What is the cheapest US business address for an LLC run from abroad?

Every LLC already has one US address: its registered agent's. That address exists so the state and anyone suing the company can serve legal papers on it. Wyoming, for example, requires every company to name an agent with a physical address in the state, and a founder living abroad cannot be their own. It is not an address for the company's ordinary mail.

A business address is the other one: where letters from customers, suppliers, banks and government offices go, and what goes on the website, invoices and email footer. The two can come from the same company, but they are different services, and LegalZoom's own page for its mailbox notes that you still need a registered agent alongside it.

The table prices a year at each plan's monthly price, from $119.88 to $708. The spread is wider than the prices suggest, because the plans do different jobs. Some charge extra to open and scan a letter; some open and scan a set number of letters or pages; the dearest here is a business mailroom with an API rather than a mailbox.

Read the scanning column before the price. If the company is run from abroad, you cannot collect the post, so a letter you cannot read without paying extra is a cost that arrives later.

These services are what US postal rules call a commercial mail receiving agency. To receive mail at one, you complete USPS Form 1583, authorising the agency to take your mail, and sign it in front of the agency's staff or a notary public. The rules allow that to happen over a live video call, which is how someone abroad usually does it. The identification must include a photograph, and the Postal Service's list of acceptable identity documents includes a foreign passport.

The address itself carries the mark of a mailbox: postal rules require it to include 'PMB' or '#' and your box number. It is a real, deliverable street address, but the box number marks it as a mailbox to anyone who knows the format.

For marketing email, a mailbox address is enough. US law requires every commercial email to include a valid postal address, and the Federal Trade Commission's guidance says a private mailbox registered with a commercial mail receiving agency qualifies. Each email that breaks the law can draw a penalty of up to $53,088.

For anything else, what counts is the rule of whoever is asking. The last column in the table is what each provider says its own address is for: Northwest Registered Agent mentions state filings and bank applications, subject to each bank's policy, while Anytime Mailbox advises against using its address as your official business address. Banks and payment providers set their own rules on mailbox addresses, so check with the one you plan to use before you choose.