The honest playbook for forming a US LLC — or not.
Most non-US founders form their LLC and then hit the real problems: a bank that won't approve them, a 12-week EIN wait, a $25,000 IRS form they've never heard of. We start with those problems and work backward.
A single missed Form 5472 is a $25,000 penalty.
Foreign-owned single-member LLCs file Form 5472 every year. The IRS doesn't publish how many founders miss it. Most formation services don't tell you it exists. We do. Here's how to file it on time, every year, with the worksheet we built for it.
Read the Form 5472 guide →Five clusters. Your country sits in one of them.
We organize content by the regulatory reality of your country of residence, not by formation state. The cluster determines what's relevant to you; the country page tells you which specific traps apply.
Most formation sites can't tell you not to form an LLC.
Their revenue depends on you forming one. Ours doesn't. We earn affiliate commissions only after a “form” verdict, with transparent cost stacks and named alternatives. When the right answer is “don't,” we say so — and walk you through what to do instead.
That's the whole product.
A $297 starter is $6,474 over three years.
doola's $297 starter package becomes $6,474 over three years on their Total Compliance plan — the bundle that includes the parts you actually need to stay compliant. A DIY New Mexico LLC with a $35-per-year registered agent runs about $200 across the same three years. The customizer puts your real 3-year cost in front of you before any provider is named.
Source: doola pricing page, accessed 2026-05-28. New Mexico Secretary of State + Northwest Registered Agent DIY pricing. Numbers are illustrative; the customizer calculates your specific 3-year TCO based on your situation. last_verified: 2026-05-28
What people are reading before they form anything.
Affiliate commissions, only after a “form” verdict.
We earn commissions when readers form an LLC using a provider we'd actually recommend — doola, Northwest, Wise, Mercury, and others. Our rankings are not driven by affiliate payout. When the right answer is “don't form one,” no affiliate appears. We publish the trade-offs; you pick.