Form 5472 when the LLC has no bank account

What actually triggers the form

The Form 5472 instructions put it in one line: “a reporting corporation must file Form 5472 if it had a reportable transaction with a foreign or domestic related party.” For a single-member LLC owned by someone outside the US, the LLC is the reporting corporation and you, the owner, are the related party.

Nothing in that sentence mentions a bank account, income or profit. It’s about transactions between the two of you.

Foreign-owned LLCs also have their own section on the form, Part V. The instructions say it covers “amounts paid or received in connection with the formation, dissolution, acquisition, and disposition of the entity, including contributions to, and distributions from, the entity.”

The regulations that created this rule include a worked example. A foreign owner forms an LLC and contributes assets in year 1, contributes funds in year 2, receives a payment in year 3, and takes the assets back in year 4. The example concludes that each of those is a reportable transaction, so the LLC has a reporting requirement for every one of those years (T.D. 9796). The first year of any LLC involves forming it, and forming it costs money.

How money moves when there’s no account

Most owners who say the LLC “did nothing” are thinking about sales. These can still count, depending on the facts:

• You paid the state filing fee or a formation service from your own card.
• You paid the registered agent’s fee, or a state annual report fee, for the LLC in a later year.
• You paid for something the LLC uses, such as a website, a domain or software, from your own money.
• The LLC has a Stripe, PayPal, Wise or Payoneer balance, and money went from it to you, or from you into it.

Each of these can be a reportable transaction. Whether one is, and how it’s described on the form, depends on who paid, what for, and when. We go through them with you one by one rather than guess.

The year when nothing moved at all

There is an exception. The instructions say a reporting corporation doesn’t have to file Form 5472 if it had no reportable transactions of the types on the form, and for a foreign-owned LLC that includes Part V (Exceptions from filing).

So a year where the LLC truly had no dealings with you, where nobody paid anything for it and no money went in or out, may not need the form. In practice that’s rarer than it sounds. The formation year almost always has formation costs, and most later years have a registered agent renewal that someone paid.

You still need an EIN

The pro forma Form 1120 that carries the Form 5472 is mostly blank. The instructions say the only information required on it is the LLC’s name and address and items B and E on the first page. Item B is the employer identification number (Form 1120 instructions), so the LLC needs one. The Form SS-4 instructions have specific wording for exactly this case: a foreign-owned US disregarded entity requesting an EIN to file Form 5472.

Keep the small receipts

The $25,000 penalty covers more than a missing form. The Form 5472 instructions say it “also applies for failure to maintain records,” and the records must be enough to show the correct treatment of transactions with related parties. For an LLC with no bank account, those records are the formation invoice, the registered agent invoices, and the card or platform statements showing who paid them. Put them in one folder, one subfolder per year.

How it gets filed

A foreign-owned LLC “cannot file Form 5472 electronically.” The pro forma 1120, with “Foreign-owned U.S. DE” written across the top and the Form 5472 attached, goes by fax or by post to the dedicated IRS address in the instructions. It’s due April 15 for a calendar-year LLC, or October 15 with an extension. More on that in Form 5472 due date, and what an extension changes.

If your LLC has sat quietly since it was formed, the LLC with no income page sets out what we need from you and what the filing costs.