Thousands of entrepreneurs outside the US — many in Spain and Latin America — form US LLCs every month to sell on Amazon, Shopify or Stripe. Most are never told about the one filing that carries a $25,000 penalty for missing it: Form 5472. This guide explains who must file, what counts as a reportable transaction, and why monthly bookkeeping is quietly the prerequisite.
Who has to file
If you're a non-US person owning 25% or more of a US single-member LLC (disregarded entity), the LLC must file Form 5472 attached to a pro-forma Form 1120 every year it has "reportable transactions" — even with zero revenue. Formation costs paid by the owner? Reportable. Money you put in to open the bank account? Reportable. In practice, almost every foreign-owned LLC has reportable transactions from day one.
What the IRS wants to see
Form 5472 reports transactions between the LLC and its foreign owner: capital contributions, distributions, loans, payments made on each other's behalf, and amounts paid or received between them. Which surfaces the real problem: you can't report what you haven't recorded. If owner transfers and business expenses are tangled in one account with no bookkeeping behind them, your filing is guesswork — signed under penalty of perjury.
The clean setup
- Separate everything from day one: business bank account, business card, no personal spending through the LLC.
- Track owner transactions explicitly: every transfer between you and the LLC categorized as contribution, distribution or loan — the exact lines 5472 asks for.
- Keep monthly books in QuickBooks: twelve reconciled months make the annual filing a summary, not an archaeology project.
- File through a US-credentialed preparer. The 5472/1120 must be filed (by mail or fax — no e-file for pro-forma 1120s) and is best signed by a US CPA or EA.
Other filings on the same calendar
Depending on your situation: BOI reporting (FinCEN), state annual reports and franchise taxes, sales tax registrations as you cross economic nexus thresholds, and — if you elect corporate treatment or have partners — different federal returns entirely. A calendar plus clean books turns all of it into routine.