The email from the state arrives. Your company's status says "Active." For about ten minutes, it feels finished. Then the questions start. You formed a Florida LLC from abroad, so now what? What's an EIN? Where will the letters go? Why does the bank want an address you don't have?
Most formation websites stop at "filed." This guide picks up there. Here are the steps in a sensible order, explained for someone who's never dealt with US paperwork before. It's general information, not legal or tax advice. For your own taxes, talk to a US tax professional. For legal questions, a Florida attorney.
First, the words
An LLC (limited liability company) is the most common type of small company in the US.
Sunbiz is the website of Florida's Division of Corporations, the state office that keeps the list of Florida companies. It's where your LLC was filed, and where you'll file its yearly update.
The IRS is the Internal Revenue Service, the US federal tax agency.
An EIN (Employer Identification Number) is your company's nine-digit US tax number.
A registered agent is a person or company in Florida that officially receives lawsuits and legal papers for your LLC.
1. Formed a Florida LLC? Now check what the public can see
Start with five minutes on Sunbiz. Search your company's name and open the record. Anyone in the world can do the same, for free. It shows your principal office address, mailing address, registered agent and managers, plus images of what you filed. Florida also treats email addresses you give the state as public records (Division of Corporations).
Check that every address is right and that you're comfortable with it being public. If you used your home address and wish you hadn't, the address change page explains how to update it. Not sure which address is which? Our guide to principal, mailing and registered agent addresses explains all three.
2. Get your EIN
You'll need the EIN for almost everything that follows, from the bank to payment platforms to invoices.
But you probably can't do it online. The online application is closed if you have no home, main office or main place of business in the US (IRS, Employer ID numbers). Founders abroad apply on Form SS-4, by phone (267-941-1099, not a free number), by fax (304-707-9471) or by mail. You don't need an SSN or ITIN for this. The responsible party, the real person who controls the company, writes "foreign" or "N/A" on line 7b if they don't have one and aren't eligible (SS-4 instructions).
Pay attention to the mailing address on line 4a. That's where the IRS sends your EIN confirmation letter, the CP575, and the original can't be reprinted. Our guide on what address to put on Form SS-4 walks through every address line.
3. Decide where your mail goes
Your company will get paper mail. Letters from the IRS, reminders from the state, bank cards, the odd client check. The question is where it lands and how fast you'll know.
You can use your home address abroad. It's free, but slow, and you won't know a letter exists until it arrives. Or you can use a US business address with a team that receives and scans your mail. Florida lets your mailing address be a P.O. box, so a mailbox address fits that line comfortably. Our guide on using a virtual office as your LLC's address covers what fits where, including the gray area around the principal office.
If you choose a US mailbox, you'll sign USPS Form 1583 first. USPS is the US Postal Service, and this form is your written permission for a business to receive mail for you. You'll need two IDs, and a notary from your own country won't do. Our Form 1583 guide explains the IDs and how to sign online.
4. Keep the registered agent separate
This one confuses people, so let's be clear.
Your registered agent is a legal role, and it isn't the same thing as a mailing address. Florida requires the agent to have a Florida street address (s. 605.0113), and that office must be open, with someone there to accept legal papers, at least from 10 a.m. to noon on business days (s. 48.091). You already named one on the form you filed, because Florida requires it (s. 605.0201).
Keep it. A virtual office doesn't replace it, and Prima doesn't offer registered agent service. Your registered agent handles legal papers. Your mailing address handles everything else. If you ever change agents, that's a separate form and fee with the state, not the simple address update.
5. Open a bank account, and be honest about the address
Now the bank. This is where people get stuck, usually over the address.
Banks and payment platforms want the place where your business actually operates. Mercury, for example, rejects virtual and mailbox addresses as the company address, but accepts a verifiable international address for overseas customers (Mercury, company address requirements). Stripe asks for the place where most of your business activity happens (Stripe, US account requirements). So for most founders abroad, the honest answer is their home or office in their own country.
No address guarantees an approval. Our guide on which address to give your bank, Stripe and other platforms goes platform by platform, including Wise, Shopify Payments, PayPal and Amazon.
6. Put Form 5472 on your calendar
If you're not a US person and you're the only owner of the LLC, it generally has to file Form 5472 every year, attached to a mostly blank Form 1120. It's due April 15 for a calendar year, can be extended with Form 7004, and can't be filed electronically (Form 5472 instructions).
The penalty for missing it is $25,000 per form, per year, and more if it's still not filed 90 days after an IRS notice (IRS penalties).
We're not going to explain how to fill it in. That's a job for a US tax professional, and it's worth finding one before your first April. What you can do yourself is make sure IRS letters reach you. Our guide on receiving IRS mail while living abroad covers that.
7. File the annual report every year, January 1 to May 1
Florida wants a short update from every LLC every year, called the annual report. You file it online at Sunbiz, pay by card, and it's posted right away. You file it even if nothing changed (annual report instructions).
The numbers, as of October 2026:
- Fee: $138.75.
- Window: January 1 to May 1.
- Late fee: $400 if you file after May 1, which the state says it can't waive.
- Dissolution: an LLC still unfiled by the third Friday of September is administratively dissolved, meaning the state switches it off, on the fourth Friday.
- Reinstatement: turning it back on costs $100 plus $138.75 for each year you missed, paid all at once (reinstatement instructions).
Put a reminder in your calendar for the first week of January. The annual report is also the easiest moment to update your addresses, since it repeats them every year.
8. Cross the BOI report off your list
You may have read that every new LLC must file a "beneficial ownership information" (BOI) report with FinCEN, a US Treasury office. That no longer applies to companies formed in the US. FinCEN exempted them in March 2025, and a final rule in August 2026 made the exemption permanent. Only companies formed outside the US and registered to do business in a US state still report. Older articles haven't caught up, so don't panic if you see one.
9. Keep the state and the IRS in sync when things change
Things will change. You'll move, add a partner or switch mailing addresses. Each change usually needs two updates, because the state and the IRS keep separate records.
- Florida: update your principal office or mailing address with the annual report, or with an amended annual report ($50) at another time of year (Sunbiz address change).
- IRS: file Form 8822-B on paper for a new mailing address, business location or responsible party. A new responsible party must be reported within 60 days (about Form 8822-B).
It's easy to update one and forget the other. That's how tax letters end up at an address you left a year ago.
Where Prima fits
Prima covers steps 3 and part of 9: the address and the mail. You get 2125 Biscayne Blvd, Suite 300 # plus your mailbox number, at an office building on Biscayne Boulevard in Miami. Our team receives your mail, photographs every envelope for the app, and scans legal and government mail at no charge. Form 1583 is notarized online during signup in every plan. Business and Executive add a Miami phone number that rings your own phone, and a service agreement you can show as proof of address. Plans start at $39 a month, and you can compare them here.
What we don't do matters just as much. We're not a registered agent, we don't form companies, apply for EINs, open bank accounts or file taxes. We keep the address and the mail working while you run the business.