doola and Firstbase form your LLC. We hand you one that already has its EIN.

If you're reading this, you've done the hard part: you want a US LLC, you understand you need an EIN and a US bank account to make it useful, and you've narrowed your options to doola, Firstbase, and us. The remaining question is the one each company's own website makes surprisingly hard to answer: which one actually gets you operational fastest, for the lowest total cost over 12 months?

We are USLLCGlobal, so this page is not neutral — but it is honest. Where doola or Firstbase do something better than we do, we say so. The single biggest structural difference is this: doola and Firstbase sell you a formation process; we sell you a finished company. Their clock starts when they file. Our company already exists, already has its EIN, and only needs transferring to you.

doola has a slicker dashboard with bookkeeping, invoicing, and an AI Co-Founder feature bundled in, plus a Mercury cashback partnership ($150–300 in rewards depending on plan). If you want one login that does formation + books + tax filings, they do that better than we do. Firstbase has a genuinely useful mailroom service ($35–50/month) for a US business address with mail scanning, and claims 30,000+ companies served — serious volume we can't match yet.

We're a focused specialist that hands you a finished company, not a platform. If the platform experience and a long-term subscription relationship are what you want, doola or Firstbase are reasonable picks. If you want to start trading this week with a company that already has its EIN, that's us.

EIN turnaround: the whole game

This is where ready-made wins outright. doola and Firstbase both have to get you an EIN after the LLC is formed. For a non-resident without an SSN, the IRS only issues an EIN by phone or fax — there's no instant online route — so "standard speed" can mean 4–6 weeks of mailed or faxed processing. doola's own pricing gates a "faster EIN" behind its $1,499/year Tax & Compliance plan; Firstbase says "expedited EIN" without defining it.

A ready-made USLLCGlobal company skips the wait entirely: the EIN already exists. It was issued when the company was formed, and it transfers to you with the company within 24 hours. You can't open Mercury, apply to Stripe, or sign up for most US SaaS as a business without an EIN — so a 2–3 week EIN delay is a 2–3 week delay on everything. Ready-made removes that delay before it starts. (Prefer a custom name? Our new-formation path still does a same-day EIN by phone as Third Party Designee on the day the LLC is approved.)

Bank account guidance: closer than it looks

All three point you at Mercury — the obvious 2026 choice for non-residents. doola has a Mercury cashback partnership ($150–300) that's a real benefit if you're depositing early. Firstbase references bank access without a specific walkthrough. USLLCGlobal walks you through Mercury, Wise, and Relay with KYC document prep and exactly what to write in the "business activity" field — and helps with Wise as a fallback when Mercury rejects (which happens to roughly 1 in 5 non-resident applicants). If Mercury's cashback alone is worth $200–300 to you, that single line item leans doola — we flag it because it would be dishonest not to.

Form 5472 — the $25,000 question

Form 5472 is mandatory for every foreign-owned single-member LLC, even with $0 revenue. Missing it triggers a $25,000 penalty per year — the single biggest compliance trap for non-residents (see the IRS's About Form 5472). All three can handle it; the difference is how it's priced:

• doola — bundled into Tax & Compliance ($1,499/yr) or Business-in-a-Box ($2,249/yr). Annual, forever.
• Firstbase — bundled into a Tax Filing add-on ($899/yr for non-US single-member LLCs). Same subscription model.
• USLLCGlobal — included in Complete ($999 one-time) for Year 1. After Year 1 you renew or move to a recommended CPA (we like the ones charging $300–500 for this filing, not $899–1,499).

If you'll run the LLC for 5+ years and want one dashboard handling everything every year, the subscription models eventually become more convenient. What we're better at: getting you through Year 1 — the year the most goes wrong — for less than half what they charge.

Stripe Atlas — worth flagging

The third option people consider, Stripe Atlas, creates Delaware C-Corps. Correct for someone heading into Y Combinator; tax-disastrous for a solo non-resident — 21% corporate tax plus 15–30% dividend withholding, vs 0% US tax on a properly structured non-resident LLC. If anyone tells you Atlas is the default best choice for non-residents, they don't understand non-resident taxation.