Can a Non-US Resident Form a US LLC?

What you do need

• A registered agent with a physical street address in your formation state. That is the state’s requirement, and it is satisfied by your agent, not by you.
• A company name that is available in that state.
• An EIN from the IRS to open a bank account. Available with no SSN — it is a fax or mail application rather than the instant online one.
• A passport, for bank and payment-processor onboarding rather than for the state filing itself.

Notice what is absent: no US bank account is needed to form the company, no US address of your own, no notarised documents in most states, and no travel.

What owning one does not give you

This is where the misunderstanding is costly. A US LLC is not an immigration route.

• It does not give you a visa, a work permit or the right to enter the United States.
• It does not make you a US tax resident.
• It does not let you work inside the US, even for your own company.

Anyone selling formation as a step towards residency is selling something they cannot deliver.

What you take on

Three obligations follow the company regardless of where you live:

1. An annual state filing in most states, to stay in good standing.
2. An annual federal filing. A single foreign owner files a pro-forma Form 1120 with Form 5472 attached, every year, at a penalty from $25,000 — even with no revenue.
3. A BOI report to FinCEN where the company is a reporting company.

None of these is difficult. All of them are easy to miss from another continent, which is the actual risk of forming as a non-resident — not the formation, the second year.