Picture a white window envelope from the IRS, the US tax agency. It's sitting under a pile of supermarket flyers at your cousin's place in Orlando, or in a building lobby in a city you left last year. Inside is a letter with a date on it. You won't know about it until somebody remembers to look. That's the risk when you receive IRS mail while living abroad without a plan.
The tax agency writes to you on paper, and paper has to land somewhere you'll see it. This guide explains which letters matter, what your options are, and how to change the address the IRS has on file. It's general information, not tax advice. A US tax professional should handle anything about your actual filings.
First, the words
The IRS is the Internal Revenue Service, the US federal tax agency. It sends its letters to the mailing address it has on file for your company.
That address usually comes from Form SS-4, the form you filled in to get your EIN. An EIN (Employer Identification Number) is your company's nine-digit US tax number. If you change the address later, the new one comes from Form 8822-B, the IRS's change of address form for businesses.
An IRS "notice" is simply a letter from the IRS. Most carry a short code, like CP575, that tells you what kind of letter it is.
The letters you can't afford to miss
Your EIN confirmation, the CP575
After the IRS gives your company an EIN, it mails a one-page confirmation called the CP575 to the mailing address on your SS-4. Banks often ask for it. If you lose it, the IRS doesn't reprint the original. It sends a different letter, Letter 147C, instead (IRS, understanding your CP575). If you can use the IRS Business Tax Account online, you can now download a digital CP575, which the IRS says banks accept (IRS newsroom).
Notices with a deadline
Many IRS letters ask you to do something by a certain date. Reply, send a document, pay, or explain. A letter you never open is a deadline you never knew you had.
Anything about Form 5472
This is the one that frightens people, and with reason. If you're not a US person and you own a single-member US LLC (a company with one owner), that LLC generally files Form 5472 every year, attached to a mostly blank Form 1120. It's due with the 1120, which is April 15 for a calendar year, and it can be extended with Form 7004. It can't be filed electronically. It goes by fax or by mail (Form 5472 instructions).
The penalty for not filing is $25,000 per form, per year. If it's still not filed 90 days after the IRS notifies you, another $25,000 is added for every 30 days, with no maximum (IRS, international information reporting penalties). Ninety days sounds like plenty, until you remember the notice has to reach you first.
We won't tell you how to file it, and you shouldn't learn it from a mailbox company. Ask a US tax professional. What we can say is simple. Make sure IRS letters reach you fast.
What goes wrong when mail is missed
The IRS keeps writing to the address it has until you tell it otherwise. It doesn't know you moved, that your friend's building changed its locks, or that the shared office you used has closed.
Here's how it usually goes wrong, in one made-up example. A founder in Madrid puts her old student address in Boston on the SS-4. She moves home, and the CP575 arrives in Boston months later and goes nowhere. Then a notice follows it. She finds out from her accountant, long after the date on the letter. Nobody did anything dramatic. The address was just out of date.
Your options to receive IRS mail while living abroad
Your home address abroad
The SS-4 allows a foreign mailing address, with the country written out in full. It's free and nobody else handles your mail. But international mail can take weeks, local post varies a lot from country to country, and you won't know a letter is coming until it arrives.
A friend or relative in the US
It works until it doesn't. People move, travel and forget. And they'll be opening, or at least holding, your tax mail. If you go this way, agree on exactly what they do when an IRS envelope arrives.
Your accountant's office
Some owners use their US accountant's address, if the accountant agrees. It puts the letters with the person who'll deal with them. Ask first, and ask what they charge for it.
A US mailing address that scans your mail
This is a virtual office or virtual mailbox. Staff receive your mail, photograph the envelopes and open and scan the ones you choose, so you read an IRS letter on your phone the day it's logged. You'll sign USPS Form 1583 first, a short permission form that lets the business receive your mail. Our guide to Form 1583 explains it.
One honest limit. The SS-4 lets your mailing address be a P.O. box, so a mailbox address fits that line. But we haven't found any IRS statement on mailbox addresses as your business location. Use it as your mailing address, which is the job it's good at. Our guide on what address to put on Form SS-4 shows which line is which.
How to change the address the IRS has: Form 8822-B
Form 8822-B is how a business tells the IRS about a new mailing address, a new business location or a new responsible party (the person who controls the company). If the responsible party changes, you have 60 days to report it (IRS, responsible parties).
Step by step:
- Download the form from the IRS site.
- Fill in your company's name, EIN, old mailing address and new mailing address.
- Sign and date it.
- Mail it. It's paper only. Where it goes depends on your old address. If your old address was in Florida, it goes to the IRS in Ogden, UT 84201 (where to file Form 8822-B). If your old address was outside the US, an older version of the form also pointed to Ogden (84201-0023), but check the table on the current form before you send it.
- Wait. The IRS says processing takes 4 to 6 weeks.
There are other ways too. The IRS also accepts a signed written statement, a change made by phone or in person after it checks your identity, or the new address written on your next tax return (IRS Topic 157). For a company owner abroad, the form is usually the clearest paper trail.
Keep a copy and note the date you sent it. And remember that the state of Florida is a separate job. Our guide on Florida's three LLC addresses covers that side.
Where Prima fits
Prima gives you a mailing address at 2125 Biscayne Blvd, Suite 300 # plus your mailbox number, in Miami. Our team receives your mail in the building, every envelope shows up in the app with a photo, and legal and government mail is scanned at no charge. On the Address plan an open-and-scan is $2.50 per envelope, up to 10 pages, and Business and Executive scan without limit. Plans start at $39 a month, and you can compare them here.
We don't file tax forms or give tax advice. We make sure the letter reaches you. If you've just formed your company, our checklist of what to do after forming a Florida LLC shows where this fits in.