US Company Registration From India: The Full Process
You do not need a US visa, a US address you live at, or a Social Security Number to own a US company. Thousands of Indian founders run US LLCs from Bengaluru, Mumbai and Hyderabad, invoicing US clients in dollars and holding a US bank account. What stops most people is not eligibility — it is that the process runs across two countries, and nobody explains both halves in one place. This does.
The short answer
An Indian resident can own 100% of a US LLC. There is no citizenship test, no residency requirement and no visa involved. The company exists in the US; you stay where you are.
The sequence is always the same four steps, in this order, and each one depends on the one before it:
- Form the LLC in a US state, with a registered agent in that state.
- Get the EIN from the IRS — the company's tax ID. No SSN needed.
- Open the US bank account, which needs the LLC documents and the EIN.
- Keep it compliant — a federal filing every year, even at zero revenue.
Two to three months is a realistic end-to-end timeline if nothing goes wrong. The step that swallows the time is almost always the EIN.
Open US company from India: step by step
Nothing here requires you to leave India or to visit a US consulate.
Pick a state and a registered agent. A registered agent is a company with a physical address in your chosen state that accepts legal mail for you. It is not optional — every state requires one — and it is the reason you do not need a US address of your own. Expect somewhere around $50 to $150 a year.
File the Articles of Organization. This is the document that actually creates the LLC. Your registered agent usually files it for you. The state approves it in anything from a day to a couple of weeks depending on which state and whether you pay for expedited handling.
Write an operating agreement. Single-member LLCs are not legally required to have one in most states, but banks routinely ask to see it, so treat it as required in practice.
Apply for the EIN. This is where foreign founders get stuck, and it has its own section below.
Open the bank account. Remote-friendly providers like Mercury, Wise Business and Relay work with non-resident-owned LLCs. Each runs its own underwriting and none of them guarantees an outcome — but none of them requires you to fly to the US either.
US company incorporation from India: LLC or C-corp?
For the overwhelming majority of Indian founders, the answer is an LLC, and the reason is tax treatment rather than paperwork.
A single-member LLC owned by a non-resident is, by default, a disregarded entity for US federal purposes. The company itself is not taxed. Whether US tax is owed turns on whether the business is engaged in a trade or business in the United States — a specific test, not a question of where your customers are. A founder in Pune selling software to American companies is in a very different position from one with staff and an office in Texas.
A C-corporation is taxed in its own right, at the corporate rate, before anything reaches you. That structure earns its keep in exactly one situation: you are raising venture capital from US investors, who generally want to buy shares in a Delaware C-corp. If that is not your near-term plan, the C-corp is a tax bill you chose for no reason.
An LLC can be converted later. Starting as one does not close the door.
Which state, and why it matters less than you think
State choice is the part founders agonise over and it is rarely the part that matters. It has no effect on your US federal tax position, and none at all on the annual filing described further down. What it changes is the yearly fee, how much of your information is public, and how familiar the state is to banks.
Wyoming is the sensible default for a remote, non-resident-owned LLC with no US fundraising plans: low predictable fees, strong privacy, and banks see it constantly. Delaware is worth it only if US venture capital or a future C-corp conversion is a real plan. New Mexico has no annual report at all, which makes it marginally cheaper over several years at the cost of being less familiar to banks. Florida makes sense only if you have a genuine physical or operational reason to be there.
Our full comparison is in the best state for a non-resident LLC.
Getting the EIN without an SSN
The EIN is the company's tax identification number, and the bank will not open an account without it. The instructions you will find online mostly assume you have a Social Security Number. You do not, and you do not need one.
You apply on paper Form SS-4, and on the line asking for the responsible party's taxpayer ID you write “Foreign”. The online IRS application is closed to you — it validates an SSN or ITIN before it will submit — so the form goes by fax to the IRS international fax number given in the SS-4 instructions.
By fax this typically takes one to four weeks. By post it can take two months or more. The state-approved LLC has to exist first, because the SS-4 asks about the entity.
