Forming a US LLC from Nigeria

US ownership

100%

US visit or SSN needed to form

No

Home-country regime

CBN Foreign Exchange Manual via authorised dealers — confirm the treatment of your funding with your bank before you move money

Formation Complete

$399

The sheet in one view

A US LLC is formed by a state filing — Articles of Organization and a registered agent in the formation state — and no state in this Atlas asks the owner to live in, visit, or hold a tax number from the United States. The EIN follows on paper: fax, the international phone line, or mail. What this sheet spends its length on is everything around that filing that Nigerian founders actually get stuck on: what the Central Bank of Nigeria's framework does and does not say about funding a foreign company (§ 2), the phone route's clock (§ 4), and the exact file a bank examines when a foreign-owned LLC asks for an account (§ 5) — because in this corridor, the rejection letter, not the formation, is the usual failure.

What Nigeria asks of you

Foreign exchange in Nigeria is regulated by the Central Bank of Nigeria, and transactions run through authorised dealers — the banks the CBN licenses to deal in foreign exchange — under the CBN's Foreign Exchange Manual (the Fourth Edition was launched on 15 May 2026, replacing the 2018 revised edition) and the Nigerian FX Code the Bank issued in January 2025. The framework is written transaction by transaction: it specifies, for example, that export proceeds must be repatriated and credited to the exporter's domiciliary account within 180 days for non-oil exports and 90 days for oil and gas exports, from the bill of lading date.

The honest boundary. The CBN's published framework does not set out a simple, self-serve route by which a resident individual capitalises a foreign company they own — no published limit, form number, or approval-free channel that this sheet can point you to and say “follow this.” So this page does not invent one. What it says instead is the sequence the framework supports: any funding of your US LLC from Nigeria goes through your authorised dealer bank, which applies the Manual to your facts — the source of the funds, the purpose, and your domiciliary-account position among them. Confirm that treatment, and what documentation the bank will require, before you form the company the money is meant for, and get the bank's answer in writing. A founder who forms first and asks the FX question second owns a company they may fund slowly, expensively, or — in the worst case — not compliantly at all. The LLC is patient; form it after the funding route is confirmed, not before.

Keep the same discipline on the return leg. Income the LLC pays you, and any eventual sale proceeds, re-enter Nigeria under the same authorised-dealer framework; ask the bank, at the same first meeting, how those inflows should arrive and what records it will want to see. Two meetings' worth of questions, asked in one, is the cheapest compliance you will ever buy.

Choosing the state from Nigeria

Two states carry most Nigerian formations in this Atlas. Florida ($125 to form, $138.75 a year) is the corridor's default: a familiar name to US banks and clients, one annual report due by May 1, and a deep dossier of non-resident formations. Georgia ($110 to form, $60 a year in annual registration, due by April 1) is the quieter alternative — cheaper to keep, with Atlanta's logistics and services economy behind it when a founder needs a state story that is more than a fee. Wyoming and Delaware are not sold here: founders whose reading points there are handed to the specialists via the specialist route, with the reasoning in writing. Choose on the five-year table in § 8 and on where your customers and operations actually are — never on the formation fee, which is the smallest number in the company's life.

The EIN from Nigeria

The LLC's Employer Identification Number needs no SSN and no ITIN. For an applicant whose principal place of business is outside the United States, the IRS publishes three routes: the international phone line, 267-941-1099 (not toll-free), Monday–Friday 6 a.m.–11 p.m. Eastern; fax — 304-707-9471 from outside the US, 855-215-1627 from within it; and mail to the EIN International Operation, Cincinnati, OH 45999. The phone route has a time-zone reality Nigerian founders should plan around: Nigeria keeps West Africa Time (UTC+1) year-round, so the IRS window opens at noon WAT and closes at 5 a.m. WAT the next morning while the US is on standard time — a call placed in your afternoon reaches a desk that has just opened, and the completed Form SS-4 must be in front of you, because the caller must be authorised to receive the EIN and answer questions about the form. Fax is the route most founders in this corridor use: the EIN comes back by fax, generally within four business days, when a return fax number is on the form. Mail takes approximately four weeks. On the form itself, line 7a names you — the individual who ultimately owns or controls the company — and line 7b reads “foreign” when that person has no SSN or ITIN and is not eligible for one; a nominee is never the responsible party. Reference depth: REF A-1 — EIN basics and REF B-2 — application routes, compared (EIN for Non-Residents); the lost-notice route is REF C-1 — CP 575 and Letter 147C. One EIN per responsible party per day across all routes — one application, one route.

