the reason is simple: banks apply customer identification rules that are stricter than company law. A traditional bank such as Chase, Bank of America or Wells Fargo will generally want a signatory to appear in a branch with a passport and, in practice, evidence of a US address or a valid US visa. If you cannot travel, a traditional branch account is usually not the realistic route.
What works from abroad are the US fintech banking platforms and the multi-currency providers:
- Mercury onboards non-resident-owned US companies remotely and is the common choice for software, SaaS and e-commerce businesses.
- Relay serves the same market with a stronger bookkeeping and sub-account feature set.
- Wise Business and Payoneer give US account and routing details for receiving payments, alongside genuinely multi-currency balances, which suits a business invoicing in several currencies.
- Airwallex is a good fit where the company trades across Asia Pacific as well as the United States.
Whichever route you take, the file is the same: certificate of formation, EIN confirmation letter, operating agreement, passport of every beneficial owner, proof of residential address, a description of the business and its expected monthly flows, and a working website. Applications are declined far more often for a thin business description than for the founder’s nationality.
How a non-resident LLC is taxed
This is the section worth reading twice, because the popular claim that a US LLC is automatically tax free for a foreigner is wrong, and the cases where it is close to true are narrower than the marketing suggests.
Federal income tax
A single-member LLC is by default a disregarded entity: it files no income tax return of its own and its profit is treated as the owner’s. For a non-resident owner, US federal income tax then depends on whether the business is engaged in a trade or business in the United States and has income effectively connected with it. A foreign owner running the business from abroad, with no US office, no employees or dependent agents in the country and no inventory held there, commonly falls outside that test and owes no US federal income tax on the trading profit. Change any of those facts and the answer changes with them.
A multi-member LLC is treated as a partnership. It files Form 1065 and issues a Schedule K-1 to each member, and where income is effectively connected with a US trade or business the partnership must withhold tax on the share allocable to a foreign partner under section 1446 of the Internal Revenue Code.
An LLC can also elect to be taxed as a C-Corporation, which brings the flat 21% federal corporate rate and a separate 30% withholding tax on dividends paid abroad, reduced by treaty where one applies. That election makes sense for a small minority of structures and should be modelled before it is filed.
Form 5472, the filing that catches people out
A foreign-owned single-member LLC has almost no US tax to pay and still has a mandatory annual filing. It must submit Form 5472 together with a pro-forma Form 1120, reporting transactions between the LLC and its foreign owner or related parties. Capital contributions and distributions count as reportable transactions, so a dormant company with a single funding transfer still has to file. The penalty for failing to file starts at 25,000 US dollars per form, which is why this obligation belongs in your calendar before the company earns anything.
State tax and sales tax
Wyoming and New Mexico levy no state income tax on a pass-through LLC’s out-of-state income. Delaware taxes no out-of-state income either but charges an annual franchise tax on the entity itself. Sales tax is separate from all of this and follows economic nexus: once sales into a given state cross that state’s threshold, commonly 100,000 US dollars a year since the Wayfair decision, the company must register and collect there regardless of where it was formed or where its owner lives.
Wyoming LLC taxation for a non-resident
Wyoming imposes no corporate income tax, no personal income tax and no franchise tax on income, so a Wyoming LLC owned by a non-resident pays nothing to the state on profit earned outside it. The state’s only recurring charge is the annual report licence fee, calculated on assets located in Wyoming, which for a company with none is the statutory minimum. Federal treatment is unaffected by the choice of state: the effectively connected income test and the Form 5472 filing apply in exactly the same way in Wyoming as anywhere else. A Wyoming address does not make foreign income US income, and it does not make US-source effectively connected income tax free.
Your home country still has a claim
The profit that leaves the LLC is taxable where you are resident, under your own country’s rules. Several countries also treat the LLC as opaque rather than transparent, which changes the timing and the character of what you are taxed on. His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs in the United Kingdom takes that view, and Germany and Spain apply their own classification tests. A US LLC moves where profit is earned, not whether it is taxed, so take home-country advice before forming rather than after.
What a non-resident LLC costs to run
We quote a fixed price for each formation rather than publishing a list, because the right package depends on the state and on how much of the ongoing work you want handled. The components that make up the cost are always the same:
- The Secretary of State filing for the Articles of Organization, and the expedited track if you need it.
- Registered agent service in the state of formation, renewed annually.
- Drafting the operating agreement.
- EIN application through the IRS international unit.
- The annual report or franchise tax filing the state requires.
