Forming a US company from India: the founder’s complete route

Why Indian founders form in the US — stated plainly

The operational reasons come first, because they are the real ones. US clients and US marketplaces routinely expect a US entity with an EIN before they will onboard you or pay you. A US company invoices in dollars under a US name, holds a US bank account, and settles through a US Stripe account instead of pushing every receipt through a separate cross-border collection. For an Indian software seller, agency, or ecommerce founder whose market is the United States, that is the whole argument — and it is enough.

The payments point deserves precision. Stripe’s own global availability page lists India as “Preview” — not a full launch — and a Stripe India account, where one is offered, is an Indian account paying out in rupees to an Indian bank. What it is not is a US Stripe account attached to a US company and a US bank account, which is what US marketplaces and US enterprise customers require when they require it. If that is your situation, the US company is the route. If your customers are Indian and your rails already work, an Indian private limited company may be the simpler business, and a guide that respected you would say so.

One Indian-specific step comes before the American paperwork, and it is not optional homework. A person resident in India who acquires or holds a foreign company is inside India’s overseas-investment framework — the FEMA (Overseas Investment) Rules, 2022 and the Reserve Bank of India’s Master Direction on Overseas Investment — under which a resident individual’s overseas direct investment sits inside the Liberalised Remittance Scheme limit (USD 250,000 per financial year) and carries its own reporting through an authorised dealer bank. Whether your exact plan fits the automatic route, and what must be filed with your AD bank and when, is your Indian adviser’s and your AD bank’s determination — made before the US filing, not after it. Sethhost forms US companies; it does not clear Indian foreign-exchange positions, and nothing on this page does.

Nothing in the US route itself requires you to move, to hold a US visa, or to have a US address of your own. The company’s public address is its registered agent’s; your Indian address is your address on file.

LLC or C corporation from India: the decision that matters

Our LLC vs corporation guide lays out the structures in full; the short version for a Indian reader is this. An S corporation is closed to you outright — under IRC §1361 a nonresident alien cannot be an S-corporation shareholder. The real choice is between the LLC in its default form and the C corporation.

A single-member LLC is disregarded for US income tax: it files no tax return of its own, but as a wholly foreign-owned company it owes the annual Form 5472 with a pro forma Form 1120 (the tax section below). A C corporation is its own taxpayer — federal corporate tax at a flat 21%, its own Form 1120, and its own Form 5472 while it is 25% or more foreign-owned — and dividends paid out to you carry withholding on the way. The corporation is the structure US venture investors are built around; the LLC is the simpler operating vehicle most solo founders actually run.

India adds a wrinkle the US pages cannot settle for you, in two layers. The first is the foreign-exchange layer above: the holding itself must fit the overseas-investment framework. The second is tax character: India taxes its residents on worldwide income, and how India sees a US LLC — an entity the IRS disregards but Indian law may not — plus the place-of-effective-management questions that arise when a foreign company is in substance managed from India, are Indian-law determinations with real consequences for the same income. That analysis belongs to your Indian adviser, before the filing. Sethhost forms either structure at the same published prices and recommends neither.

Choosing a state without a recommendation

Sethhost never recommends a state; we publish the facts and you choose. What actually differs between states is a short list: the filing fee, the recurring state charge, whether the public filing names the owners, publication requirements, and what ongoing filings look like. The three states founders ask about most, with fees re-verified against the states’ own schedules this week:

New York is the standing warning in this section. Under §206 of the Limited Liability Company Law, a New York LLC must publish a notice of its formation in two newspapers — one daily, one weekly, designated by the county clerk — once a week for six consecutive weeks, then file a Certificate of Publication (a $50 state filing fee) within 120 days of formation. Miss it and the LLC’s authority to carry on business is suspended. The newspaper charges are set by the papers in the county of the LLC’s office, and they, not the $200 Articles filing, are the real cost of a New York formation.

One more fact that catches founders out: forming in one state does not license the company in another. If the business later puts people, premises, or stock in a state, that state generally wants a foreign qualification filing of its own — a separate step (handled inside Hosted for members; state fees at cost) that our foreign qualification page covers. Every state’s facts, fee included, are on the states board, and the three above are compared in depth in our Pennsylvania, Wyoming, or Delaware guide.

The EIN step, with no SSN

Strictly in order: the company is formed first, then its EIN is applied for — the SS-4 names an existing entity. As a founder abroad you will ordinarily have no SSN, and the IRS online application, which demands one (or an ITIN) from the responsible party, is closed to you; the IRS directs applicants whose principal place of business is outside the US to the phone, fax or mail routes. The route built for your case is Form SS-4 by fax, with “Foreign” written where the responsible party’s US number would go. The EIN itself is free — the IRS charges nothing for it, ever.

Sethhost’s published expectation for this workflow is typically 15–25 business days, and we never promise to shorten the IRS. Our guide to ITIN vs EIN vs SSN settles which of the three numbers you actually need (for formation and the EIN: only the EIN), and Guide 01, EIN without an SSN, walks the fax workflow itself.

Banking and Stripe from India: what providers ask for

Banking is a decision made by the bank, not by you and not by us — what you control is the document file. For a non-resident owner, the providers in our banking and Stripe guide work from the same four-document set: the filed formation document, the EIN assignment letter (the CP 575), the operating agreement, and passports for owners of 25% or more. Applications fail most often on fixable mismatches between those documents, which is why the set is assembled before any application is started.

