US tax obligations for non-US owners of single-member and multi-member LLCs

How you're taxed as a non-US resident running a US LLC depends heavily on your specific setup, but here's the common scenario: you're a non-US citizen or non-US resident who owns a single-member or multi-member LLC and runs an online business in the US without any physical presence, office, employees, or dependent agents there. In that scenario, your LLC's income and expenses generally flow through to you personally rather than being taxed at the entity level, and you report them on your own tax return in your home country. Separately from any income tax you may owe, you're still required to file Form 5472 with the IRS, since it's an information return tied to having a foreign owner, not to whether you owe US tax. Missing Form 5472, or filing it incorrectly, can trigger a $25,000 penalty per form, and if the failure continues more than 90 days after the IRS notifies you, an additional $25,000 applies for each 30-day period (or part of one) that it continues. Your LLC may also need to file an FBAR (FinCEN Form 114) if it holds foreign financial accounts, outside the US, whose combined value exceeds $10,000 at any point during the year. FBAR penalties scale with the size of the account and whether the failure was willful, so it's worth confirming your specific obligations with a tax professional rather than relying on a fixed dollar figure. If your LLC does have a physical presence, office, employees, or dependent agents in the US, your filing requirements change: you'd generally need to file a US federal income tax return (Form 1040NR for an individual owner, or Form 1120 for a C-Corporation) in addition to Form 5472. Because these rules depend on your entity type and level of US presence, it's worth getting a tax professional's read on your specific situation.