Your audience is global and a big slice of your views is American. Sponsors in Los Angeles want a contract with a company, and your merch store wants a US payment account. An LLC handles all of that. What it doesn't do on its own is change what YouTube takes from your US viewer earnings. This page shows both, with the numbers for where you live.
Pick your country: the statement, the estimator and the tax notes follow it.
Only earnings from US viewers are withheld. The rate is between 0% and 30%, set by your country's treaty.
YouTube's help page on US tax requirements for YouTube earnings sets out the rules. Every monetizing creator, anywhere in the world, has to give tax info. With it, a creator outside the US is withheld only on the part of earnings that comes from viewers in the US, and only on ad views, YouTube Premium, Super Chat, Super Stickers, Super Thanks and channel memberships. Without it the numbers get much worse. The estimator applies those rules with the copyright royalty rate the IRS lists for your country.
Rates: IRS tax treaty Table 1, income code 12 (copyright royalties), the category YouTube names for Partner Program earnings. Treaties carry conditions the table doesn't show, and Google applies the rate it accepts from your form. An estimate, not tax advice.
For US tax, a one-owner LLC is you. YouTube's withholding follows the owner, not the company's address.
Videos promising that a US LLC makes YouTube's 30% disappear skip one rule. A single-member LLC owned by a non-US person is a disregarded entity: the IRS doesn't see it as separate from you. The Form W-9 instructions say the foreign owner of a disregarded entity must give a W-8 instead of a W-9, even with a US tax number. An EIN, a Wyoming address and a US bank don't make you a US person.
So the honest picture for a creator abroad is this:
Three forms, one question: who is the owner of this income for US tax?
You, an individual, owning the LLC alone
A non-US company that owns the LLC, or is the payee itself
US persons only
Forms don't last forever. YouTube says its tax forms expire at the end of the third full calendar year after the year you signed: a form signed in March 2026 runs out on 31 December 2029. Put the date in your calendar, because an expired form means default withholding again.
Royalties are taxed where your content is used. Services are taxed where you do the work.
IRS Publication 519 sources copyright royalties by where the property is used and personal services by where they're performed. Each platform puts its payments in one of those boxes, which is why the same creator can see 15% taken on one payout and nothing on another.
| Stream | How it's treated | What gets withheld | What to do |
|---|---|---|---|
| YouTube ads, Premium, Super Chat, memberships | Copyright royalty YouTube calls Partner Program earnings "Other Copyright Royalties". | US viewer share only, 0% to 30% by treaty. No tax info: 24% of all earnings for an individual account. | Submit tax info before 10 December, claim your treaty rate, keep the 1042-S. |
| Twitch subs, Bits, ads | RoyaltyService Affiliates and Partners complete two tax interviews, one for each. | Twitch says up to 30% on certain payments to non-US persons, and up to 30% by default if the interview is missing or expired. | Finish both interviews, give your local tax number for a treaty claim. 1042-S arrives by 15 March. |
| Brand deals | Service for making the content; Royalty when you license it for the sponsor's own use. | Production done abroad: normally nothing. Usage rights used in the US: can be withheld like a royalty. | Split the fee on the contract and invoice. See Part 5. |
| Merch | Sale of goods | No income tax withholding by platforms in the usual setup. Sales tax is a separate question. | See Part 6. |
| Podcast sponsorships | Service for host-read ads you record abroad. | Normally nothing on work done abroad; a US network may ask for your W-8BEN. | Invoice from the LLC, give the W-8BEN in your name. |
Twitch figures: Twitch Help, tax interview and IRS reporting FAQ. Other platforms publish their own rules; read the payout terms of each one you join.
Split the fee: making the video is a service, letting the brand run it as an ad is a licence.
Say a US headphone brand offers you $8,000: one integrated video, plus the right to run your clip as a paid ad in the US for six months. You film it in your own studio. Two different things are being bought, and the tax rules treat them differently.
If the contract lumps everything into one "creator fee", the brand's payables team has to guess. Some will withhold 30% of the whole $8,000, $2,400, to be safe. Splitting the fee on the contract and the invoice, and giving a W-8BEN with your treaty claim, means any withholding falls only on the $2,000, at your treaty rate.
