For founders outside the United States

Form a U.S. company from outside the U.S.

An LLC or a Delaware C-Corp, with the EIN, the registered agent and the compliance dates that turn a filing into a company you can actually operate.

Start your U.S. company See what it costs

Plans from $397

one-time, first year, plus your state's filing fee

The difference

A filing turns one line green.

A company that can take payments, sign contracts and survive its first year needs all six. This is what a completed Prolify formation looks like.

Example company, Delaware LLC

Entity filing
Filed with the state Open
EIN
Issued by the IRS Open
Registered agent
Active in the formation state Open
Corporate documents
Prepared and stored Open
Compliance calendar
Dates tracked Open
Banking readiness
Documents prepared. Approval is the bank's decision Conditional

An illustrative example, not a customer. Banking readiness shows as conditional on purpose: Prolify prepares the documents a bank asks for, and the bank decides.

What do you need to form a U.S. company from outside the U.S.?

A non-U.S. resident can generally form a U.S. LLC or corporation without living in the United States and without a Social Security number. State law sets no residency or citizenship condition on who may form a company, and the exact requirements depend on the entity type, the state and your own tax circumstances.

Choose the entity type, an LLC or a corporation.
Choose the state you will form in.
File the entity with that state.
Obtain an EIN from the IRS. This is a separate event from forming the company.
Keep a registered agent and the state's recurring obligations current.

Who this is for. And who it is not.

Built for

Who this is for

+SaaS and AI founders who need U.S. customers, Stripe and an investor-legible structure
+Agencies and consultants billing U.S. clients who need contracts, invoicing and credibility
+E-commerce operators who need a U.S. entity, payment rails and state-level coordination
+Founders raising or about to raise, who need a Delaware C-Corp and clean paper

Not built for

Who this is not for

-Founders who want the cheapest possible filing and nothing after it. A $39 filing service will do that job, and will do it for less than Prolify charges.
-Anyone seeking advice on litigation, immigration or visas. Prolify does not give it, and this page does not either.

The gap

A state filing creates an entity. It does not create a company that can operate.

Here is what each of the two actually leaves you holding.

What a filing service delivers, against what an operating company needs
What you need	A filing service	Prolify
State filing	Filed	Filed
EIN	Often a separate purchase	Included, on the route that fits your situation
Registered agent	Year one, then renewal is yours to remember	Year one included, then tracked
Governing documents	A generic template	Prepared for the entity, state and ownership
Compliance dates	Your problem	On a calendar with the dates that apply to your state
Federal information filings	Never mentioned	Explained, and scoped to whether they apply to you
Banking readiness	Not addressed	Documents prepared. The bank still decides
Company records	Emailed once	Stored in a document vault

More on what happens after the filing: the compliance obligations that follow and the layer you run the company from.

The process

How forming a U.S. company actually works.

Five steps. Prolify controls some of them and no one controls the rest, so each step says who decides.

Choose the entity and the state
You, with Prolify
LLC or C-Corp, then which of the four states Prolify files in. The structure decision usually turns on whether you intend to raise; the state decision turns on cost, recurring obligations and who you will deal with.
Compare states for your company
File the entity
Prolify prepares · the state decides
Prolify checks the filing for completeness and submits it. Processing time after that belongs to the Secretary of State, and it varies by state and filing method.

Obtain the EIN

Prolify prepares · the IRS decides

The EIN is a separate event from forming the company, and it is where founders without an SSN get stuck. There are four routes and they are not equally available to you.

The four EIN routes, and who can use each
Route	Available to	IRS timing
Online	Responsible party holds an SSN or ITIN, and the business has U.S. nexus	Immediate
Telephone	International applicants only: no U.S. residence, place of business or office	On the call
Fax	Any applicant, including a responsible party with no SSN or ITIN	Generally within 4 business days
Mail	Any applicant	Approximately 4 weeks

Where the responsible party has no SSN or ITIN and cannot obtain one, Form SS-4 line 7b takes the entry “foreign”. The IRS words its fax timing as “generally” four business days, and this page keeps that word rather than promising it.

Activate the company infrastructure
Prolify
Registered agent live in the formation state, U.S. business address, governing documents prepared and stored, compliance dates loaded.
Move into operating readiness
Prolify prepares · third parties decide
Banking and payment documents assembled in the form providers ask for. Prolify prepares the package; whether an account opens is the bank's decision, not Prolify's.

