Independent. Every figure dated and sourced.
Points Architect

Formation

Non-Resident Company Formation

Five providers that will form a US LLC for a founder living outside the United States, compared on what the company costs to start and what it costs every year to keep standing.

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5 providers

How the fee is charged
Registered agent
State of formation

Two totals, two horizons. Year-one total is what leaves the account to get the company registered: the provider's fee, the registered agent for the first year, and the state's own filing fee. Annual thereafter is what recurs from year two: the provider's fee only where it is a subscription, plus the agent renewal, plus the state's annual charge. The rubric weights the recurring figure higher because it repeats — a company held five years pays it four more times than the setup cost.

Scoring weights

rubric 2026.1

  • Year-one total cost40%
  • Annual cost thereafter60%

Weights are set once per vertical and versioned. Changing one is a logged version bump, not routine upkeep — see methodology.

Verification state

Dated fields in this table
40
Oldest check
Sep 16, 2026
Most recent check
Sep 16, 2026
Recheck window
90 days
Past that window
0

Ranked for a specific question

The same verified data, ordered by the figure that answers one decision rather than by the overall score.

What this table covers

  • Provider fees are read off each provider's own pricing page. State fees are read off the relevant Secretary of State's own fee schedule, not repeated from the provider.
  • Priced for a single-member LLC formed in Wyoming — the state most commonly used by non-resident founders who do not specifically need Delaware, and one that publishes both of its fees plainly.
  • Stripe Atlas forms Delaware entities only, so its state figures are Delaware's rather than Wyoming's. The states-available column makes that visible instead of burying it inside a total.

What it deliberately leaves out

  • Whether a provider will obtain an EIN for an applicant with no Social Security Number. No provider states its policy on a pricing page, so it is not an attribute and forms no part of any score.
  • Filing turnaround times. These are published as marketing claims rather than commitments, and are not verifiable against a source.
  • Whether a US bank account application will actually be approved. That is not something a formation provider publishes, or controls.

Every figure above is dated to the last time it was checked against the provider’s own pricing page, not to when this page was published. See methodology for how scores are calculated from those figures.