Registering a new company is the easy part, but almost no one knows about it. A founder in Warsaw can file a Delaware certificate of formation in an afternoon, receive a stamped document within days, and feel like the hard work is finished. Then the real sequence begins, and it is nothing like the filing.
Delaware does not require you to be a citizen, a resident, or even to have visited the United States, so the legal door is genuinely open. Many founders are drawn in by a promotion offering a free LLC alongside a bundle of business tools, which is a reasonable way to reduce upfront costs, though the state filing fee itself never disappears. What blocks people comes later.
The Four Walls in Order
Formation, tax identification, banking, and payments. Those are the four stages, and they must occur in that order because each one requires proof of the previous one. Founders who try to skip ahead spend months in circles.
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Wall One: Formation and the Registered Agent
Delaware charges a minimum of $90 for the certificate of formation, and the state processes filings quickly, especially with expedited service. What you cannot avoid is a registered agent with a physical Delaware street address. Your company cannot act as its own agent, and a mailbox service abroad does not qualify. Expect to pay somewhere between $50 and $300 a year for this, permanently.
Delaware LLCs also owe a flat $400 annual franchise tax, due by June 1 every year, with a $200 penalty plus interest for late payment. There is no annual report requirement for LLCs, which is a relief, but the tax still applies regardless of whether the company earned anything. Founders abroad consistently miss this deadline because no letter reaches them and no one sends reminders across borders.
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Wall Two: The EIN, Where Most Timelines Break
An Employer Identification Number is the federal tax ID your company needs for essentially everything downstream. The IRS online application is the fastest way to get a number in minutes, but it requires a Social Security Number or an ITIN for the responsible party.
Founders in Bucharest, Warsaw, or Manila usually have neither. That is not disqualifying, but it changes the method entirely.
Without an SSN or ITIN, you complete Form SS-4 by hand and submit it by fax or mail to the IRS. Fax responses have historically returned in a few weeks, while mail can take considerably longer, and processing times fluctuate with IRS workload.
There is also an international phone line for foreign applicants, which some founders find faster than fax. Whichever route you take, plan for weeks, not days, and never promise a client an invoice before this arrives.
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Wall Three: Banking
Most traditional American banks require the beneficial owner to appear in person at a branch to open a business account, and many decline non-resident owners outright as a matter of internal risk policy to comply with anti-money laundering requirements. Banks must verify identity to a standard that makes remote foreign applicants expensive, so they simply opt out.
A category of fintech providers now serves this exact gap by offering business accounts to non-resident-owned American companies, with remote onboarding and document verification instead of a branch visit. These are typically not banks themselves but partner with insured institutions.
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Wall Four: Payment Processing and Verification
Before Stripe or PayPal releases funds to you, they verify that four things match the same business: the formation certificate, the EIN letter, a bank account in the company name, and a verified identity for the owner. Any mismatch in name or address triggers a manual review.
Reviewers then want a live website that clearly explains what you sell and at what price, since a processor is underwriting chargeback risk and cannot assess a business it cannot see. Use one legal name and one address everywhere, and publish the site before you apply.
Taxes Do Not Vanish Because the Company Is American
A single-member LLC is treated as a disregarded entity by default, which means profits flow to the owner and are not taxed at the company level. Foreign-owned single-member LLCs still carry federal filing obligations, including Form 5472 with a pro forma Form 1120, and penalties for failure to file are severe.
Your home country also has an opinion. Romania, Poland, and the Philippines each tax residents on income regardless of where the company sits, so a local accountant is not optional.
What a Realistic Timeline Looks Like
Formation in under a week, EIN in four to eight weeks depending on method and season, banking in one to three weeks once the EIN exists, and payment processing shortly after. Three months from decision to first collected payment is a normal outcome. Build that expectation into your planning, gather the documents early, and treat the company registration as the beginning of your way.
