LlamaFilings forms limited liability companies and corporations in all fifty US states, obtains your federal tax number, and then keeps the books, payroll and filings in order once the certificate arrives. One firm for the whole life of the entity.
State of Wyoming, Secretary of State
Articles of Organization
The market is full of companies that will file your Articles of Organization for very little money and then sell you a subscription you do not understand. The filing itself is genuinely easy. It is a form, a fee and a wait. What is not easy is everything that follows: the federal tax number, the state that now expects an annual report, the payroll account you opened in the wrong state, the information return with a twenty five thousand dollar penalty that nobody mentioned because your filing service does not do tax.
LlamaFilings was built the other way round. We are an accounting practice that files formations, not a filing service that resells accounting. The person who prepares your Articles is in the same firm as the person who will close your books in December, and they talk to each other before the entity type is chosen rather than after.
That matters most when you are forming from outside the United States. The ordinary route to a tax number is closed to you, the rules about what you must file afterwards are unforgiving, and the provider who filed your Articles has no reason to know either. A large share of our clients live somewhere else, including a great many in Canada.
The filing, the tax number, the address and the internal documents, done as one piece of work.
Name availability, Articles of Organization, registered agent, operating agreement and EIN, prepared together so nothing contradicts anything else.
All 50 states
Certificate of Incorporation, bylaws, initial resolutions, stock ledger, and the S corporation election filed on time if the election is right for you.
C corp and S corp
A US company for a business run from Canada, including an honest answer about whether you actually need one. We file the US side. We do not file in Canada.
US entity, Canadian owner
A US company for a founder with no Social Security number, no ITIN and no US address, including the tax number route that the IRS online tool will not give you.
No SSN required
The employer identification number, obtained the fast way if you have an SSN or ITIN and by prepared Form SS-4 if you do not.
Federal tax number
A real street address in the state of formation, service of process handled the day it arrives, and scanned to you rather than piled up.
Every state
The reason clients stay. Books, payroll, tax and the calendar of filings that quietly accumulates behind every company.
Every transaction categorised and reconciled, a closed month you can actually read, and books that are ready for tax season before tax season.
Monthly
Wages, withholding, direct deposit, quarterly returns, W-2 and 1099 season, and the state accounts that have to exist before anyone is paid.
Federal and state
Business and personal returns prepared by the people who kept the books, including the information returns that foreign owned entities have to file.
Federal and state
Entity structure, owner compensation, timing and elections decided in advance, because almost nothing useful can be done about tax in April.
Year round
Where you have an obligation, where you do not, registration only in the states that matter, and the returns filed on schedule.
Nexus to remittance
Annual reports, franchise tax, the corporate record book and registered agent renewals, tracked and filed before they become penalties.
Deadline calendar
Cash flow, pricing, owner draws versus salary, and whether the structure you chose two years ago is still the right one.
As needed
No progress bars and no vague statuses.
Intake
A short call or a written brief. Where you live, where your customers are, whether you will have employees, whether you need to accept US card payments, and what you expect to earn. The answers change the entity type and the state, so they come before the filing, not after.
You give us twenty minutes. We give you a written recommendation with the reasoning.
Name and state
Availability search in the target state, a check against obvious trademark conflicts, and a second choice held in reserve. If you picked a state because a video told you to, this is where we tell you whether that holds up.
Typical time one business day.
Filing
Articles of Organization or Certificate of Incorporation, registered agent appointed, and the internal documents drafted at the same time so the operating agreement and the public filing describe the same company.
Turnaround from same day to two weeks by state. We tell you which before you pay.
Tax numbers
Immediately if a responsible party has an SSN or ITIN. By prepared Form SS-4 submitted to the IRS if not, which takes weeks and needs chasing, which we do. State withholding and sales tax accounts opened alongside where they apply.
Typical time one day with an SSN, four to eight weeks without one.
Handover
Stamped filing evidence, EIN confirmation, the signed internal documents, registered agent details, and a written compliance calendar with every deadline the entity now has.
Included in every formation.
Ongoing
Most clients start monthly bookkeeping in the first quarter of trading. Some only want the annual report and the tax return. Nothing is bundled by default and nothing renews without you knowing.
No lock in. Monthly services can be stopped at the end of any month.
Six things. Every formation produces all six, and you own every one of them. None of it lives behind a login you will forget.
The formation document as the state returned it, with the file number and the date it took effect. What a bank, a marketplace or a buyer asks to see.
Filed
The CP 575 from the IRS, or the replacement confirmation where the original has already gone out once. Without it, no account and no payroll.
Issued
Drafted around your actual ownership split rather than filled in from a template, with the register and the initial resolutions alongside.
Signed
A real street address in the state of formation, staffed in business hours, with anything served scanned to you the same day.
