US LLC Formation From the Dominican Republic: A Complete 2026 Guide

The Dominican Republic doesn't appear on Mercury's or Relay's prohibited-countries list, so both are workable choices for the LLC's US banking. EasyBrise's Global Launch package ($295 first year including registered agent, $149/year renewal) handles LLC formation. The EIN application for a founder without a US Social Security Number goes through the IRS's international phone line, fax, or mail process, and EasyBrise's EIN Follow-up ($129) or EIN Priority ($99) services manage that. FinCEN's 2026 final rule permanently exempts US-formed LLCs from federal BOI reporting.

The Dominican Republic has no controlled foreign company legislation whatsoever — confirmed directly by international tax practitioners: there's no rule requiring current inclusion of a foreign entity's undistributed profits in a Dominican resident's taxable income. A resident who owns a US LLC personally isn't subject to any anti-deferral attribution mechanism on retained earnings, full stop.

Law 30-26, enacted in June 2026 and effective from 2027, broadens the definition of foreign-source taxable income to explicitly include 'technical assistance services,' described in the law as a broad and illustrative category, alongside the existing investments and financial gains categories. What isn't yet clear is exactly how narrowly or broadly 'technical assistance services' will be interpreted in practice — whether it's aimed at specific consulting-fee arrangements or could eventually touch broader categories of service income. This is genuinely fresh legislation, so getting current guidance from a Dominican tax advisor as implementing regulations are published is worth doing, particularly if your LLC's revenue could plausibly be characterized as technical assistance rather than ordinary product or subscription sales.

The US and the Dominican Republic don't have a comprehensive income tax treaty — the two countries have only a Tax Information Exchange Agreement, along with a separate arrangement for exchanging country-by-country reports on large multinational groups. Relief from double taxation relies on domestic mechanisms on each side rather than treaty provisions.

Santo Domingo and Santiago's growing tech and services sector has produced founders building SaaS products, consulting practices, and e-commerce brands for international clients. A US LLC gives them direct Stripe access, USD invoicing, and a US-facing entity that's simpler to present abroad than a local structure built for the same purpose. The Dominican Republic's tax framework here is genuinely favorable, and understanding its territorial system's one real exception is the whole story.

The Dominican Republic taxes on a territorial basis: Dominican-source income is taxed, and foreign-source income generally isn't. The one meaningful exception is that residents are taxed on foreign investments and financial gains specifically — a narrower category than 'all foreign income.' Ordinary active business income from an operating LLC — SaaS subscriptions, consulting fees, e-commerce sales to international customers — isn't an investment or a financial gain, so it generally falls outside this exception and stays untaxed in the Dominican Republic under the current rules.

Here's a detail that's rare among the countries in this series: even the narrow foreign-investment-and-financial-gains exception above doesn't apply immediately to someone who newly becomes a Dominican tax resident. That foreign-source income is only taxed starting in the resident's fourth year of residency — meaning new residents get a genuine three-year window where even investment and financial-gains income from abroad stays untaxed in the Dominican Republic.