Two more lines worth asking for: payment within 30 days of posting, and who owns the raw footage. Sign as "Member, for the LLC", and send the invoice from the LLC with its US bank details. If you film on a trip to the US, that part of the work is US source; keep a note of where each shoot happened.
Sales tax follows the buyer's state, not your LLC's state.
The US has no national sales tax. Each state taxes sales delivered to buyers there, and since remote sellers can owe it without any presence, most states set an economic threshold. Wyoming's, from the Streamlined Sales Tax state table, is more than $100,000 of sales into the state in the current or prior year. Other states set their own figures.
Two more points that catch creators. Marketplace sales can count toward your own threshold in some states, Wyoming included, even though the marketplace collects the tax on them. And forming the LLC in a no-income-tax state doesn't make your merch sales tax free anywhere else.
One US account for everything the channel earns makes the year-end paperwork a lot shorter.
Platforms tie the tax form to the person or company that reports the income. Twitch's help page says the name on the tax form should be the person or organisation reporting the income on a tax return, and should agree with the signed contract and the payment details. For a single-owner LLC that person is you, so read each platform's payout settings before pointing payouts at the LLC's account: some let a business account receive them, others expect the payee to match the tax form.
These pay invoices, so they pay the LLC: ACH or wire into its US account. Setting up that account comes with every Heirson LLC; we complete the bank application with you, and it almost always goes through. The US bank account guide explains what each bank type asks for.
A US LLC with its bank account can apply for a US Stripe account, whose rule for a representative without an SSN is a tax number from home plus documents. See Stripe's country list to check whether your own country is supported first.
Where you live taxes your creator income under its own rules, LLC or not.
US withholding is not the end of the story. As a tax resident of your country, you're usually taxed there on your worldwide income, and how your country sees a US LLC decides whether the channel's profit is taxed as yours as it's earned, or as a foreign company's. Read our CFC rules guide before assuming the LLC keeps profit out of your home return.
The US side has a yearly form of its own: a foreign-owned single-member LLC files Form 5472 with a pro forma 1120 every year, even when it owes no US tax, and the penalty for missing it is $25,000. If your country has a tax treaty with the US, our double tax treaty guide explains what a treaty can and can't do for you.
Your audience never sees the state. Your yearly bill does.
Federal tax and YouTube's withholding are identical whichever state you form in. Pick on yearly cost and on how much of your name you want on the public record. For creators who've had a stalker or a doxxing scare, that second point matters.
Optional each year: Form 5472 and pro forma 1120 prepared for you, $179.
Delaware ($269, then $539 a year with its $400 tax), Florida ($254) and Nevada ($504) are available too; the comparison is on the US LLC guide. What a formation fee never covers: an accountant at home, and any sales tax registrations your merch may need.
Tick them off as you go. The IRS number sets the pace; everything else fits around it.
Yes. A non-US person can own a US LLC and run the channel's business through it: brand contracts, merch, the bank account and payment tools. For US tax a single-owner LLC is disregarded, so the tax info you give YouTube is still about you as the owner.
Not on its own. A single-member LLC owned by a foreign person is ignored for US tax, so YouTube's withholding on earnings from US viewers still depends on you: 30% with no treaty, lower if your country's treaty with the US cuts the rate and you claim it. Only if the LLC elects to be taxed as a corporation does it give a W-9, and then the LLC itself owes US corporate tax.
YouTube says it may refund US withholding in some cases if updated tax info is given by 10 December. Otherwise, keep Form 1042-S: many countries let residents credit foreign tax already paid against their own tax on the same income, under their own rules.
Usually not, if your country issues you a tax number. Twitch's tax help says a US number is needed for a treaty claim only when your local tax authority doesn't issue an income tax number; for individuals that US number is an ITIN.
New Mexico for the lowest yearly cost and no owner names on the state filing: $99 in year one and $69 a year after with Heirson. Wyoming if you prefer its longer record with banks: $181.40 in year one and $130.44 a year after.
A US LLC for sponsor contracts, merch and a US account, set up from wherever you film. We file it, get the EIN and open the account with you.