The structure decision

Should a non-U.S. founder choose an LLC or a C-Corp?

There is no universally correct structure. In practice the decision turns on whether you intend to raise institutional money: investors expect a Delaware C-Corp, and almost everything else is simpler and cheaper as an LLC.

LLC and C-Corp, compared on the factors that usually decide it
	LLC	C-Corp
Commonly chosen when	Bootstrapped, agency, consulting, most e-commerce	Institutional fundraising is planned
Ownership	Members, flexible	Shares, an option pool, investor expectations
Federal filings for a foreign owner	Often Form 5472 with a pro-forma 1120	Corporate return; Form 5472 where 25% foreign-owned
States Prolify files in	Delaware, Wyoming, New Mexico, Florida	Delaware only

Ownership, business model, fundraising plans, tax treatment and your country of residence all bear on this, and none of them is decided by a web page.

Compare LLC and C-Corp for your situation / How U.S. business taxes work for foreign owners

The state decision

Which state should a non-resident form in?

There is no state that is best for everyone, and anyone who names one without asking about your business is guessing. What differs is the recurring cost and what the state asks of you each year. Prolify files in four states.

State filing fees and recurring obligations, verified August 31, 2026
State	Typically chosen for	Filing fee	Recurring	Annual report
Delaware	Raising capital; the structure investors expect	$110	$400 annual tax, due 1 June	None for LLCs
Wyoming	Bootstrapped operating companies; low recurring cost	$100	Licence tax, minimum $60, due the first day of your anniversary month	Required annually
New Mexico	Lowest ongoing maintenance	$50	No Secretary of State report or fee	None for LLCs
Florida	Real U.S. presence or operations in the state	$125	$138.75 annual report, due between 1 January and 1 May	Required; first one the year after formation

Not corroborated

New Mexico's figures come from the statute alone. The Secretary of State moved business services behind a login-gated portal and its former public fee pages now return 404, so no agency page corroborates them.

Two notes worth having. Delaware’s LLC annual tax rose to $400, and some of the Division of Corporations’ own pages still showed the old $300 figure when this page was verified. The statute is the authority. And Florida’s published total of $160 includes two optional certificates; $125 is the required minimum.

Narrow the Delaware-or-Wyoming decision

Product scope

What Prolify does, and what it does not.

Including the lines where the answer is no. Nothing on a roadmap appears here as though it shipped.

Company

IncludedLLC formation Delaware, Wyoming, New Mexico or Florida
IncludedC-Corp formation Delaware only
IncludedOperating agreement or articles Prepared for your entity, state and ownership
Not offeredC-Corp bylaws Not generated today
Not offeredMember or shareholder register, initial resolutions Not generated today

Federal

IncludedEIN Including where the responsible party has no SSN or ITIN

Infrastructure

IncludedRegistered agent Year one, in the state you file in
IncludedU.S. business address Arranged by Prolify rather than provisioned automatically
Not offeredMail scanning Not part of any formation plan
IncludedDocument vault Your filings and documents, stored

Operating readiness

IncludedBanking document package Prepared for you to submit. Approval is the bank's decision
Not offeredBanking application submitted for you Prolify does not submit or route bank applications

Continuity

IncludedCompliance calendar The dates that apply to your state and entity
Add-onAnnual report filing Annual State Compliance, $199
Add-onExpedited state filing $300
Add-onApostille, certified copies, good standing On request

If something you need is marked not offered, Prolify is not selling it today. See what the operating layer covers.

Cost

What does a U.S. company cost a non-resident?

Two separate bills: Prolify’s fee, and your state’s. Almost nobody in this market publishes the second one, which is why the quoted “cost of a U.S. LLC” varies so wildly. Here is the whole arithmetic.

First-year and recurring cost by state, Starter plan. State figures verified August 31, 2026
State	Prolify, first year	State filing fee	First-year total	From year two
Delaware	$397	$110	$507	$400 a year
Wyoming	$397	$100	$497	From $60 a year
New Mexico	$397	$50	$447	None
Florida	$397	$125	$522	$138.75 a year

Prolify’s $397 is a one-time price covering the first year. It is not a yearly subscription.
The year-two column is what your state asks for. Continuing with Prolify after year one is priced separately.
Growth and Elite plans exist for founders who want the compliance and tax work handled as well.

