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

Why UK founders form in the US — stated plainly

The honest reasons are operational, not mystical. US marketplaces and US clients 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 gives American customers a counterparty their own systems recognise. For a UK software seller, agency, or ecommerce founder whose market is across the Atlantic, that is the whole argument — and it is enough.

One popular reason is not a reason. Stripe is fully supported in the United Kingdom itself — Stripe’s own global availability page lists the UK alongside the US — so “to get Stripe” alone does not justify a US company. What a UK founder cannot get from a UK Stripe account is a US Stripe account: one attached to a US company, paying out to a US bank account, for US marketplaces and US customers who require exactly that. If that is your situation, the US company is the route. If it is not, a UK limited company plus a UK Stripe account may be the simpler business, and a guide that respected you would say so.

Nothing in the route 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 UK address is your address on file.

LLC or C corporation from the UK: the decision that matters

Our LLC vs corporation guide lays out the structures in full; the short version for a UK 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 UK founders actually run.

The UK adds a wrinkle the US pages cannot settle for you: the UK does not necessarily see a US LLC the way the IRS does, and how HMRC treats the income of a US entity in UK-resident hands has its own rules and case law. A structure that is “disregarded” in one country and opaque in the other can tax the same pound in unexpected places. That analysis belongs to your UK adviser, and it belongs before the filing, not after the first distribution. Sethhost forms either structure at the same published prices and recommends neither — the choice is yours, with your advisers.

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 UK 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 UK founder you will have no SSN, and the IRS online application, which demands one (or an ITIN) from the responsible party, is closed to you. 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 the UK: 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. A US Stripe account in the company’s name pays out only to a US bank account in the company’s name; the first payout runs 7–14 days and standard payouts land 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 UK-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 UK side we state generally and leave where it belongs. Whether, and how, the UK taxes you on this company’s income turns on your UK tax residence position and the structure you chose above. HMRC’s public starting point is its guidance on tax on foreign income (gov.uk): UK residents normally pay UK tax on foreign income, non-residents do not pay UK tax on it. Which side of that line you are on, and what the US company means within it, is your UK adviser’s question — Sethhost gives no UK tax 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 UK founders ask us

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.

Do I need an ITIN as a UK founder?

Not to form the company, not to get its EIN, and not to file its Form 5472. An ITIN is a personal number for specific personal tax situations; the five genuine ones are listed in our ITIN vs EIN vs SSN guide. If a seller has quoted you an ITIN as a formation step, that is the upsell this site exists to talk you out of.

Can the company use my UK address?

As your mailing address, yes — the SS-4 takes a foreign mailing address, entered with city, province, postal code, and country in full. The public state record carries the registered agent’s US address; that separation is the agent’s job.

Who handles my UK tax on all this?

Your UK adviser. Our tax section above states the UK position generally and links HMRC’s own guidance; the application of it to your residence status and structure is advice, and advice about UK tax is not a thing Sethhost sells or gives.

Verified November 5, 2026 against: IRS, “Get an employer identification number” and Instructions for Form SS-4 (Rev. December 2025); Instructions for Form 5472 (Rev. December 2024); Pennsylvania Department of State, Fees and Payments ($125 Certificate of Organization; $7 annual report); Wyoming Secretary of State, Business Division Filing Fee Schedule, effective July 1, 2026 ($100 Articles of Organization; $60 minimum annual report license tax); Delaware Division of Corporations fee schedule, revised August 1, 2026 ($110 Certificate of Formation; $400 annual LLC tax); New York Department of State, Articles of Organization page (§206 publication); Stripe, “Global availability” (stripe.com/global); HMRC, “Tax on foreign income” (gov.uk).