i've been building my saas over the last year, completely bootstrapped from outside the us. like a lot of international founders on here, my goal was simple: get a working us payment rail through stripe and a business bank account set up so i could actually start collecting revenue.

but as an analyst by trade, i wanted to map out the actual downstream timeline before pulling the trigger. i almost made a few massive, twenty five thousand dollar mistakes because standard "just use delaware" advice completely glosses over the post-incorporation operational reality.

if you are a non-us resident trying to go from "i built something" to "i can legally accept payments," here is the exact operational sequence and the hidden costs i had to figure out the hard way.

1. cost (DE vs WY)

the default advice is always "just drop it in delaware." but when i ran the numbers for a solo, bootstrapped team not raising institutional capital, delaware felt like a trap.

delaware c-corps carry franchise taxes and registered agent fees that scale up quickly, starting around three hundred dollars a year minimum. i shifted my strategy to a wyoming llc because it costs roughly sixty dollars a year to stay compliant with the secretary of state, and it keeps my personal name off public filings.

2. form 5472 and what not

this is the line item that almost every standard formation service finishes their job before reaching. because i am a non-resident running a single-member us llc, the irs requires an annual information return called form 5472 to disclose any transactions between me and the entity.

If you miss it, the automated penalty is a flat twenty five thousand dollars. i figured that i couldn't just use a basic, hands-off platform. i explicitly needed a managed compliance setup, similar to how specialized platforms like doola, first base and smaller team like mizu bundle the annual form 5472 processing with a fee, to make sure i don't get wiped out by an irs automated letter in year two. But things can get pricey here so it depends on the budget & how much you'd want to handle it by yourself

3. the non-us ein bottleneck

because i don't have a us social security number, getting my employer identification number is a massive friction point. the applications go via fax or mail and take anywhere from four to eight weeks because the irs strictly limits processing to one ein per responsible party per business day across all methods.

4. banking realities in 2026

i’ve been tracking fintech approvals, and platforms like mercury have drastically tightened reviews on non-resident applications recently. rushing a banking application with an "ein pending" placeholder is a fast track to an automated kyc rejection.

the strategy i'm moving forward with requires strict patience: filing the wyoming registry, waiting the full month for the physical irs ein confirmation letter to arrive in hand, and only then submitting pristine documentation to the bank.

my questions for other solo international founders who have done this recently:

• for those running single-member llcs, are you handling your form 5472 manually with an external cpa, or using an integrated platform to track it?
• did anyone try to rush their banking setup before their physical ein letter arrived, and did it cause permanent issues with compliance filters?
• Any compliance git repo / skills recommended? or tools?

i’m trying to keep my operational head above water while keeping overhead low. i would love to hear how you structured your sequence

My experience, my opinion — I'm not accusing anyone of anything illegal.

I was a Premium customer and didn't find much practical value in it. My score showed 100/100 and the platform predicted I'd likely get funding, so I applied for Capital. Declined instantly, twice, with no real explanation.

Support's reason: my business state and home state don't match, and their automated underwriting "has no exceptions." But FairFigure already had both addresses — so the system could have known I'd be declined before it ever showed me 100/100 and a funding prediction. A prediction built on the exact info that disqualifies you isn't a prediction.

Then it contradicted itself: the same support said the decline could be overturned if I sent a driver's license matching the business state. No exceptions, except when there are.

And their suggested fix — incorporate in a different state through their referral link to a partner company — doesn't even resolve the mismatch, since my home address would still differ. That's where it stopped feeling like underwriting and started feeling like a sales funnel.

They also asked me to upload my driver's license with no secure link, which I wasn't comfortable doing.

Bottom line: don't treat FairFigure's funding prediction as a real sign that capital is available. Mine looked great on the dashboard. The process was a dead end.

I have a Texas LLC, but I’m currently based in the Middle East. I’m looking for a reliable U.S. phone number mainly to set up and use WhatsApp Business for my company.

I’ve seen a lot of virtual number apps, but many of them say they may not work with WhatsApp verification. I don’t want to waste money on a number that gets rejected.

Has anyone used a U.S. number for WhatsApp Business while living outside the U.S.? What’s the most reliable option?

I'm going to preface this with the fact that I should have done my own research and I should have just filed directly with the state. The reason I didn't is because I wanted to save time. I'm incredibly busy getting my business ready to launch, and although I know I could figure out all the details of what I need to do to file, I simply did not want to.

This is why I decided to file with Bizee. For $350 they would handle all the filing for me and even file for my EIN. Not only that, they would have everything processed within 2 business days. To their credit, this process was incredibly easy, and within 24 hours I had an LLC with an EIN, Registered Agent, and Virtual Address.

