Your First 30 Days After Forming a US LLC From Abroad

Do this the day your formation documents come back stamped. Everything downstream is blocked until the confirmation letter arrives, so every day of delay here is a day added to the end.

Fax Form SS-4 to 855-215-1627 from inside the US or 304-707-9471 from outside. Enter "foreign" on line 7b. Keep the fax confirmation.

International applicants with no US residence or principal office can obtain an EIN by calling +1 267-941-1099, and the IRS assigns the EIN during the call; by fax the EIN generally arrives within 4 business days.[1]Internal Revenue Service, Instructions for Form SS-4 (12/2025)

Then stop thinking about it for four weeks. There is no status lookup and refaxing early creates duplicates.

You need one before the bank asks, and drafting it while you wait costs you nothing.

Two things matter more than the boilerplate. Ownership and control should be stated plainly, because that is what a bank reads it for. And the capital-contribution language matters for Form 5472, because money you put in is a reportable transaction and the agreement is where its character is recorded.

This is the step nobody schedules and it blocks people six weeks later.

Register a domain. Set up a mailbox on it. Publish a real page, not a parked placeholder.

"Your organization's website must be publicly available and functional, and its domain name must be associated with your organization."

Apple, Apple Developer Program enrollment. Retrieved September 1, 2026.

Apple also requires a work email on your organization's domain. A founder who leaves this until enrollment discovers two blocking requirements at the worst moment, and the fix is a weekend and very little money if done now.

Free from Dun & Bradstreet, a few days to a couple of weeks. Required for Apple Developer and for Google Play organization accounts.

Check that the name and address on the record match your formation documents exactly. Mismatches are the most-discussed cause of Apple enrollment failure and they take longer to correct than to prevent.

You cannot apply without the EIN letter, but you can find out now whether you are eligible, which is better than finding out after two weeks of assembling documents.

Check your country of residence against Mercury's and Relay's published lists. They disagree about five significant markets, so a no from one is not a no from both. If you are on both lists, use this time to work out your alternative rather than losing a week to a rejection you could have predicted.

Assemble the document set now: articles of organization, passport, proof of your residential address, operating agreement. Only the CP 575 is missing.

When the confirmation letter comes, apply the same day. Nothing else in the sequence has this much slack in it.

If nothing has arrived by day 28, call 267-941-1099, the international applicants' line, open 6:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. Eastern, Monday through Friday. Ask whether the application is on file. Do not refax before you have asked.

Start bookkeeping from the first transaction, not the first customer. The deposit that opens the bank account is a capital contribution and it is reportable on Form 5472. So is any expense you have paid personally. Categorize as you go and the April filing is straightforward; reconstruct in March and it is not.

Apply for the payment processor once the bank account is funded. Stripe wants the physical location where the majority of your business activity happens, which is your desk, not your registered agent.

Everything in the "yes" column is work you can complete while the IRS has your form. Most people do none of it and then discover each requirement one at a time.

Banking, if the EIN runs long. Payment processing, which sits behind banking. Four to eight weeks from certificate to first invoice is the realistic range.

If the EIN takes three weeks, the bank application starts in week four and may not conclude inside the month. If you are on Mercury's and Relay's lists, banking is a longer project and the month ends without it. Payment processing follows banking, so it can slip to week five or six.

Four to eight weeks from certificate to first invoice is the realistic range, assuming nothing is declined.

Can I speed up the EIN? No. There is no expedited route for a faxed international application, no status lookup, and refaxing creates duplicates that slow it down.

Can I open the bank account before the EIN arrives? No. Every institution asks for the CP 575.

What if I don't need an app store? Skip the D-U-N-S step, but do the domain and email anyway. Bank and processor verification go more smoothly with a business domain than with a personal address.

Should I pay for expedited formation? It shortens step zero, which is the shortest step. The EIN wait is the long pole and expedited formation does not touch it.

When do I start bookkeeping? The first time money moves, including your own deposit into the bank account. That deposit is a reportable transaction on Form 5472.

The thirty-day window covered here is the opening of a longer sequence. The full map, from choosing a state through the second year and eventually closing the company, is the operating hub.