US LLC Formation From Uzbekistan: A Complete 2026 Guide

The Uzbekistani som has floated freely since a major September 2017 liberalization that eliminated the country's earlier dual exchange rate system and capital controls, making it straightforward to convert and move funds for ordinary business purposes. On the banking side, Uzbekistan appears on Mercury's prohibited-countries list, but not on Relay's — Relay is the more realistic option for a US bank account as an Uzbekistan-based founder, alongside a Payoneer-based workaround if needed.

Tashkent's tech and startup community has grown quickly alongside the country's broader economic liberalization since 2017. Founders building SaaS products, consulting practices, and e-commerce brands for international clients form US LLCs for USD invoicing, direct Stripe access, and a US-facing entity that's simpler to present abroad than a local structure built for the same purpose. Uzbekistan's tax picture here has two very different tracks depending on your residency status.

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.

For a founder who's an Uzbekistan tax resident under the ordinary rules, Uzbekistan's CFC regime — introduced through the country's 2020 tax code reforms — applies to individuals as well as companies, and the ownership threshold is genuinely aggressive: a foreign entity counts as a CFC if a resident holds more than 25% directly, or as little as 10% if the combined ownership of all Uzbekistan residents in that entity exceeds 50%. A 100%-owner clears either version of this test immediately.

The single most important fact for many founders reading this: starting in 2026, Uzbekistan introduced a special tax residency program for foreigners. Pay $50,000 and spend just 30 days a year in the country, and you can become an Uzbekistan tax resident under this regime — with all foreign-source income, including a US LLC's profits, completely exempt from personal income tax. This sidesteps the entire CFC analysis below, because there's no Uzbek tax on the underlying income to attribute in the first place. It's a genuinely new program, so getting current guidance on qualification and application is worth doing before assuming it applies to you.

Even under the standard rules, Uzbekistan's CFC regime carries two exemptions. First, an 'active foreign holding company' that meets substance requirements and isn't incorporated in a blacklisted offshore jurisdiction is excluded. Second, an entity taxed at an effective rate of at least 15% and located in a country with which Uzbekistan has a double tax treaty is excluded outright — though Uzbekistan's treaty coverage of the US runs through the older US-USSR tax treaty framework rather than a dedicated bilateral agreement, a status it shares with several other former Soviet states covered elsewhere in this series, so this exemption's applicability isn't entirely settled.

Where most countries in this series use a simple flat-percentage cutoff (compare the foreign tax rate to some fraction of the domestic rate), Uzbekistan's low-tax test works differently: it compares the actual foreign tax paid against what the income would have been taxed at under Uzbek tax law, recalculated in full. This is a more thorough — and more case-specific — computation than a flat threshold, meaning the outcome for a US LLC genuinely depends on the underlying facts rather than a single number you can check once.