The requirements to have a US Business as a foreigner
Well, the title is not totally correct. It´s better to say the requirements for a US Business. An official US Business or LLC has to have:
A US Business Address
A US (Business) Bank Account
Well, those requirements apply to any Business or LLC in the US.
A phone number is not a hard requirement but can help in some cases.
By the way, the UK, Ireland, and Canada have the same requirements for businesses set up in their country.
The address from your registered agent service is by default used for official government papers, like documents from the IRS and legal papers from lawyers and courthouses (hopefully you will never receive one). You can pay extra to receive all psychical mail from them.
It's way more expensive than the alternatives
Most online accounts, like KDP or ACX or even online software like LeadPages, Clickfunnels or ActiveCampaign, might not accept the address of the registered agent as a business address.
A Postal Box (P.O. Box) is also not allowed.
It has to be a real address, verified by a notary. I have used the online service: anytime mailbox. You get your address quite fast for $9.95 per month. All you need to prepare in advance is to make sure you have your national ID (Passport or ID Card). And you need to have some kind of proof, that you live currently at the address where you say that you live. This can be done through driver’s license, containing your current address. If you don´t have that you can also use a recent utility bill, an electricity, water or gas bill from the last 6 months, with your name and your current address on it. Or maybe a recent rental contract.
And then online bank account. This is the main reason I have chosen for the US for now. For the UK or Ireland, the only option I saw was to fly over there to open a bank account in a local branch. And as business owner, that would have taken too much of my valuable time.
Although most common US Banks require the same, you have to identify yourself through a local branch. Luckily there are some exceptions. We have the well-know online bank accounts like:
(Both are affiliate links, you receive an extra bonus from them signing up through my link)
Inside the free training I discuss a third online bank account, which is quite unknown until now. After using both Payoneer and Transferwise I decided to choose for the third option.
So, jump to the Free Video Series on how to setup an LLC for your ACX account here.
I will post more video´s on my Youtube channel. You can like and subscribe to receive a notification for new video. Besides that I will publish more blog posts on how to systemize and automate your publishing business even further. So, it becomes less time consuming, more efficient and of course more profitable for you.
Keep you posted!
Juan