You formed a single-member Wyoming LLC as a non-resident, and your accountant just told you the IRS wants Form 5472 attached to something called a pro forma Form 1120. Now you are staring at a calendar trying to figure out when it is actually due, and whether you have already missed it. The short version: a foreign-owned US LLC has a hard filing deadline, the penalty for missing it is steep, and the date depends on how the IRS treats your entity for the year.
The Form 5472 due date for a foreign-owned single-member LLC is the 15th day of the fourth month after the end of the LLC's tax year, which is April 15 for a calendar-year entity. The form is not filed on its own. It is attached to a pro forma Form 1120 and submitted together to the IRS, so the 5472 inherits the 1120 deadline.
That sentence hides a few moving parts, so here is the deadline by situation:
One detail trips up founders constantly. A foreign-owned, single-member LLC is normally a "disregarded entity," which means it does not file an income tax return at all. The IRS still requires the 5472, so it created the pro forma 1120 purely as a cover sheet for the information return. You are not paying federal income tax through that 1120. You are using it as an envelope to deliver the 5472.
Form 5472 must be filed by any US LLC that is at least 25 percent foreign-owned and has a "reportable transaction" with a related foreign party during the tax year. The form is an information return that tells the IRS about money and value moving between your US LLC and you, so the agency can see cross-border activity it would otherwise miss in a disregarded entity.
Reportable transactions are broader than people assume. They include the routine flows a one-person, non-resident-owned LLC sees all the time:
Consider Lukas, a developer in Munich who set up a Wyoming LLC to invoice US clients. In his first year he wired 4,000 dollars in as startup capital and later pulled out 9,000 dollars in profit. Both movements are reportable transactions, so even though his LLC owes no US income tax, he still has to file Form 5472 with the pro forma 1120 by April 15. Many founders assume "no tax owed" means "no filing required." It does not.
No. Form 5472 is an information return, not a tax bill. A foreign-owned disregarded LLC with no US-source effectively connected income generally owes no federal income tax, but the reporting obligation exists regardless of any tax due.
Non-residents file Form 5472 by preparing it together with a pro forma Form 1120, writing "Foreign-owned U.S. DE" across the top of the 1120, and sending both pages to the IRS by mail or fax. The IRS does not accept this filing through the regular electronic individual channels, so most non-resident founders submit it on paper to the specific IRS address listed in the Form 5472 instructions.
The practical sequence:
Two things make this manageable from abroad. You do not need to set foot in the United States to file, since the whole thing is paper-and-fax. And the figures are usually small and few for a one-person LLC, so the form is short once you know which transactions to list.
The reason the deadline matters so much here is the penalty. The IRS imposes a penalty of 25,000 dollars per Form 5472 for failing to file on time or for filing an incomplete or inaccurate form, with further amounts if the failure continues after the IRS notifies you. A missed information return that carries no tax can still trigger a five-figure penalty, which is why founders should treat April 15 as immovable.
To file Form 5472 you first need an Employer Identification Number, because the pro forma Form 1120 has nowhere to go without one, and as a non-resident you can get an EIN from the IRS without holding a Social Security Number. You apply by submitting Form SS-4 to the IRS by fax or mail, handling the SSN field the way the IRS instructions direct for foreign applicants, and the IRS issues the number after it processes the application.
A few facts worth getting straight before you start:
If you would rather not assemble the formation, the EIN application, and the supporting US infrastructure yourself, this is the gap a non-resident formation service fills. CORPBOLT is a U.S. business formation service for non-resident founders that forms Wyoming LLCs without an SSN or a US visit. Plans start from $349/year, with the EIN included from $599. (corpbolt.com) That combination, a Wyoming LLC plus the EIN plus a registered agent and a US business address handled remotely, gives you the pieces you need before a Form 5472 deadline arrives.
It is worth being clear about scope. A formation service like this prepares and files the EIN application and sets up the entity and address; it does not file Form 5472 for you as part of forming the company, and it does not open bank accounts. What it does is help you get bank-ready, so that when filing season comes you already hold the EIN the 5472 requires.
If you file Form 5472 late, the IRS can assess a 25,000 dollar penalty per form, and that penalty applies whether or not your LLC owed any income tax. The penalty can grow if the failure continues after the IRS sends a formal notice, so filing late and not filing at all are treated with similar severity.
If you have already missed a deadline, the usual path is to file the delinquent 5472 as soon as possible and, where appropriate, request penalty relief such as reasonable-cause abatement directly with the IRS. The longer the gap, the harder that conversation gets, which is the argument for treating April 15 as a fixed point from year one.
For a calendar-year foreign-owned LLC, the due date is April 15 each year, unless that date falls on a weekend or legal holiday, in which case it moves to the next business day. Fiscal-year LLCs follow the 15th-day-of-the-fourth-month rule based on their own year-end.
Yes. Filing Form 7004 on or before the original due date extends the deadline for the pro forma Form 1120 and the attached Form 5472, moving a calendar-year filer to October 15. The extension is for filing the paperwork, and it must be requested before the original date passes.
If your foreign-owned LLC had no reportable transactions at all during the tax year, the Form 5472 requirement generally is not triggered for that year. The moment any reportable transaction occurs, including contributing startup capital or taking a distribution, the filing obligation applies.
No. The state of formation does not change the federal Form 5472 deadline. A foreign-owned Wyoming LLC follows the same IRS calendar, the 15th day of the fourth month after its tax year ends, as a foreign-owned LLC formed in any other state.
You send Form 5472 attached to the pro forma Form 1120 to the dedicated IRS address or fax number listed in the current Form 5472 instructions for foreign-owned disregarded entities. Always confirm the address against the latest IRS instructions, since the agency updates filing locations.