SHEET BD-01 · COUNTRY DOSSIER — BANGLADESH
Forming a US LLC from Bangladesh
The authorised-dealer route, stated plainly — surveyed from Dhaka. On the American side a resident of Bangladesh may own a US LLC outright. On the Bangladeshi side, foreign exchange is a licensed, category-by-category system under the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act, 1947, administered by Bangladesh Bank through its authorised dealers — and the consolidated instructions Bangladesh Bank republishes every year do not contain a general permission for a resident individual to capitalise a foreign company of their own. This sheet prints that position from Bangladesh Bank's own circulars, because a founder who knows it before forming is in a stronger position than one who learns it from a rejected remittance.
- US ownership
- 100%
- US visit or SSN needed to form
- No
- Home-country regime
- Bangladesh Bank, under the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act, 1947 — outward remittances run through authorised dealers inside published categories (consolidated FE Circular No. 40, 30 September 2026); no general permission for resident capital investment abroad appears in them, so the route is confirmed with your authorised dealer first
- Membership, year one
- $399/yr
The sheet in one view
Forming the LLC is a state filing: Articles of Organization, a registered agent in the formation state, and a fee that in the three states surveyed below runs from $110 to $300. No US address of your own, no US visit and no US tax number is required; the EIN follows on paper — fax, phone or mail. The Bangladeshi side is § 2, and § 2 is a boundary, not a formality: until your authorised dealer bank confirms the category and documentation for your funding, the company is a plan, not a purchase. Read § 2 first, § 5 (what getting paid looks like in a corridor Stripe does not list) second, and form third — that order is this sheet's whole advice.
What Bangladesh asks of you
Foreign exchange transactions in Bangladesh are regulated under the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act, 1947, and Bangladesh Bank's instructions issued under it. The current consolidated instructions on outward remittances — FE Circular No. 40, dated 30 September 2026, succeeding FE Circular No. 37 of 30 September 2025 — gather the rules for outward remittances on current-account transactions in one place, are issued under section 20(3) of the Act, and carry a one-year validity, to be read with the Guidelines for Foreign Exchange Transactions. The system's architecture, in Bangladesh Bank's own documents, is this: remittances are made through authorised dealers — banks licensed to deal in foreign exchange; each remittance travels inside a published category with its own documents and limits; applications are made to the authorised dealer (on Form TM for remittances other than imports); and where a transaction requires Bangladesh Bank's prior approval, the dealer forwards the application to Bangladesh Bank for consideration. Bangladesh Bank's authorisations, where given, remain valid for a period not exceeding 30 days from approval.
The honest boundary. Read those consolidated instructions for a category that fits a resident individual subscribing capital into a new foreign company they wholly own, and you will not find a general permission for it — the published categories address travel, study, medical care, professional services, exporters' current expenses and the like, each documented and limited. So this sheet does not invent a route, a limit or a form number for your formation. What it states is the sequence the framework supports: take the plan to your authorised dealer bank before you form anything, and establish (1) whether your funding fits a published category as your facts stand, (2) whether Bangladesh Bank's prior approval is required and what the dealer will forward on your behalf, and (3) how income from the company may lawfully return. Founders in this corridor who already earn in foreign currency — exporters and IT-service providers with retention arrangements through their dealers — have a different conversation from founders starting in taka, which is one more reason the answer is the bank's to give on your file, in writing. Confirm it also with a local adviser who works on foreign-exchange files.
None of this makes the formation pointless; it makes it sequenced. The US side will keep — states do not penalise a company for being formed before its capital plan settles, beyond the annual duty in the table below — but a year of state duty on a company you cannot yet fund compliantly is money spent to learn § 2 late. Learn it first, while it is free.
Choosing the state from Bangladesh
Bangladeshi founders in this Atlas most often survey three states. Florida ($125 to form, $138.75 a year, report due by May 1) is the default for client-facing and marketplace work — the name US counterparties recognise. Texas ($300 to form, no Secretary of State annual report) reduces the recurring state duty to the Comptroller's May 15 franchise-tax and Public Information Report, paperwork-only below the no-tax-due threshold its dossier records. Georgia ($110 to form, $60 a year, due by April 1) is the lowest carrying cost of the three. If your reading keeps landing on Wyoming or Delaware, both are sold here on the same terms as every other state: this service covers 50 states + DC, at joining and at renewal, and their dossiers — Wyoming and Delaware — carry the verified fees and duties. Puerto Rico is not served by this Atlas.
The EIN from Bangladesh
Your LLC needs its own Employer Identification Number, and you do not need an SSN or an ITIN first. The IRS's routes for an applicant whose principal place of business is outside the United States are: by phone on 267-941-1099 (not toll-free, Monday–Friday 6 a.m.–11 p.m. Eastern — that window is 5:00 p.m. to 10:00 a.m. Bangladesh time the following day during US standard time, so plan the call for your late afternoon), by fax to 304-707-9471 from outside the US (855-215-1627 from within it), or by mail to the IRS's EIN International Operation in Cincinnati. Fax returns the number generally within four business days when a return fax number is provided; mail takes approximately four weeks; and a new EIN can take up to two weeks to pass the IRS's TIN-matching systems even though it is usable immediately for a bank account, licences and paper returns. On Form SS-4, the responsible party is you — the individual who ultimately owns or controls the company — and line 7b reads “foreign” where that person has no SSN or ITIN and is not eligible for one. The full treatment — EIN basics, the routes compared, the annotated form, and what to do when the confirmation notice (CP 575, or Letter 147C if the original is lost) goes missing — is the EIN guide on this site. One EIN per responsible party per day, by any route — do not fax and phone the same application.
