Form a New Mexico LLC from Thailand: Complete 2026 Guide

The cost side of a New Mexico LLC: $50 state fee ($50 online), a registered agent at typically $100-150 per year, a free IRS EIN, and a bank account that is usually free. Annual state requirement in New Mexico: $0 ever — New Mexico is one of the only states with no ongoing annual report or annual fee for LLCs. If you use EasyBrise, Global Launch is $295 for year one (registered agent included) and $149 per year after, and for a founder in Thailand the whole first year typically comes in well under $500.

New Mexico in one paragraph: $50 to file ($50 online), then $0 ever — New Mexico is one of the only states with no ongoing annual report or annual fee for LLCs each year. The state imposes no tax on LLC income earned outside the state for non-resident owners. New Mexico does not publicly disclose member or manager names in its formation records. For a Thailand-based owner the state choice mainly decides cost, privacy and paperwork, not your home-country tax result. If the least ongoing paperwork of any of the five states is what you are optimizing for, New Mexico deserves a close look.

Thai freelancers, developers, agency owners and online sellers form US LLCs to invoice international clients in dollars and to hold a US business bank account. Thai tax residents, which includes anyone who spends 180 days or more in Thailand in a tax year, are taxed on foreign income when it is brought into Thailand. That remittance rule changed from January 1, 2024, and it is the single most important Thai-side point for a US LLC owner.

New Mexico fits if minimizing ongoing paperwork is the top priority — no annual report, ever, is unique among these five states — and strict privacy matters more to you than name recognition. Check the comparison table above before you commit, as switching later is not a simple amendment: the New Mexico LLC would be dissolved and a new one formed elsewhere.

Your New Mexico LLC exists once the state accepts the filing, but it is only ready to trade after these steps: sign the Operating Agreement; get the bank account open; apply for payment processors; calendar there is no New Mexico annual filing to calendar and the federal Form 5472 and pro forma 1120. On BOI: FinCEN's rule in force since August 14, 2026 permanently exempts all US-formed LLCs, so there is nothing to file there.

Thai tax residence turns on presence: a person who stays in Thailand for periods totalling 180 days or more in a tax year is treated as resident. Founders who travel between countries should keep a simple record of days spent in Thailand, because whether you are resident in a given year decides whether the remittance rule applies to money you bring in during that year.

Here is how New Mexico formation works for someone in Thailand. File the Articles of Organization with the New Mexico Secretary of State, using a registered agent's physical New Mexico address. Request your EIN from the IRS, writing "Foreign" or "N/A" in place of an SSN (phone: 267-941-1099, about 45-60 minutes; fax or mail: 4-6 weeks). Then apply for Mercury or Relay online. Every step can be done remotely.

New Mexico means $50 to file and no annual report or fee. For a Thai founder who must already track every remittance into Thailand, having no state annual filing is one less date to manage.

Under Revenue Department instruction Por. 161/2566, issued in September 2023, foreign-sourced income of a Thai tax resident is subject to Thai personal income tax when it is brought into Thailand, regardless of the year in which it was earned. Before the change, income remitted in a later calendar year was exempt under a 1987 interpretation, and that exemption no longer applies for amounts brought in from January 1, 2024. In practice this means the timing and character of withdrawals from the LLC matter, and a Thai tax adviser should map them before you start. On the US side the LLC files Form 5472 and a pro forma Form 1120 every year, with a $25,000 minimum penalty for a missed or incomplete filing.

As a Thai owner, your recurring dates look like this. State: New Mexico adds no state annual filing at all. Federal: Form 5472 with the pro forma Form 1120 is due on the return due date, April 15 for a calendar-year LLC, extendable with Form 7004. For the one-off EIN call, the IRS line (6 a.m. to 11 p.m. Eastern) is open 5 p.m. to 10 a.m. Thai time in US daylight time (6 p.m. to 11 a.m. in US standard time). Put the state date and the federal date in your calendar when the EIN arrives, because a missed Form 5472 carries a $25,000 minimum penalty.

Over five years, the state-level cost of a New Mexico LLC is a $50 filing fee and nothing recurring, so $50 in total, before the registered agent. That makes New Mexico the cheapest of the five states on this measure. The same arithmetic across the five states runs from $50 to $2,110. For a Thai owner, the bigger variable is not this US state cost but Thailand's remittance rule, under which foreign income is taxed when it is brought into Thailand.

Mercury and Relay test eligibility differently, which matters if you hold more than one passport. Mercury's prohibited-countries list is based on country of residence, not citizenship, and a citizen of a listed country who lives elsewhere may still be eligible after review. Relay's list looks at the citizenship or residency of the owners. Thailand is on neither list. If you hold another passport or live elsewhere, check that country against both lists first.

Under the 2024 change, the question is not when the LLC earned income but when you bring it into Thailand. Keep the LLC's money in the US account until you need it, record each transfer, and ask your adviser how salary-type payments, distributions and card spending in Thailand from a foreign account would each be treated. Some of those points, such as whether spending through a foreign account counts as a remittance, were open questions when the rule was introduced.