Forming a US LLC from the Philippines

US ownership

100%

US visit or SSN needed to form

No

Home-country regime

BSP Manual of Regulations on Foreign Exchange Transactions, §§ 43–44 — residents may make outward investments funded through authorised agent banks (FX purchased up to USD 60 million per investor per year without prior BSP approval, documents per the Manual's Appendix 1.4)

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 $50 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 Philippine side, unusually, is mostly a documentation exercise (§ 2): the BSP's framework expects the funding of an outward investment to travel through an authorised agent bank with the Manual's documents, and expects your own foreign-currency earnings to be usable freely. What decides whether the formation earns is § 5 — the getting-paid reality for a corridor whose work is invoiced monthly to US clients — and the discipline of running the company's money as the company's money from the first invoice.

What the Philippines asks of you

Foreign exchange in the Philippines is consolidated in the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas' Manual of Regulations on Foreign Exchange Transactions (the FX Manual, updated as of May 2025). Outward investments by residents are Part Three, Chapter III of the Manual, §§ 43–44, and the BSP's own FAQ on inward and outward investments (March 2026) confirms the section's working: outward investments are investments by residents in instruments issued or created offshore by non-residents, and they may be funded with foreign currency purchased from authorised agent banks (AABs) or their affiliated forex corporations.

The Manual's published terms are generous at formation scale. A resident may fund outward investments from foreign-currency deposit accounts, or with FX purchased from an AAB up to USD 60 million per investor per year without prior BSP approval; purchases above that line are the ones that require the BSP's prior approval. The purchase carries documents, listed in the Manual's Appendix 1.4 — an application to purchase foreign exchange supported by the documents for the investment — which is why the practical instruction on this sheet is to buy the funding FX through your AAB as what it is, an outward investment, and keep the bank's papers with the formation file. The Manual also states the freelancer's starting position plainly: foreign-exchange receipts and earnings of residents from non-trade sources may be used freely for any purpose — sold for pesos, retained, or deposited in foreign-currency accounts in the Philippines or abroad. For the agency owner whose dollars already arrive as service income, that sentence is the funding route: your own FX earnings, documented as yours, capitalise the company without a peso conversion round-trip.

One boundary, kept explicit. Whether a membership interest in a newly formed US LLC sits inside the instruments §§ 43–44 enumerate for your exact facts, and which Appendix 1.4 documents your AAB will ask for, are questions the bank answers when you present the transaction — present it before the purchase, with the formation documents in hand. And Philippine tax on what the company pays you is a Bureau of Internal Revenue question for your accountant on your facts; this sheet prints the BSP's FX framework from the BSP, and no tax treatment it has not sourced.

Choosing the state from the Philippines

Filipino founders in this Atlas most often survey three states. Florida ($125 to form, $138.75 a year, report due by May 1) is the agency corridor's default — the state US clients recognise, with a deep bench of non-resident formations. Texas ($300 to form, no Secretary of State annual report) reduces the recurring duty to the Comptroller's May 15 franchise-tax and Public Information Report. Hawaii ($50 to form, $15 a year, report due by the end of your registration quarter) is the Pacific-facing pick — the cheapest carrying cost on this sheet and the US state whose business day overlaps Manila's working hours most kindly, which matters more than founders expect when a bank calls. 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 the Philippines

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 7:00 p.m. to noon Philippine time the following day during US standard time, the most forgiving window in this Atlas: your evening is the IRS's morning), 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 honest opening fact: Stripe's global-availability page, read on the survey date, does not list the Philippines. The corridor's workarounds deserve the same plain treatment as Pakistan's sheet gives them: an LLC does not amend Stripe's list, and accounts built on borrowed addresses or another person's identity end frozen. What the LLC legitimately does in this corridor is more durable. It gives an agency a US company with an EIN that can apply, in its own name with your ownership disclosed, for US business banking — and US banking, not a payment link, is what changes an agency's economics: clients pay a domestic account by ACH on domestic rails, on domestic timelines, instead of wiring abroad and netting the fees and the delay out of your margin.

The bank file that decides the application is the standard one in this Atlas — filed Articles, the EIN confirmation, a signed operating agreement, identification and address evidence matching character for character, and a specific description of the services the company sells and the clients it sells them to — set out in full on this site's EIN guide. For Amazon-services and marketplace work, add the discipline the platforms themselves impose: the name on the LLC, the EIN confirmation and the marketplace account must be the same name in the same characters, because a mismatch is read by an automated reviewer as a different business. Marketplaces decide onboarding on their own published terms; the LLC supplies the file, never the verdict. Keep the § 2 AAB papers with the file — when the bank asks where the opening capital came from, “my documented FX earnings, through my authorised agent bank” is a complete answer.

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. Philippine tax on what the company pays you — registration, receipts and the return — is a question for your Philippine accountant on your facts; this sheet sources the BSP's FX framework (§ 2) and states no Philippine tax treatment. 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: Hawaii carries this formation $570 cheaper than Florida across five years, and Florida still leads the corridor on client recognition alone. For an agency, price the formation against one month of wire fees and payment delays on the old route — that is the comparison your clients' finance departments have already made.

Questions from Filipino founders

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

Yes, on both sides: no state in this Atlas requires a US co-owner, and the BSP's FX Manual gives residents an outward-investment framework (§§ 43–44) under which the funding travels through an authorised agent bank with documents — at formation scale, far below the Manual's approval ceiling.

Do I need BSP approval to fund the LLC?

On the Manual's published terms, FX purchased from an authorised agent bank for outward investments runs up to USD 60 million per investor per year without prior BSP approval; approval is for purchases above that line. Your bank confirms the documents for your transaction under Appendix 1.4 before the purchase (§ 2).

Can I capitalise the company from my dollar earnings?

The FX Manual states that residents' foreign-exchange receipts from non-trade sources may be used freely for any purpose — retained or deposited in foreign-currency accounts at home or abroad. Document the earnings as yours and the transfer as the company's capital, with your bank's papers in the file (§ 2).

Will the LLC get me a Stripe account?

Stripe's global-availability page, read on the survey date, does not list the Philippines, and the LLC does not change the list. What it gives you is a US company that can hold US banking and apply for services whose published terms accept it (§ 5) — which, for agency invoicing, is the change that actually moves the money.

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 the Philippines: your accountant's answer on the company's payments to you, and your AAB's documentation each time you purchase FX for the company.

Sources: Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas — Manual of Regulations on Foreign Exchange Transactions (updated as of May 2025), Part Three, Chapter III, §§ 43–44 (outward investments by residents; funding from foreign-currency deposit accounts or FX purchased from authorised agent banks up to USD 60 million per investor per year without prior BSP approval; documents under Appendix 1.4) and Part Two, § 1 (residents' non-trade FX receipts may be used freely), bsp.gov.ph · BSP — Frequently Asked Questions on Inward Foreign and Outward Investments (March 2026), bsp.gov.ph · 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.