Stripe follows the same shape, with the Indian status stated exactly as Stripe states it: India is a Preview market on Stripe’s global availability page, so the account this route builds is the US one — in the company’s name, paying out only to a US bank account in the company’s name, with the first payout running 7–14 days and standard payouts landing in 2 business days. Sethhost assembles the document file banks and Stripe ask for; it does not open accounts, and it never promises a provider’s approval.

The tax picture, at journey level

On the US side, one filing is certain for the standard Indian-founder structure. A single-member LLC wholly owned by a non-US person owes Form 5472 attached to a pro forma Form 1120 every year — even a year with no income and no tax due. It is due April 15 (Form 7004 extends it to October 15), and the penalty for failing to file starts at $25,000 per form, per year under IRC §6038A. Our Form 5472 guide is the page to read in your first month; the obligation goes on your compliance calendar from day one here, and the return itself is prepared by a qualified tax preparer or your own CPA.

ECI, in the one paragraph it gets at journey level: if the company’s US activity grows into a US trade or business with effectively connected income — US staff or a dependent agent working for it are the classic triggers — the personal picture changes too, and a Form 1040-NR of your own can enter it. Whether your activity crosses that line is a preparer’s determination, made before the activity starts, not at filing time.

The Indian side we state generally and leave where it belongs. India taxes residents on their worldwide income, and the overseas-investment framework described above governs the holding itself, with reporting through your authorised dealer bank. How the US company’s income is characterised and taxed in your hands — and what Indian filings the holding triggers year by year — is your Indian adviser’s question, answered under Indian law. Sethhost gives no Indian tax or foreign-exchange advice, and nothing on this page is it.

Your first-year total cost, itemised

Two honest footnotes. A filing processing fee of 3% of the order total is charged by our fulfillment provider, CorpNet, where it applies; it is shown as its own itemised line at checkout and is not Sethhost revenue. And the tail after year one is real but small: Hosted continues at $79 a month, the state charge from the table above falls due on its own cycle, and Form 5472 preparation is a preparer’s fee — Sethhost’s preparer add-on is waitlist-only until that engagement is in place, and we say so rather than sell it early. The full ledger, including every add-on, is on the pricing page.

How Sethhost runs this as one bundle

The route above is one engagement here, run in sequence: the intake quiz records your facts; the formation filing is prepared and shown to you, complete with its itemised cost, before it is filed on your confirmation; CorpNet, Incorporated — named in your service agreement — is appointed registered agent of record; the EIN workflow runs and the assignment letter is mirrored into your portal; your registered agent receives official mail at the registered office (a Sethhost mail-handling service is not part of new memberships); your website and US number are configured; and the compliance calendar carries the annual report and the Form 5472 date from the start.

If you want to test your own readiness before any of that, the free readiness check tallies what you already have in place against the published facts — no recommendation, just the count.

Questions Indian founders ask us

Can I hold a US LLC as a resident of India?

The US side places no obstacle — formation and the EIN route are built for non-resident owners. The Indian side is the governed one: a resident individual’s overseas direct investment sits inside the FEMA overseas-investment framework and the Liberalised Remittance Scheme limit, with reporting through an authorised dealer bank. Take your Indian adviser’s and AD bank’s clearance before the filing, not after.

Do I need to travel to the United States at any point?

No step in the formation or the EIN route requires your presence — both are paper processes built for applicants abroad. Banking is the one decision made by someone else, and what travels for it is the document file, not you.

Why not simply use Stripe in India?

Because of what Stripe itself publishes: India is listed as a Preview market on Stripe’s global availability page, and an Indian Stripe account settles in rupees to an Indian bank. A US Stripe account — the thing US marketplaces ask for — requires the US company and a US bank account. If your customers do not require that, the honest answer may be that you do not need this route at all.

Who handles my Indian tax and FEMA reporting on all this?

Your Indian adviser and your authorised dealer bank. Our tax section states the Indian position generally; applying the overseas-investment framework and the Income-tax Act to your residence status and structure is advice, and advice about Indian law is not a thing Sethhost sells or gives.

Reading the route from another country? The same American paperwork is written country by country for founders from the UK, Nigeria, Canada, Pakistan and the UAE.

Verified November 7, 2026 against: IRS, “Get an employer identification number” (online route requires the responsible party’s SSN or ITIN; applicants whose principal place is outside the US apply by phone, fax or mail) and Instructions for Form SS-4; Instructions for Form 5472 (Rev. December 2024); Pennsylvania Department of State fee schedule ($125 Certificate of Organization; $7 annual report); Wyoming Secretary of State, Business Division Filing Fee Schedule ($100 Articles of Organization; $60 minimum annual report license tax); Delaware Division of Corporations fee schedule ($110 Certificate of Formation; $400 annual LLC tax); Stripe, “Global availability” (stripe.com/global — India listed as Preview), checked November 7, 2026. The Indian framework is named from the FEMA (Overseas Investment) Rules, 2022 and the Reserve Bank of India’s Master Direction on Overseas Investment, and is stated generally only.