- The annual Form 5472 and pro-forma Form 1120 preparation.
- Optional items: a US business address and mail scanning, bookkeeping, sales-tax registration and returns, and an apostille on the formation documents where a foreign bank or registry asks for one.
Annual compliance for a non-resident LLC
| Obligation | Filed with | When |
|---|---|---|
| Annual report or franchise tax | Secretary of State of the formation state | Anniversary month in Wyoming, 1 June in Delaware, 1 May in Florida, none in New Mexico |
| Form 5472 with pro-forma Form 1120 (foreign-owned single-member LLC) | Internal Revenue Service | 15 April, extendable to 15 October on Form 7004 |
| Form 1065 and Schedules K-1 (multi-member LLC) | Internal Revenue Service | 15 March, extendable to 15 September |
| Registered agent renewal | The agent | Annually |
| Sales-tax returns | Each state where nexus exists | Monthly or quarterly, set by the state |
Beneficial-ownership reporting under the Corporate Transparency Act no longer applies to companies formed inside the United States. Since the FinCEN interim final rule of March 2025, only foreign reporting companies, meaning entities formed outside the country that register to do business in a US state, remain in scope. An LLC formed in Wyoming and owned by a foreign national is a domestic company and is outside the reporting requirement.
Five mistakes non-resident founders make
- Treating the LLC as automatically tax free. It is a pass-through, not an exemption. The profit is taxed where you are resident even when no US tax is due.
- Missing Form 5472. The penalty is large, the filing is annual, and it applies even to a dormant company that received a single capital contribution.
- Forming in Wyoming while operating from another state. A real presence somewhere else means registering there as a foreign LLC as well, which doubles the filings.
- Applying for the bank account before the EIN letter arrives. Every provider asks for it, and a resubmitted application is slower than a patient one.
- Skipping the operating agreement. No state requires it to be filed, and every bank, processor and future co-founder asks to see it.
Frequently asked questions
Can a non-US citizen own an LLC?
Yes. No US state imposes a citizenship, residency or visa requirement on the members of an LLC. A foreign national resident abroad can be the sole member and sole manager. The only restricted form is the S-Corporation, whose tax election is limited to US persons.
Which state is best for a non-resident LLC?
Wyoming for most founders with no US presence, because there is no state income tax, the annual report is light and members are not public. Delaware if US investors are involved. New Mexico if minimal ongoing admin matters most. If the business physically operates in a particular state, form it there instead.
Can I get an EIN without an SSN?
Yes. A non-resident applies on Form SS-4 by fax or telephone to the IRS international unit rather than through the online portal, writing Foreign where a US identity number would appear for the responsible party. No Social Security Number or ITIN is required for the company to receive its EIN.
Does a non-resident LLC owner pay US tax?
Often not on the trading profit. A single-member LLC is disregarded, so US federal tax depends on whether the business is engaged in a US trade or business with effectively connected income. Run entirely from abroad with no US office, staff or inventory, it commonly is not. The annual Form 5472 filing is still mandatory.
Is a Wyoming LLC tax free for a non-resident?
Free of Wyoming tax, yes: the state levies no income or franchise tax on profit. Federal tax is a separate question decided by whether the business has income effectively connected with a US trade or business, not by the state. The annual Form 5472 filing applies either way.
Can I open a US business bank account from abroad?
Yes, through the US fintech banking platforms. Mercury and Relay onboard non-resident-owned companies remotely, and Wise Business, Payoneer and Airwallex provide US account details alongside multi-currency balances. Traditional branch banks generally want a signatory present in the United States with a US address or visa.
How long does it take to form a US LLC as a non-resident?
The Articles of Organization are approved in a few business days, faster on an expedited track. The EIN and the bank account set the real timeline, so end to end from first document to a funded, operating company is two to four weeks.
Does owning a US LLC give me a visa or residency?
No. Company ownership carries no immigration status in the United States. It does not permit you to live or work there and it does not lead to a green card. Work visas are a separate process handled by US immigration counsel.
Form your US LLC
We form US LLCs for non-residents end to end: state selection, name clearance, registered agent, the Secretary of State filing, the operating agreement, the EIN from the IRS without an SSN, a bank or payment-platform introduction, and the annual Form 5472 and state filings afterwards. You never need to travel to the United States.
For the wider picture of US entity choice, including C-Corporations, branches and partnerships, see our company formation in the United States page. If a low-cost entity inside the European Union is also on your list, the cheapest countries to form a company in Europe guide compares the alternatives.
