How to Start a US LLC From Romania

Romania and the US have had an income tax treaty in force since 1974, one of the older US tax treaties still in effect, and notably one of the few comprehensive US treaties without a Limitation on Benefits provision, a detail more relevant to larger corporate structures than a typical solo founder's LLC. In practice, the treaty and Romania's domestic foreign tax credit matter less for a typical single-member LLC than their existence might suggest, since a non-resident-alien-owned LLC earning non-US-source income usually owes $0 US federal tax to begin with, leaving little for either mechanism to actually offset.

On the funding side, Romania's EU membership means capital moves freely with no capital controls, no remittance caps, and no central-bank registration requirement for investing in a foreign company. Funding a US LLC from Romania is a standard international bank transfer with no special approval process, a straightforward starting point compared to several non-EU countries covered elsewhere in this series.

Putting it together: form the LLC (Wyoming and Delaware remain the two most common choices), get the EIN using the international applicant line above, open a Mercury or Relay account without either restricting Romania, and run the actual math comparing a US LLC against Romania's own 1% micro-enterprise SRL regime before assuming the foreign entity is automatically the cheaper option, since it often isn't on tax grounds alone. Confirm with a Romanian accountant that no dedicated individual-level anti-avoidance rule reaches your specific structure, since Romania's CFC rules, like Ireland's, are built around corporate taxpayers rather than individual owners.

Romania's large, well-regarded IT and software-development sector has produced a steady stream of founders building SaaS products, e-commerce stores, and outsourcing businesses aimed at US and global clients. For these founders, a US LLC offers direct Stripe and PayPal access as a genuine US entity, USD invoicing that removes leu conversion friction, and formation that's considerably simpler than a Romanian SRL built specifically to serve international clients. What Romanian founders need to weigh carefully, though, is that Romania's own domestic tax regime for small companies is genuinely competitive, competitive enough that a US LLC's real advantage for most solo founders is banking and payment access, not necessarily a lower tax bill.

Getting an EIN as a Romanian founder works exactly like it does for any other non-US resident. Without a US Social Security Number or ITIN, you can't use the IRS's online EIN application — you'll file Form SS-4 and either call the IRS's international applicant line (267-941-1099, staffed 6am-11pm ET, for international applicants only) to receive the EIN over the phone, or fax the SS-4 (855-215-1627 from within the US, 304-707-9471 from outside) for a roughly 4-business-day official turnaround that often takes 1-2 weeks in practice. Mailing to Cincinnati, OH takes 4-5 weeks and should be a last resort. On Line 7b, write 'Foreign' or 'N/A' rather than leaving it blank. The responsible party listed must be the actual Romanian owner, not EasyBrise or any formation agent. If you lose your CP 575 confirmation notice, request Form 147C, a letter, not a duplicate, instead. Don't skip Form 5472 plus a pro forma 1120 each year; the penalty for missing it starts at $25,000.

It's also worth knowing that the tax comparison isn't as lopsided as the 1% headline suggests. Romania raised its dividend tax to 16% effective January 2026, up from 10% the year before, and that rate applies whenever profit is actually taken out personally, whether it originates from a Romanian micro-enterprise's 1% turnover tax layer or from a US LLC's distributions once they're brought into Romania. In both cases, the founder eventually pays Romanian personal tax on money actually drawn out; the micro-enterprise regime's advantage is specifically at the entity level, on retained or reinvested profit, not on what ends up in your personal pocket. Modeling both structures against your actual planned personal draws, rather than comparing headline entity-level rates alone, gives a much more accurate picture.

Romania transposed the EU's Anti-Tax Avoidance Directive into domestic law effective January 1, 2018, introducing Controlled Foreign Company rules that mirror the ATAD template: an entity is a CFC if a Romanian taxpayer, alone or with associated enterprises, holds more than 50% of its voting rights or capital, and the actual tax paid abroad is less than the difference between the hypothetical Romanian tax and what was actually paid. Every description of these rules in Romanian tax guidance, though, frames them around the 'corporate income taxpayer,' the company subject to Romanian CIT, not the individual taxpayer subject to personal income tax. This is the same structural pattern seen in Ireland's CFC regime covered elsewhere in this series: a solo Romanian founder who personally owns a US LLC as an individual, rather than through a Romanian company, sits outside the scope of the CFC rules as written.

On the banking side, Romania is not on Mercury's or Relay's prohibited-country list, and Romanian founders go through the same standard non-resident application process, passport, LLC formation documents, and EIN, as founders from most other countries in this series. There's no distinct Romania-specific hurdle at the account-opening stage.

That doesn't mean there's nothing to consider. Romania maintains a general anti-abuse rule that allows tax authorities to disregard or requalify arrangements lacking genuine economic substance, and while this is a broader, less codified test than a formal individual-level CFC rule, it's not nothing. Unlike Ireland, which has a specific, well-established individual-level provision, Section 806, the 'transfer of assets abroad' rule, for exactly this situation, Romania doesn't appear to have an equivalent dedicated statute targeting individuals who retain benefit from foreign-held income. That absence is a genuine reassurance, but it's worth confirming directly with a Romanian accountant rather than assuming it, since general anti-abuse provisions are inherently fact-specific and can evolve.

Here's the question that actually matters more for most Romanian founders: Romania's own micro-enterprise regime taxes qualifying small companies at a flat 1% of turnover, effective from January 2026, down from a two-tier 1%/3% system, with the annual revenue cap tightened to €100,000. For a Romanian founder running an active SaaS or consulting business through a domestic SRL instead, that 1% turnover tax is remarkably low, low enough that the usual 'form a foreign entity to reduce tax' logic doesn't really apply here the way it might in a higher-tax country. This flips the decision for many Romanian founders: a US LLC's real value isn't lower taxation, since Romania's own regime is already extremely cheap, it's the practical banking and payment-processing access a US entity provides that a Romanian SRL, however cheaply taxed, can't replicate as smoothly with Stripe, PayPal, and US-based clients.