Forming a US LLC from Pakistan

US ownership

100%

US visit or SSN needed to form

No

Home-country regime

SBP Foreign Exchange Manual, Chapter 20 — equity investment abroad is category-based; a wholly-owned foreign company sits outside the resident individual's general permission, so confirm the route with your authorised dealer before you remit

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. None of it requires a US address of your own, a US visit, or a US tax number. The EIN follows on paper — fax, phone or mail, because the online assistant is closed to an applicant with no US residence. What decides whether a Pakistani formation works is not the filing. It is § 2 (whether the State Bank's framework gives your funding a route) and § 5 (what getting paid actually looks like when Stripe does not list your country). Read both before you spend a rupee on formation.

What Pakistan asks of you

Investment abroad by residents is governed by the State Bank of Pakistan's Foreign Exchange Manual, Chapter 20, paragraph 13 — “Investment Abroad by Residents.” Its opening position is that residents of Pakistan, including companies, are allowed to make equity-based investment in entities abroad, on a repatriable basis, subject to the terms and the category procedure the paragraph sets out, and only in countries that allow repatriation of profits, dividends and capital — the United States does. The categories that follow are drawn narrowly, and the distinction matters more than the headline.

For a resident individual, the general permission the Manual grants is specific: a designated authorised dealer may remit up to USD 25,000 in a calendar year for investment in shares of listed companies abroad, with the individual's shareholding in any single company capped at 1%. A newly formed US LLC that you own 100% is not a listed company, and your holding is not 1% — so this general permission does not describe your formation, and no honest sheet can stretch it to fit. The Manual's other categories address resident companies investing for business expansion, which it states are allowed with the State Bank's prior permission, and it records a further channel worth knowing: authorised dealers may allow remittance to the extent of funds standing in an Exporter's Special Foreign Currency Account (ESFCA) — the account through which many Pakistani freelancers and exporters already hold their earnings — without the designation procedure the paragraph otherwise requires.

Where this sheet stops. Which category a resident individual's subscription to their own new US LLC is processed under, whether prior State Bank permission is required for your facts, and how the remittance must be documented, are questions the Manual answers through your authorised dealer and, where the category requires it, the State Bank — not questions this page can settle. So the sequence this sheet insists on is: before you form, take the plan to your authorised dealer bank and obtain, in writing, (1) the category your investment will be processed under, (2) whether any prior permission attaches, and (3) what must be repatriated, and how, when the company pays you or is sold. If the answer is that there is no route for your facts today, believe it — a company formed ahead of its funding route is an expense, not an asset. Confirm the position with a local adviser who works on foreign-exchange files before you remit.

Choosing the state from Pakistan

Pakistani founders in this Atlas most often survey three states. Florida ($125 to form, $138.75 a year in annual-report duty) is the default for client-facing work: a familiar name to US clients and banks, one annual report due by May 1. Texas ($300 to form, no Secretary of State annual report) suits founders who want the recurring state duty reduced to the Comptroller's franchise-tax and Public Information Report each May 15 — paperwork-only below the no-tax-due threshold its dossier records. Georgia ($110 to form, $60 a year, due by April 1) is the low-carrying-cost alternative. 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 Pakistan

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 4:00 p.m. to 9:00 a.m. Pakistan time the following day during US standard time, so plan the call for your afternoon or evening), 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

Begin with the fact this sheet's title promises: Stripe's own global-availability page, read on the survey date, does not list Pakistan among the countries where Stripe is supported. Forming a US LLC does not change that listing, and it does not entitle a Pakistan-resident owner to a Stripe account in their own country. What a US LLC legitimately changes is narrower and still valuable: it gives you a US company with an EIN that can apply, in its own name and with your ownership disclosed, for a US business bank account and for the payment services whose own published terms accept a US company with a foreign owner. Each of those decisions is the provider's, made on the file — formation documents, the EIN confirmation, a signed operating agreement, and a plain description of what the company does.

The honest workaround framing, then, is not a trick. It is a sequence: form the company, obtain the EIN, open the US account the bank's file supports, and receive client payments into that account by the rails the account offers — invoicing, ACH and wire — using payment platforms only where their current published terms, read that week, accept your company's facts. The dishonest versions circulating in this corridor — a borrowed US address presented as your residence, a nominee owner, an account opened in someone else's name — end in frozen balances and closed accounts, and they begin with a seller who promised them. This Atlas sells the boring version. How banks examine the file, and how the EIN itself is verified, is covered on this site's EIN guide; keep your authorised dealer's § 2 answers beside it, because money that arrives in the US account still has a Pakistani return leg to plan.

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. How Pakistan taxes what the company pays you — and what the Federal Board of Revenue expects you to declare about a foreign company you control — is a question for a Pakistani tax adviser on your facts; no general page can state it, and this one does not try. 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

Cost of ownership

Compare five-year figures, not formation fees: Georgia is the cheapest of the three to carry, Florida the name US counterparties recognise most readily, Texas the lightest on recurring state paperwork. Your authorised-dealer and adviser costs in Pakistan sit on top of every row.

Questions from Pakistani founders

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

On the US side, yes — no state in this Atlas requires a US co-owner, citizen or resident. On the Pakistani side, ownership is an equity investment abroad under Chapter 20 of the State Bank's Foreign Exchange Manual: process it through your authorised dealer under the category § 2 sets out, before you fund it.

Will the LLC give me a Stripe account in Pakistan?

No. Stripe's global-availability page, read on the survey date, does not list Pakistan, and an LLC does not amend Stripe's list. What the LLC gives you is a US company that can apply for a US bank account and for services whose own terms accept it (§ 5). Anyone who sells you a guaranteed Stripe account is selling someone else's decision.

Can I fund the LLC from my freelancer foreign-currency account?

Possibly — the Manual records that authorised dealers may allow remittance to the extent of funds in an Exporter's Special Foreign Currency Account without the designation procedure. Whether your balance and your facts qualify is your authorised dealer's call, in writing, before the money moves (§ 2).

Do I need an ITIN to get the LLC's EIN?

No. The EIN is the company's number, applied for on Form SS-4 with “foreign” on line 7b when the responsible party has no SSN or ITIN and is not eligible for one (§ 4).

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 Pakistan: whatever reporting and repatriation your authorised dealer's category carries — obtained in writing at the start, not discovered at the end.

Sources: State Bank of Pakistan — Foreign Exchange Manual, Chapter 20, paragraph 13 “Investment Abroad by Residents” (equity investment abroad on a repatriable basis; resident-individual general permission for listed shares up to USD 25,000 per calendar year at a maximum 1% holding; prior-permission category for resident companies; ESFCA remittance channel), sbp.org.pk · 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.