Selling online courses through a US LLC: platforms, VAT and payouts

Selling knowledge has a rare advantage: the product sells everywhere, in every language, with no stock and no shipping. It also has a constraint you discover at the first frozen payout. Stripe suspends an account with no company behind it, a platform asks for a W-8 or a tax ID, a US client wants a business invoice. The US LLC solves all three at once, which is why it has become the most common structure among coaches and course creators selling internationally.

If you sell your time, advice or services rather than a product, our guide to the US LLC for freelancers and agencies is written for you. Here we only talk about courses, programs and digital products sold to an audience.

What Stripe, Kajabi, Teachable and the others require

Every course platform relies on a payment processor, almost always Stripe. Stripe opens an account in the name of an entity and verifies its tax ID, address and bank account. With a US LLC you provide an EIN, a US business address and a Mercury or Relay account: the file is complete, the account is approved, and payouts arrive in dollars with no intermediate conversion. Kajabi, Teachable, Thinkific, Podia or Systeme.io then connect to that Stripe account, or to a PayPal Business account opened with the same documents.

Sell in dollars, get paid in dollars

A growing share of online program buyers lives in the United States, Canada, the Gulf and Asia. Those clients pay in dollars without a second thought, while a price in any other currency triggers exchange fees and card declines. With a US bank account you collect in your clients’ currency, pay your tools and your Meta or Google ads in dollars, and convert only what you bring home.

Credibility with clients and partners

A program sold by a US company, with an invoice in the name of an LLC, a US address and solid terms of service, inspires more trust than a payment to an individual. Affiliate partners, guest experts and companies buying training for their teams prefer to contract with a company. An LLC gives you that status without changing how you work.

VAT and sales tax on digital products

This is the point most course creators discover too late. An online course sold to a consumer is a digital service, and the European Union taxes that service in the customer’s country: a student in Paris pays French VAT, a student in Berlin pays German VAT, whichever company sells. A US LLC selling to European consumers therefore has to register through the OSS one-stop shop or sell through an intermediary that collects VAT on its behalf. None of this applies to sales to businesses, which reverse-charge the VAT.

In the United States, around thirty states apply sales tax to digital products, but only once your sales in that state pass a threshold, usually $100,000 a year. In practice a non-resident coach rarely gets there. Stripe Tax, switched on for the LLC, calculates and collects European VAT and US sales tax automatically, and that is the setup we recommend from the first course sold.

Payouts, refunds and disputes

Stripe pays your sales into the LLC’s Mercury account every two business days, in dollars, with no forced conversion. Refunds leave from the same account, and a clear refund policy shown before purchase avoids most disputes. Chargebacks are more common on courses than on services, because the customer can claim they received nothing: keep your platform’s access logs, they are enough to win a dispute in most cases.

Taxes: what you pay, and where

An LLC owned by a non-resident, with no office or employee in the United States, generally pays no US federal income tax on its profits, and a course sold to a client outside the United States carries no US sales tax. Your obligations in your country of residence apply, as with any structure. On the US side, what remains is the annual IRS filing, Form 5472 with a pro forma Form 1120, which we can prepare for you. A coach living outside their home country, or traveling for much of the year, gets the most out of this structure: our guide for digital nomads covers the details.

Which state for selling courses

Wyoming or New Mexico suit almost every course creator: low fees, no state tax for a pass-through LLC with no activity in the state, owner kept off the public record. New Mexico does not even have an Annual Report. Delaware only makes sense for those planning to bring in US investors.

What the LLC Place offer includes

Everything a platform or a bank can ask of you is provided by LLC Place from the first payment: articles filed in the state of your choice, registered agent, US business address, EIN obtained without a Social Security number, operating agreement in English, help opening the bank account with a physical card, and tracking of every deadline. The annual IRS filings are available as an option and included in the Pro and Founder plans. You provide the name of your company and a few details about your business. Everything happens online, in ten minutes of input, and in Wyoming, the state approves your LLC in 1 to 3 business days.

Frequently asked questions

Can I connect Kajabi, Teachable or Podia to a US LLC?

Yes. These platforms run on Stripe or PayPal, and both open in the LLC’s name with its EIN and US address. You enter the company in the platform’s payment settings and payouts land in the Mercury account.

Do I have to charge VAT to my European students?

Yes, if you sell to consumers in the European Union, whichever company sells. Stripe Tax or a platform acting as merchant of record collects that VAT for you. Sales to European businesses are exempt, they reverse-charge it.