What is IRS Form 5472? A plain-English guide for foreign-owned LLC owners

If you live outside the United States and own a US single-member LLC — Wyoming, Delaware, New Mexico, Florida, the state doesn't really matter — there is a very good chance the IRS requires you to file Form 5472 every year. And the penalty for not filing is $25,000 per form, per year.

This post explains what Form 5472 actually is, who has to file it, what gets reported, and why the rules feel so weirdly specific.

The 30-second version

What it is: an information return that reports transactions between a US business and its foreign owner (or other foreign related parties).
Who files it: foreign-owned US disregarded entities — i.e. single-member LLCs owned by a non-US person.
What gets reported: money moving between the LLC and the owner. Capital you put in, distributions you took out, loans, services. Revenue from customers is not reported.
When it's due: April 15 of the year after the tax year, with an automatic extension to October 15 if you file Form 7004 first.
How it's filed: by mail or fax to the IRS Ogden Service Center, PIN Unit. You cannot e-file Form 5472 for a foreign-owned disregarded entity. The fax number is +1-855-887-7737.

Why does this form exist?

Form 5472 traces back to 1989, when Congress decided that foreign multinationals were under-reporting transactions with their US subsidiaries. The form's job is to give the IRS a paper trail of related-party transactions so they can check whether transfer pricing is reasonable.

The wrinkle for solo entrepreneurs: the rules were quietly extended in 2017 (via Treasury Regulation § 1.6038A-1) to cover foreign-owned US single-member LLCs — not just corporations. So an indie maker in Hong Kong who opened a Wyoming LLC to take Stripe payments is, on paper, treated the same as Siemens.

Who has to file it?

You need to file Form 5472 if all three of the following are true for the tax year:

You own a US LLC.
You are not a US person — not a US citizen, green card holder, or US tax resident.
There was at least one reportable transaction between the LLC and you (or another foreign related party) during the year.

The third condition is broad. "Reportable transactions" include:

Money you contributed to the LLC (capital contributions).
Money the LLC paid to you (distributions, loans, salary).
Loans either direction.
Payments for goods or services you provided to the LLC.

Customer revenue is not a reportable transaction. Money your customers send to the LLC via Stripe does not count. Money you move from your personal account into the LLC does.

The big misconception: "I made no money, so I don't need to file"

This is the trap. Plenty of foreign-owned LLCs are quiet — no customers, just a holding entity, or a side project that didn't take off. The owners assume "no income = no filing."

Wrong. Two things to know:

Reportable transactions include contributions and distributions. If you put $500 into the LLC's Mercury account when you opened it, that's a reportable transaction.
Even with zero reportable transactions, the IRS expects a pro forma Form 1120 with the boxes checked indicating you're a foreign-owned DE. The current view is that filing is still safest in any year the LLC exists and is owned by a non-US person.

When in doubt, file. The penalty for not filing is a five-figure number; the cost of filing is much less.

What's the pro forma 1120 thing?

The IRS doesn't have a standalone form to attach Form 5472 to for a disregarded entity, so the rule says you file Form 5472 attached to a pro forma Form 1120. The Form 1120 is mostly blank — just the entity name, EIN, address, formation date, and total assets at year end. Across the top of page 1 you write "Foreign-Owned U.S. DE." It's a vehicle for the Form 5472, not a real income tax return.

The penalty

The penalty for failing to file Form 5472, or filing it late or incompletely, is $25,000 per form, per year under IRC § 6038A(d). The IRS assesses it automatically — you don't have to do anything special to trigger it.

If you've missed prior years, there's a procedure called DIIRSP (Delinquent International Information Return Submission Procedure) that lets you catch up. You file the late returns with a written reasonable cause statement explaining why you didn't file on time. If the IRS accepts the statement, the penalty may be abated.

The DIIRSP procedure isn't a free pass. The IRS reviews each reasonable cause statement individually. But filing late with a reasonable cause statement is much better than not filing at all — and waiting only makes it worse.

What about the deadline?

For an LLC with a calendar tax year (the default):

April 15 of the following year — the standard due date.
October 15 — extended due date, if you file Form 7004 by April 15 first.

If you're outside the US on April 15, you get an automatic 2-month extension to June 15, no form required.

Common scenarios

You opened a Wyoming LLC, took $500 of capital from your personal account to open the Mercury checking, then never used it. You have one reportable transaction (the $500 contribution). File Form 5472.
You opened a Delaware LLC, made $200k of Stripe revenue, paid yourself $100k via Wise. Revenue from Stripe is not reportable. The $100k distribution is. File Form 5472 reporting the $100k.
You opened an LLC five years ago, never filed Form 5472, just noticed. File for all the years you missed under DIIRSP with a reasonable cause statement.

What's next

If you're filing for the first time, the IRS instructions are dense but workable. If you're catching up on multiple years, you'll want a reasonable cause statement that hits the right notes for DIIRSP.

That's exactly what 5472formIRS does — generates the filled forms, the reasonable cause statement, and faxes the signed package to the IRS. About 15 minutes start to finish.

Whatever route you take: the worst thing is not filing. $25,000 per year compounds fast.