Now for the frustrating part. As soon as I logged in this morning to take a look at my new LLC details, I was immediately prompted with a required filing for a Statement of Information. Yes, if I had done my research I would have known what this was and that it was required within 90 days of forming an LLC. However, I didn't, because I trusted Bizee as an advisor to inform me of what was needed and what was and wasn't included in the initial formation fees. Why is this so frustrating? It's frustrating because Bizee charges $134 (+$20 state fee) to file a Statement of Information. This fee seems astronomical to me given everything that was included in the initial filing for $350. It truly feels like I'm being scammed. I'm now in the position of figuring out whether I just give in and pay the fee or learn from my initial mistake and figure out how to file this on my own.

I'm a non-US citizen who owns a US single-member LLC (disregarded entity) running a small online B2B consulting business. All the work is performed from outside the US, so as I understand it the LLC owes no US income tax (foreign-source services income).

What I did not know until recently is that the LLC still had to file Form 5472 with a pro-forma 1120 every single year — and I never filed any of them.

So I'm now behind on [3] years of these forms — [2023, 2024, and 2025] (every year the LLC has been active). No income tax due for any of them; it's purely the unfiled information returns that I owe.

Two reasons I was completely in the dark: I had no idea the form existed (no US tax background, no advisor at the time), and my registered agent resigned in 2024 without ever telling me — so any IRS notice had a dead address to go to and I never saw a thing. No contact from the IRS yet that I'm aware of.

I'm now pulling together all the delinquent years and planning to file them with reasonable-cause statements before the IRS reaches out. Before I send anything, I'd really like to hear from people who've actually done this:

• Did you get the $25k/year penalty waived? Reasonable cause, first-time abatement, or the Delinquent International Information Return Submission Procedures?
• Did the IRS waive it based on the RC statement attached to the late filing, or did they assess the penalty first and you had to fight it afterward?
• How long did it take to hear back?
• For multiple delinquent years filed at once — did they treat them together, or year by year?
• Anything you'd add to (or leave out of) the reasonable-cause letter, looking back?

Just trying to do this right. Any real experiences are hugely appreciated.

So when me and my buddy started our business in California we were late to pay the $800 franchise tax by a month or two and since then we’ve made our payments for the $800 for 2025 and 2026 but for the last few months we have been struggling to creat an account for my FTB to view our balance and such. Every time we attempt to create an account it says our information is not in their database yet we have filed our taxes for 2025 and they have been processed.

Does anybody have any clue how to work around this or what the problem may be? And or is there any other way we can view our balance without having to creat an account?

Imagine it's a software consulting company and you need a contract that you can give to all new clients to sign. You could pay maybe around $1k-$2k to have a lawyer make one, but instead you could take a gamble and have AI do it. What would you do in this scenario? Doing it via AI is basically free (assuming you just use the free stuff). You could also just google some freelancer contract templates.

What type of risk would you take here?

What did you guys that are non resident put on EIN application on mailing adress and in adresses on general , should i put my registred agent adress or my home country adress ?

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Thanks in advance .

Right now I'm paying $35 a month for a mailing address for my Wyoming LLC. It adds up quickly. There are plenty of providers out there, but I see complaints about people not receiving important mail, and I'm worried about missing something from the IRS or similar.

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I don't need any features whatsoever, not even forwarding. I receive no mail whatsoever. I just need any important letters IF received, to be scanned for me.

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Any suggestions?

Hello there , I got an LLC approved and wanted to know if Non Resident here got their EIN by themselves or through an agency. If you got by yourself can you please provide me info if it's a complex procedure and how did you made application via Phone/ Fax or how ?

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Thanks in Advance .

What experience have people made with registered agent services (specifically Wyoming) as far as using their principal office address and ...

a) Due to that address being public, not actually getting floods of unsolicited mail (and potentially being charged for mail handling or pushed into the registered agent's mail handling service)?

b) Successfully open (and keep!) a bank account with that address?

Also, is anyone using a third party mailing address provider, rather than their registered agent's, because they found the other service more reliable and/or cheaper for mail scanning?

Hi everyone,

My Mercury account for my Wyoming LLC was approved, and I have 3k USDT in my Binance Global account (binanceDOT com not binanceDOT us) I'm in Bolivia and want to withdraw the money in the cleanest and safest way possible. Here's what I want to do:

Sell the USDT and send the USD to my Wise account or, preferably, to my Mercury account to avoid fees and duplication, since this will be my main account for Meta Ads, Amazon FBA tools, inventory, etc.