Proving the business to a bank

Banks do not refuse foreign-owned LLCs; they refuse files. The file that decides the application is short enough to assemble before you apply: the filed Articles of Organization (or Certificate of Formation) exactly as the state issued them; the EIN confirmation — the CP 575, or Letter 147C if the original is lost; a signed operating agreement that names the members and who controls the company; your passport-grade identification and home address evidence, matching the names on everything else character for character; and a plain, specific description of what the company does, who its customers are, and where its money will come from and go to. Two failure patterns recur in this corridor: the name on one document differs by a word or a punctuation mark from the name on another (the IRS name-match problem is treated in reference at REF E-1 — TIN matching and name control), and the activity description is so vague (“consulting”, “e-commerce”) that the bank cannot price the risk and declines by default. The account-opening depth in this fleet — what each platform examines, and how rejections are autopsied — lives at US Bank for Non-Residents, and how a bank verifies the EIN itself is REF E-2 (EIN for Non-Residents). No formation service can promise you the account: the bank's decision is the bank's. What a formation service can do — and what Formation Complete does — is hand you a file with nothing missing and nothing inconsistent.

Getting paid without a Nigerian Stripe account

Be precise about what the LLC changes. It gives you a US company, a US EIN, and (if the bank file in § 5 succeeds) a US account to be paid into — the three things US clients and marketplaces ask for. It does not change any platform's own eligibility rules: a processor decides whom it onboards under its published terms, weighing the company's country and the owner's, and an LLC is not a key that unlocks a country a platform does not serve. The workaround stories in this corridor — borrowed addresses, nominee owners, accounts opened in someone else's name — end in frozen balances and closed accounts, and they begin, usually, with a formation seller who promised them. This Atlas sells the boring version: a real company, a consistent file, and applications made under your own name to platforms whose current published terms you have read. Where a platform will not take the company, the honest alternatives are the platforms that will, invoicing to the US account — not a disguise.

The tax map in brief

US side, in one paragraph: a single-member LLC owned by a non-resident is disregarded by default and carries an annual information filing — Form 5472 on a pro-forma Form 1120, reporting transactions with you including your funding of the company — with the IRS-stated penalty for a missing filing starting at $25,000; a multi-member LLC files as a partnership on Form 1065. The reference treatment is REF D-1 — Form 5472 + pro-forma Form 1120, and the founder tax-map essay is in survey for this Atlas. Nigerian tax on what the company pays you is a question for a Nigerian tax adviser on your facts — this sheet does not state it, because no page of general information can. Formation information is not tax advice, on either side of the Atlantic.

Cost of ownership

Georgia keeps $330 more of your money over five years than Florida; Florida is the name more US counterparties recognise. That trade — recognition against carrying cost — is the real decision on this sheet, and the dossiers price both sides of it.

Questions from Nigerian founders

Can a Nigerian resident own 100% of a US LLC?

On the US side, yes — no state in this Atlas requires a US co-owner or a US tax number to form. The Nigerian side is about money movement, not ownership: funding the company from Nigeria runs through your authorised dealer bank under the CBN framework (§ 2).

How do I pay for the formation and fund the account?

Through your bank, as an authorised-dealer transaction whose treatment you have confirmed in advance (§ 2). This site takes no payment today — payments are not open, and the launch list is the way in — so any funding question can be settled with your bank before a naira moves.

Which EIN route should I use from Nigeria?

Most founders fax: the number returns by fax, generally within four business days, with a return fax number on the form. The phone line is faster when it works — an EIN during the call — but its hours run from noon to 5 a.m. WAT (§ 4). Mail is the slow route, approximately four weeks.

Will the LLC get me a Stripe account?

It gets you the company and the EIN a processor asks for first. Onboarding remains the platform's decision under its own published terms (§ 6). A seller who guarantees the account is guaranteeing someone else's decision — walk away.

Why do banks keep asking for more documents?

Because the bank's identity programme is its own legal duty, separate from whether your EIN is valid — the two questions are separated in reference at REF E-2. Assemble the § 5 file completely, with every name identical on every page, before you apply; most “more documents” rounds are one inconsistency being chased at a time.

Sources: Central Bank of Nigeria — Foreign Exchange Manual (Fourth Edition launched 15 May 2026; Memorandum 10A/10B repatriation windows as restated by the Bank), Nigerian FX Code (January 2025), and the Bank's reforms record, cbn.gov.ng · IRS — “Employer Identification Number” and Instructions for Form SS-4 (Rev. December 2025) (international phone hours, fax numbers, Cincinnati address, responsible-party rules), irs.gov · Instructions for Form 5472 (penalty), irs.gov · State fees and duties: data/state-fees.json, verified against official state sources 2026-11-03/04. Surveyed 2026-11-05. Education, not advice: this sheet is formation information, not legal, FX or tax advice; the CBN framework is applied to your facts by your authorised dealer bank.