Appointed
Every filing the entity now owes, in every state it touches, with the date each falls due. You get this whether or not you buy anything else.
Dated
Twenty minutes with the person who prepared the file, not a support queue. What was done, what it means, and what happens next.
Booked
Forming in Wyoming while living and working in California does not avoid California. It usually means registering in both and paying twice. Twelve states, honestly compared.
Wyoming
No state income tax, a modest annual report, and the state most founders abroad choose.
Read the Wyoming guide
Delaware
The default when outside investment is genuinely coming. Expensive otherwise.
Read the Delaware guide
New Mexico
No annual report for an LLC. The lowest ongoing burden in the country.
Read the New Mexico guide
Ohio
No annual report either, if the business is actually in Ohio.
Read the Ohio guide
Arizona
No annual report, and a publication rule that vanishes with the right county.
Read the Arizona guide
Florida
Fast filings, no personal income tax, and a blunt late penalty.
Read the Florida guide
Texas
No personal income tax. A franchise report is still due below the threshold.
Read the Texas guide
Colorado
Among the cheapest fees anywhere, and a periodic report that is not optional.
Read the Colorado guide
Washington
No income tax, and a gross receipts tax that surprises thin margin businesses.
Read the Washington guide
California
The state people try hardest to avoid and cannot, if they are here.
Read the California guide
New York
An LLC must publish in two newspapers. The county decides what that costs.
Read the New York guide
Nevada
Privacy marketing, and an annual cost higher than Wyoming once the licence is added.
Read the Nevada guideWe check these against the source, not against what a competitor wrote about them in 2024.
FinCEN removed the beneficial ownership reporting requirement for companies formed in the United States. Only entities formed under the law of a foreign country and then registered to do business in a US state are reporting companies, and even those never report US persons. Plenty of formation services still sell BOI filing as a paid add on or use the old penalties as a scare. If a provider quotes you for it on a domestic LLC, that is a useful signal about how current their information is.
The IRS says on its own page that you never have to pay a fee for an employer identification number. What it also says, in one easily missed line, is that the online tool cannot be used when your principal place of business is outside the United States, and that it requires the responsible party's Social Security number or ITIN. That single sentence is why thousands of founders abroad get stuck at reference number 101. The route that does work is a correctly prepared Form SS-4 submitted by fax or mail, and we charge for the preparation and the chasing, never for the number itself.
If at least a quarter of your US entity is owned from outside the country, Form 5472 with a pro forma Form 1120 is due annually, and the penalty for missing it starts at twenty five thousand dollars. It is due whether or not the company traded, and a great many founders learn about it two years late. Formation only providers do not warn you because they do not prepare tax returns. We do, which is why it is on our home page instead of buried in a help centre.
Most of our competitors earn a referral fee when you open a business account or take their debit card. It is a large part of how a two hundred dollar formation stays profitable. It also means the bank they recommend is the bank that pays them.
LlamaFilings takes no banking commission and offers no card product. When we tell you which institution tends to approve founders in your situation, or which one will decline you for holding a foreign passport, that is observation from client files rather than a placement fee. We will walk you through the application and tell you what to expect. We will not be paid for where you land.
It costs us money. We think it buys something worth more.
Our service fee starts at $349 for an LLC and $449 for a corporation. The state filing fee is separate, is set by the state, and is shown to you before you pay anything. We do not advertise a zero dollar formation and then recover it through a subscription you did not intend to buy. The pricing page lists everything, including what is not included.
Yes. There is no citizenship or residency requirement to own a US LLC or corporation. You do not need a Social Security number, an ITIN, a US address of your own, or a US visa. What you do need is a registered agent in the state, a route to an EIN that does not depend on an SSN, and a clear understanding of the annual information return that comes with foreign ownership. All three are covered on the page for founders outside the US.
The filing itself ranges from same day to about two weeks depending on the state, and we tell you the current expectation for your state before you commit. The EIN is same day when a responsible party has an SSN or ITIN. Without one, the IRS route is fax or mail and realistically takes four to eight weeks. Anyone promising a same week EIN for a founder with no SSN is describing something the IRS does not currently offer.
For a straightforward single owner company, usually not. You should speak to a lawyer when there is more than one owner with unequal contributions, when you are issuing equity to employees, when you are taking outside investment, or when the business is in a licensed or regulated field. LlamaFilings is not a law firm and we will say so plainly rather than quietly filling the gap.
That is a common reason people call us. Missed annual reports, a status of administratively dissolved or not in good standing, unfiled returns, or books that were never really kept. We can usually reinstate the entity, catch up the filings and rebuild the accounts. The compliance page explains the sequence and what it typically costs.
Four minutes to tell us what you are building. A written recommendation and a fixed quote come back within a business day, and nothing is charged until you say so.