Two things worth knowing. You do not need an ITIN to get an EIN, and you do not need a visa — an ITIN becomes relevant later, if you need to file a personal US return or a card issuer asks for one. And plenty of services charge $150 to $300 to “get your EIN”; what you are paying for is somebody to fax a form. Details are in getting an EIN without an SSN.
The Indian side: FEMA, LRS and your CA
This is the half that US-focused guides leave out, and it is not optional.
Money leaving India is governed by FEMA, the Foreign Exchange Management Act, and specifically by the Overseas Investment Rules and Regulations introduced in 2022. Sending money abroad to set up or fund an entity is a regulated act with its own reporting, not a simple transfer.
The route most individual founders use is the Liberalised Remittance Scheme, under which a resident individual may remit up to USD 250,000 per financial year. Whether your particular purpose fits inside LRS, and what has to be reported and when, depends on how the investment is structured.
And India taxes residents on their worldwide income. Profit earned through a US LLC does not become invisible because the company sits in Wyoming.
We are not going to give you thresholds and forms for the Indian side, because the answer genuinely depends on your structure and getting it wrong is expensive. Take the structure to a chartered accountant before you remit anything. The US half is what we handle; that conversation is one to have in parallel, not afterwards.
What US company registration from India costs
Doing it yourself, the unavoidable costs are the state filing fee, the registered agent, and your own time. State formation fees vary by state and are typically under a few hundred dollars; the registered agent is roughly $50 to $150 a year; the EIN itself is free if you file the SS-4 yourself.
The costs people forget are the recurring ones: the annual state report where the state requires one, and US tax preparation — which for a foreign-owned LLC is not something most Indian CAs will file for you, because it is a US federal filing.
What actually decides the total is how many attempts each step takes. A rejected EIN application, a bank that declines after three weeks of back-and-forth, an LLC formed in a state the bank does not like — each of those costs weeks rather than rupees.
Form 5472: the filing that catches people out
If you take one thing from this page, take this one.
A foreign-owned single-member US LLC must file Form 5472 together with a pro-forma Form 1120 every year. This is a reporting requirement, not a tax bill — and it applies even if the LLC earned nothing at all.
The penalty for missing it or filing late is $25,000 per violation. The state you chose makes no difference. Founders who dissolved a dormant LLC and assumed the obligation ended with it have been caught by this.
Treat it as a fixed annual task from the day the LLC exists. The full breakdown is in Form 5472 for foreign-owned LLCs.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can an Indian citizen register a US company without going to the US?
Yes. Every step — forming the LLC, the EIN, the bank account — is done remotely. No US visa, no US visit and no Social Security Number is required. You need a registered agent with a physical address in the state you choose, which is a service you buy, not somewhere you live.
How long does US company registration from India take?
Two to three months end to end is realistic. The state approves the LLC in days to a couple of weeks. The EIN is the slow step: a paper Form SS-4 by fax typically takes one to four weeks, and by post two months or more. The bank account follows once the EIN arrives.
Do I need an ITIN to open a US company from India?
No. You can form the LLC and get the EIN without an ITIN and without a US visa. An ITIN matters later — if you have to file a personal US tax return, or if a card issuer asks for a taxpayer ID on a personal-guarantee application.
Will I pay tax twice, in the US and in India?
Not automatically. A single-member LLC owned by a non-resident is a disregarded entity for US federal purposes, and whether US tax is due turns on whether the business is engaged in a trade or business in the United States. India taxes residents on worldwide income. Because the two interact, this is a question for a US CPA and an Indian chartered accountant together, not one you settle from an article.
Which state should an Indian founder choose?
Wyoming is the sensible default for a remote, non-resident-owned LLC with no US fundraising plans: low fees, good privacy, and familiar to banks. Choose Delaware only if raising from US investors is a real near-term plan. State choice does not change your US federal tax position or the Form 5472 obligation.
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