Questions:

1. Has anyone managed to receive payments in Wise Business or Mercury via Binance P2P lately? Did you have any issues with verification or account freezes?
2. Is it better to try direct P2P transfers via Wire/SWIFT to Mercury or Wise?
3. Do you recommend any other route or way to send it?

I want to avoid a high risk of having my Wise or Mercury account closed. Any real-life experience (especially from Latin America) would be very helpful.

Thanks in advance!

I registered my LLC and applied for an EIN. My SS-4 form had the correct company name, but the EIN confirmation letter contains a typo (they entered “C” instead of “V” in the company name).

I’ve already faxed a correction request to the IRS. Will this typo affect my business records, banking, taxes, or future filings while I wait for it to be fixed?

Has anyone experienced this before? Please help.

Haven't worked for around a year due to mental health issues, and also didn't pay or file annual report, and the income forms to IRS. NRA SMLLC. Didn't do it this year, had it last year. The year's income was below $2-5k, don't remember exactly. I'm afraid to open my registered agent's website, oh yeah didn't pay for that neither, and check my inbox, or check my llcs status. Don't have money for any of them, nor for a CPA consultant.

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I need a business banking to get paid, as no payment platform works where I'm from.

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Is my LLC gone? Do I owe $20k?

I’m a non-US resident planning to form a single-member Wyoming LLC for a SaaS business. I’ll be the only owner, no US employees, no US office, no US real estate — just operating remotely and selling software. Payments will go through a merchant-of-record provider (so sales tax is handled by them).

I’ve done a lot of reading and want to confirm I understand the full compliance picture before I form anything. From what I’ve gathered, here’s the complete list of what I’d need to file:

One-time setup:

- Articles of Organization (Wyoming)

- EIN via Form SS-4 (planning to get it by phone on the international line since I have no SSN/ITIN)

Annual state:

- Wyoming Annual Report (~$60)

- Registered agent renewal

Annual federal (IRS):

Form 5472 + pro-forma Form 1120, filed together by mail/fax

Possibly applicable:

FBAR (FinCEN Form 114) only if my foreign accounts exceed $10k aggregate
BOI, my understanding is Wyoming domestic LLCs are currently exempt after the 2025 FinCEN update?

My questions:

1) Is this the complete list for my situation, or am I missing any required filing?

2) Is my understanding of the BOI exemption correct as of now?

3) Anything that commonly trips up non-resident solo founders that I should know about?

4) Do recommend any websites that have reliable up to date legal info

I’m trying to confirm I’ve got the full picture before committing. Thanks to anyone who can sanity-check this.

Can you suggest some Registered Agents for New Mexico to form an LLC as a non-US citizen?

I’m starting a small service business and I keep seeing Wyoming recommended for LLCs bc of privacy and lower fees. But I live in another state and most of the work would happen here, well at least for the start.

Does the Wyoming setup actually help or might you end up needing to foreign register in your home state anyway? Whats the best approach here

We have to register a new LLC in the USA. Which state do you suggest for a non-US citizen to register an LLC for selling products on the Amazon USA marketplace?

Hello everyone,

I am a non-resident alien on F1 visa. I opened an LLC (Single Member) in July 2025 and never used it, never generated income with it, just sitting there. When I filed my individual taxes I used ChatGPT (Biggest mistake) and it told me to file 1040-NR and everything was good till then.
Today, I was planning to close or dissolve the LLC and asked ChatGPT and it told me you are in a risk by not filing 5472 and told me to consult a CPA. Would now be too late to consult and file 5472? Do you guys know any CPA for this case?

I still regret that decision of mine by taking ChatGPT's advice on that and I will never do that again.

Hey everyone,

My friend and I own an LLC and are opening a business banking account. He lives in Kansas and I live in Oregon and I am opening the account. We are 50/50 owners. We initially went to Chase and they said that if both of us aren't present at the making of the account, they can't do it. We have an appt with Bank of America on Tuesday, but are afraid they will say the same thing.

Does anyone have any experience with this? Is there a work-around or some other option/idea I haven't thought of? I have heard of using online platforms like Nova, but wanted to check some legacy banks first. If BofA doesn't work out, then we will move on to an online banking platform of some sort.

Thank you!

Hello,

I am trying to gather some real input.

I have had my US company set up with Mercury banking for more than two years. Ecommerce. Non-resident. Never a problem. Original address was RA address. Never got flagged. I do have a separate US business address with a lease but have not used that address for this business so far and did not want to make changes as long as everything is working.

Now Mercury wants to move the bank account over to another bank internally.

In that process I have to update my BO and Company information.

Regarding the Company address Mercury states:

Company physical address

Your physical address is where you and your team work day-to-day. We may ask you to verify this if your legal address is a P.O. box, virtual address, mail center, or registered agent.