Banking and getting paid
The plain fact first: Stripe's global-availability page, read on the survey date, does not list Bangladesh. A US LLC does not change that list, and this sheet will not pretend otherwise. What the LLC legitimately provides in this corridor is the structure US clients and platforms contract with: a US company with an EIN that can apply, in its own name with your ownership disclosed, for US business banking, and be paid into that account on domestic rails by invoice, ACH and wire. Each onboarding is the provider's decision on the file — filed Articles, the EIN confirmation, a signed operating agreement, identification and address evidence matching character for character, and a specific description of the services sold — set out in full on this site's EIN guide.
Two corridor disciplines sit on top of the standard file. First, sequencing with § 2: the money that will eventually move between you and the company — capital out, income home — is exactly the traffic your authorised-dealer conversation must cover before it happens, in both directions, because a US account does not launder a remittance into a permitted one. Second, refuse the folklore: borrowed US addresses presented as residence, accounts in another person's name, and income routed to look like something it is not are the mechanisms by which founders in this corridor lose accounts and balances. The boring version — your name, your company, your bank's written category, your documented wires — is slower by a month and permanent in a way the folklore never is.
The tax map in brief
A single-member LLC owned by a non-resident is disregarded for US federal income tax by default — and since 2017 that status carries an annual information filing: Form 5472 attached to a pro-forma Form 1120, reporting transactions with you, including your own funding of the company. The penalty the IRS states for a missing or late Form 5472 starts at $25,000. Multi-member LLCs file as partnerships instead. When a US payer needs your company's tax status documented, the form in the file is generally Form W-8BEN-E. Bangladeshi tax on what the company pays you is a question for a local tax adviser on your facts; this sheet sources Bangladesh Bank's foreign-exchange framework (§ 2) and states no tax treatment it has not read in an official source. Form 5472 is treated in full on this site's EIN guide. None of this page is tax advice — it is the map of which questions exist, so none of them ambushes you in your second year.
The two-row calendar — home-country + US duty
| Row | The duty | When |
|---|---|---|
| Home — Bangladesh | Confirm the funding category and any Bangladesh Bank approval with your authorised dealer before remitting; applications travel on the dealer's forms (Form TM for non-import remittances), and Bangladesh Bank authorisations run no more than 30 days | Before formation funding — and before each later capital movement, in either direction |
| United States | State duty for your formation state (table below) + Form 5472 with pro-forma Form 1120 for a single-member LLC | State date varies by state; Form 5472 follows the Form 1120 calendar (mid-April, extendable) |
Cost of ownership
| State | Year 1 | By end of year 2 | By end of year 5 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Florida | $524 | $1,061.75 | $2,675 |
| Texas | $699 | $1,098 | $2,295 |
| Georgia | $509 | $968 | $2,345 |
Compare five-year figures, not formation fees — and in this corridor, compare them against the calendar, too: every year between formation and a confirmed funding route costs the state duty in its row for no trading. Georgia's five-year row is the gentlest place to wait, if waiting is what § 2 prescribes.
Questions from Bangladeshi founders
Can a resident of Bangladesh own 100% of a US LLC?
On the US side, yes — no state in this Atlas requires a US co-owner, citizen or resident. The Bangladeshi side governs the money, not the ownership: funding the company is an outward remittance inside Bangladesh Bank's category system, confirmed with your authorised dealer first (§ 2).
Is there a Bangladesh Bank limit I can remit under for my own company?
This sheet found no general permission for resident capital investment abroad in Bangladesh Bank's consolidated outward-remittance instructions (FE Circular No. 40, 30 September 2026) — the published categories cover specified purposes with their own documents and limits. Do not let anyone quote you a number for a category that is not published; take your facts to your authorised dealer (§ 2).
Will the LLC give me Stripe?
No — Stripe's global-availability page, read on the survey date, does not list Bangladesh, and the LLC does not amend the list. It gives you a US company that can hold US banking and be paid on domestic rails (§ 5). A seller who guarantees you Stripe from Bangladesh is guaranteeing someone else's decision.
I earn in dollars from foreign clients. Does that change § 2?
It changes the conversation, not the system: founders with foreign-currency earnings held through their authorised dealer — exporters and service providers — discuss retention and use with that dealer on their file. The answer is still the bank's, in writing, before capital moves (§ 2).
What do I owe each year?
In the US: the state duty for your formation state (table above), the $399 membership renewal from year 2 if you stay with us, and the federal information filing for your structure (§ 6). In Bangladesh: whatever documentation and approvals your authorised dealer's category carries — settled in writing at the start (§ 2).
Sources: Bangladesh Bank — FE Circular No. 40 (30 September 2026), consolidated instructions on outward remittances on current-account transactions, issued under section 20(3) of the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act, 1947, succeeding FE Circular No. 37 (30 September 2025), bb.org.bd · Bangladesh Bank — Guidelines for Foreign Exchange Transactions, Vol. 1, Chapter 5 (outward remittances through authorised dealers; Form TM applications; applications requiring prior approval forwarded by the dealer to Bangladesh Bank; authorisations valid no more than 30 days), bb.org.bd · IRS — “Employer Identification Number” and Instructions for Form SS-4 (Rev. December 2025), irs.gov · Instructions for Form 5472 (penalty), irs.gov · Stripe global availability, stripe.com/global, read 2026-11-07 · State fees and duties: data/state-fees.json, verified against official state sources 2026-11-03/04. Surveyed 2026-11-07. Education, not advice: this sheet is formation information, not legal, foreign-exchange or tax advice.