See every plan and what it includes / Estimate your own total

The cheap route, honestly

The filing is one line item. The company needs everything around it.

A cheap filing service does the thing it says it does. What it does not do is the rest of this list, and the rest of this list does not go away.

A basic filing path against Prolify. Illustrative, not attributed to any named company.
	A basic filing path	Prolify
State filing fee	You pay it, same as anywhere	You pay it, shown before you buy
Registered agent, year two	Renewal invoice, often $100–$300	Tracked, and quoted before it falls due
EIN	Usually an upsell, or do it yourself	Included
Governing documents	A template	Prepared for your entity and state
Compliance dates	You track them	On a calendar
Federal information filing	Not mentioned	Explained and scoped to you
Banking preparation	You assemble it	Package prepared. The bank still decides

This column is illustrative. It describes the shape of a low-cost filing offer rather than any particular company’s current prices. Where a named competitor appears on this page, it is in the next section, with the date the figures were retrieved.

The alternatives

How Prolify compares.

Every figure below is quoted from the named company’s own pricing page, retrieved August 31, 2026. Where a company does not publish something, this page leaves it out rather than characterising it.

Each figure quoted from that company's own pricing page, retrieved August 31, 2026
Provider	Starting price	State filing fee	Registered agent
Prolify	From $397, one-time	Extra	Year one included
Stripe Atlas	$500, one-time	Included	Year one included, then $100 a year
doola	$297 a year	Extra	Included
Firstbase	$99, one-time	Extra	Not included: $299 a year per state
StartGlobal	$399, one-time	Included	Year one included, then $99 a year

Only what each company publishes about itself, quoted from its own pricing page. Prolify does not characterise a competitor’s non-resident support or EIN handling here; those would be claims about someone else’s product that their own pricing pages do not make.

Where Prolify loses

-Prolify is not the cheapest. Firstbase starts at $99 one-time and doola at $297 a year, both below Prolify's $397.
-Stripe Atlas and StartGlobal include the state filing fee in their headline price. Prolify does not; it is shown separately, above.
-Prolify files in four states. If you need a state outside Delaware, Wyoming, New Mexico or Florida, Prolify cannot form it for you today.

What arrives

What you will actually have.

Each deliverable, and the step it comes from
Deliverable	From
Certificate of formation or articles, stamped by the state	Step 02
EIN confirmation from the IRS	Step 03
Operating agreement, for an LLC	Step 04
Registered agent details and consent	Step 04
U.S. business address details	Step 04
Document vault holding all of the above	Step 04
Compliance calendar with your state's dates	Step 05
Banking document package	Step 05

C-Corp bylaws are not on this list because Prolify does not generate them today.

Timing

How long does it take to form a U.S. company from abroad?

Prolify’s own work is measured in days. The parts that take longer belong to a government agency or a bank, and no provider can shorten them by promising you a date.

Each stage, who controls it, and a realistic window
Stage	Controlled by	Realistic window
Your questionnaire and identity check	You	Same day, if you have your documents
Prolify prepares and submits the filing	Prolify	Within one business day
State processing	Secretary of State	Varies by state and filing method
EIN	IRS	Generally 4 business days by fax; about 4 weeks by mail
Bank or payment provider review	The provider	Not something Prolify can predict or promise

State processing times vary by jurisdiction and filing method. The EIN windows above are the IRS’s own published figures and carry the IRS’s own hedges.

Limits

What Prolify cannot control.

Every provider in this market has the same limits. Most do not print them.

Prolify controls

+Checking your filing is complete before it is submitted
+Preparing your governing documents
+Submitting the filing and the EIN application
+Tracking status and telling you where it is
+Loading the compliance dates that apply to you
+Answering your questions while it happens

Prolify does not control

-How long a Secretary of State takes to process a filing
-How long the IRS takes to issue an EIN
-Whether a bank opens an account for your company
-Whether a payment provider approves your business
-Changes in government policy, fees or deadlines
-Your specific tax position, which depends on facts Prolify does not decide

Bank accounts deserve a specific word. A U.S. business bank account is not a legal entitlement. Opening one is each bank’s own risk-based decision under the customer identification programme federal rules require, and those rules expressly tell a bank when it should not open an account. Prolify prepares the documents banks ask for. The decision is theirs. How to prepare for it.

