Form 5472 for Amazon Sellers: What Foreign FBA Owners Must File

Most foreign sellers open a US LLC to get a clean payout account, a US business identity, and access to Amazon’s North American marketplace. The moment a non-US person owns at least 25% of a US LLC and that LLC has a reportable transaction with the owner, IRC §6038A requires a Form 5472. Because you cannot launch an Amazon FBA business without moving money into the LLC, the reportable transaction nearly always exists in year one. See our deep dive on the foreign-owned single-member LLC rules.

We say “virtually every” rather than “every” on purpose: the obligation is tied to a reportable transaction, not to ownership alone. In practice, an active Amazon seller has one, so the safe assumption is that you must file.

A foreign-owned single-member LLC is a disregarded entity, but since 2017 (final regulations under T.D. 9796) it is treated as a corporation solely for Form 5472 reporting. That means transactions between you and your LLC must be disclosed. Sending startup capital to buy your first batch of FBA inventory, paying the LLC’s formation invoice from your personal account, or lending the LLC money are all reportable.

The dollar amounts land on a pro forma Form 1120 that wraps the Form 5472. The 1120 is a near-blank cover form — it carries your name, EIN, and a note that Form 5472 is attached.

This is the part that confuses most Amazon sellers. You are not filing a normal corporate tax return and you are not paying corporate tax through this form. You are filing a disclosure: who owns the LLC, what country they are in, and the dollar value of transactions between you and the LLC. Whether you owe US income tax on your Amazon profits is a separate question that depends on whether you have effectively connected income or a US trade or business — Form 5472 itself is reporting, not assessment.

The pro forma 1120 cover form

“Pro forma” means a placeholder. Only the top identifying lines of the 1120 are filled in; the income and deduction lines stay blank. Form 5472 is stapled behind it. Together they satisfy the §6038A requirement. Read the full mechanics on our pro forma 1120 page.

The deadline is the 15th day of the 4th month after the LLC’s tax year ends — April 15 for a calendar-year FBA business. Many sellers wrongly assume a slow store buys them more time; it does not. The extension to October 15 is a filing extension, not a payment extension, and a disregarded LLC has no entity-level tax to pay anyway.

There is no electronic filing path for a foreign-owned disregarded entity, which trips up sellers used to doing everything online. The only two accepted methods are mail and fax. From outside the US, fax is usually faster and gives an instant transmission confirmation you can save. Whatever you choose, it must arrive by the deadline.

If mailing from abroad feels risky given Amazon’s deadlines, a specialist can prepare and file it for you for a flat $299 — start on the apply page.

This is one of the harshest information-return penalties in the tax code, and it does not care that your Amazon store is small or unprofitable. Because there is no statute of limitations on an unfiled information return, a year you skipped three years ago can still be assessed today. Two missed years can mean a starting penalty of $50,000 before any add-on amounts. Read the full rule on the Form 5472 penalty page.

The good news: filing on time costs nothing in IRS fees. The penalty only exists for missing the form or filing it materially wrong, which is exactly why getting it prepared correctly matters more than the price.

Doing it yourself is free but unforgiving — the $25,000 penalty applies to an honest mistake or a missed deadline just the same. For a flat $299, form5472.tax prepares your Form 5472 and pro forma Form 1120, reviews it, and files it correctly, saving $248 versus form5472.online and far more versus bundled providers.

See the side-by-side on the pricing page.

The single most common mistake is believing a dormant or low-revenue Amazon store is exempt. It is not — funding the LLC already created a reportable transaction. The second is attempting to e-file; the third is forgetting the form entirely because it does not feel like a “tax return.” The fourth is filing Form 5472 by itself without the pro forma 1120 cover, which the IRS will not process correctly.

For a complete, beginner-friendly walkthrough aimed at online sellers, see our guide for e-commerce founders, and if you sell on more than one platform, the Shopify seller guide covers the same rules.