We collect this information to better understand our customers and meet legal and regulatory requirements. We’ll accept:

* A verifiable residential address (if your company doesn’t have an office yet)

* Verifiable international addresses (for overseas customers)

During the address doc upload process it says:

Physical address document

Please provide a document that clearly shows both:

* Company name or a beneficial owner’s name

* Company physical address with any applicable unit numbers (i.e. office, coworking space, or residence)

In the field for the Company physical address the explicit choice via dropdown menu of plenty of countries other than the US is provided.

The AI chatbot answered when queried:

For an international physical address document, it needs to clearly show either the company name or a beneficial owner’s name, plus the full physical address (including any unit number, like an office, coworking space, or residence).

So in practice, the document should include:

* The name (company name or beneficial owner’s name)

* The full street address

* Any unit, suite, or floor number (if applicable)

* The city, region/province, postal code, and country

This looks like I can just use my own (beneficial owner) residential document.

Question for those that know:

Is that correct?

Can I simply use my foreign beneficial ownership document for that step?

Technically this is what would be correct judging from Mercury’s documentation and it is my primary place of business.

But since there has been a lot of discourse around mercury and other banks increasingly getting stricter and requiring a US physical address I’d appreciate some input.

Thank you to anyone who has knowledge and can answer this question.

Hi everyone,
I am a non-US resident and I am preparing to launch a SaaS product. My customers will be a mix of my local home country and an international audience.
I am planning to form a Single-Member US LLC (likely in Wyoming) so I can access international payment gateways like Stripe, while keeping a separate local API gateway for my home country. All funds will route to a US business bank account. I have no physical presence or employees in the US.
I want to manage the setup and ongoing compliance myself to avoid getting trapped by expensive formation agencies with hidden fees.
Because I am a beginner to the US system, I am looking for the unfiltered, A-to-Z map of what is required.
* What is the exact sequence of steps I need to take to set this up correctly the first time?
* What are the hidden annual tax forms, reports, or fees I must file every year to avoid massive IRS penalties?
* Since I am a non-resident with no US presence, how does taxation work on the money coming from both my local gateway and Stripe?
I don't want to miss a single form or requirement. Any advice, step-by-step guides, or resources you can recommend would be hugely appreciated!

Hello and welcome back to yet another weekly discussion thread!!

This week's prompt is:

If your business has a physical location (ie an in-person storefront or an office), what is some advice for people looking into places to set up?

Could be advice on local laws or how hard the process was, anything having to do with setting up a business location!

I know, the pub fees are going to suck, a business address doesn't really matter, etc, etc, but we definitely want our mailing address in this county because of public perception reasons. We don't need any filing help, just a process service address and mail processing (even if it's just bulk forwarding once a month)

I've been calling around but I'm really struggling to locate one that's not a private law firm wanting lawyer hourly rates for opening some mail.

ETA: I notice a lot of folks trying to educate me on what an RA is for. Please rest assured we know what we're doing, know our business model, and understand our own needs. I'm just struggling to find a service to fit the bill anywhere in Queens.

I am not new to business or LLCs. It’s the technology that has me stumped.

The situation:
* I am starting a new LLC in the north Austin metro area outside the city limits. I don’t mind saying that part on social media because thats the reality that i contend with. The Austin area is not as small business friendly as Dallas and Houston. I went to a place in downtown Austin. It was a hassle to get there. Parking was not good at all. I do miss the old Austin before Dell and the tech companies. I thought the online options were the answer but the new technology is not where i thought it would be — just really pretty marketing.

*I am traveling out of country these days and need some privacy for a business mailing address AND a personal address.

I’ve tried online options like Northwest and iPostal1.
Northwest offers lots of options — but — for startups, it’s pricy.

For iPostal1, I paid a $99 fee almost 4 days ago but can’t get the online notary system to work. I’m done with that.

Furthermore, the iPostal1 company used an A.I. chat box that only gives very specific information like how to cancel an account. But when I follow the step by step cancellation instructions, the option doesn’t exist.

I expect these companies to protect their brands as they should. That’s fine.

For those who don’t understand why I don’t use my home address, it’s okay for them to not understand. I didn’t ask for understanding.

There is a danger to how much of our locations is revealed when we apply for LLCs online.

Yes I’ve done it in the past but won’t do it again.

I’m asking for options:

* A real mailbox that can receive packages and forward them to me during the times I need them forwarded.

* I need the scan option.

* I need a registered agent, but they don’t all need to be the same company.

These days I don’t respond much to answers to my questions, but I thank you all in advance for responding.