After formation

What you owe every year after that.

Forming the company creates obligations that recur. Which ones apply depends on your entity, your state and your own tax position.

Recurring obligations, and who they apply to
Obligation	Applies to	Detail
Registered agent	Every entity, every year	Your formation state requires one continuously. Lapse it and the state can dissolve the company.
State annual report or tax	Depends on the state	Delaware $400 tax due 1 June with no report; Wyoming a report and licence tax from $60; Florida $138.75 by 1 May; New Mexico neither.
Federal tax filing	Depends on entity and tax classification	What you file depends on how the entity is classified and on your own tax position. This page does not tell you which applies to you.
Form 5472 with a pro-forma Form 1120	A U.S. entity wholly owned by one foreign person, with a reportable transaction	Money moved in or out on formation or funding counts as a reportable transaction, so a first year normally has one. It cannot be filed electronically. The penalty is $25,000, and a further $25,000 per related party per 30-day period once a failure runs more than 90 days past IRS notice.

Does a non-resident have to file a BOI report?

No, not for a company formed in a U.S. state. FinCEN’s final rule, effective 14 August 2026, permanently exempts U.S.-formed companies from beneficial ownership information reporting. The exemption attaches to where the entity was formed, so it applies whoever owns it. The only entities still reporting are those formed under the law of a foreign country and registered to do business in a U.S. state, which would be your existing overseas company, not the one you form here.

One thing this does not change: your bank will still ask who owns the company. FinCEN relies on the separate customer due diligence rule that banks operate under, and that rule has not gone anywhere.

The full compliance picture / The Form 5472 guide / Keeping the books that make it filable

Questions

Common questions.

Can I form a U.S. LLC without an SSN?

Yes. State law does not require a Social Security number to form a company. Delaware's statute lists what a certificate of formation must contain, and an SSN is not on the list. The EIN is a separate question: the IRS online application does require an SSN or ITIN, but the fax and international telephone routes do not. Where the responsible party has no SSN or ITIN and cannot obtain one, Form SS-4 line 7b takes the entry "foreign".

Do I need a U.S. address to form a U.S. company?

You need a registered agent with a physical street address in the state you form in. That is a legal requirement, and Prolify provides it. A separate U.S. business address is useful for the IRS, for business mail and for some banking applications, and is included in Prolify's plans. Neither has to be your own home or office.

How long does it take to form a U.S. company from outside the U.S.?

Prolify submits within one business day of having what it needs. After that the timing belongs to other people: the Secretary of State processes the filing on its own schedule, and the IRS issues the EIN generally within four business days by fax or about four weeks by mail. Nobody can promise you a bank account date.

How much does it cost to form a U.S. company as a non-resident?

Prolify starts at $397 one-time for the first year, plus your state's filing fee: $50 in New Mexico, $100 in Wyoming, $110 in Delaware, $125 in Florida. From year two you owe your state's recurring obligation, which ranges from nothing in New Mexico to $400 in Delaware. The full arithmetic is on this page.

Do I need a U.S. bank account, and will I get one?

You will almost certainly want one, and no provider can guarantee it. Opening an account is each bank's own risk-based decision under the customer identification programme federal rules require, and those rules expressly tell banks when not to open an account. Prolify prepares the documents banks ask for. The decision is theirs.

What is Form 5472, and when does it apply?

It is an annual information return for a U.S. entity that is at least 25% foreign-owned, including a U.S. entity wholly owned by one foreign person. It applies when there was a reportable transaction, and contributions to and distributions from the entity count, so a first year normally has one. It is filed with a pro-forma Form 1120 and cannot be filed electronically.

LLC or C-Corp for a non-U.S. founder?

If you intend to raise institutional money, a Delaware C-Corp is what investors expect. If you are bootstrapping, running an agency or selling online, an LLC is usually simpler and cheaper to maintain. The decision depends on ownership, business model, fundraising plans, tax treatment and where you live.

Do I have to travel to the U.S.?

Not to form the company or to get the EIN. Filings are submitted as documents, and the IRS runs a telephone route reachable from abroad and a fax number specifically for applicants filing from outside the U.S. Some banks do require an in-person visit to open an account, which is a separate question from forming the company.

Form the company. Then actually operate it.

The filing is the first of six lines. Prolify handles the other five.