Where to Send Form 5472 and the Pro Forma 1120

A foreign-owned US single-member LLC does not send its Form 5472 to the address printed in the general Form 1120 instructions. It uses a dedicated address at the Ogden service centre, and it may fax instead. Sending the packet to the ordinary corporate return address is the single most common delivery mistake in this filing, and it is invisible: nothing bounces, no one writes back, and the filer finds out when a penalty notice arrives for a return they believe they filed.

This page is the delivery instruction on its own. It says where the packet goes, what has to be in it, in what order, and how to prove it arrived.

Where a foreign-owned US LLC actually sends Form 5472

Mail the complete packet to:

Internal Revenue Service

1973 Rulon White Blvd, M/S 6112

Attn: PIN Unit

Ogden, UT 84201

Or fax it to 855-887-7737, at 300 DPI or higher.

Those are the two routes, and they are alternatives, not a sequence. Do not do both for the same year: two copies of one return arriving separately is how a filing becomes a duplicate-return enquiry. The Instructions for Form 5472 state explicitly that a foreign-owned US disregarded entity does not use the address given for filing Form 1120. That instruction exists because these packets are worked by a specific unit, and a packet arriving in the general corporate return stream is being handled by people who are not expecting a return with no tax on it.

There is no electronic filing route for this packet. A foreign-owned US DE that has no other reason to file cannot e-file its pro forma Form 1120, which is why the fax number exists at all.

Mail or fax: which to use

Both are accepted. The difference is what you end up holding afterwards.

|Route|What it costs|What proves you filed|How long it takes|

|Fax to 855-887-7737|The price of a fax|The transmission confirmation page|Minutes|

|Mail to Ogden|Postage plus certified mail|The USPS certified mail receipt|Days to weeks internationally|

Fax is the better choice for most foreign owners, for a reason that has nothing to do with speed. The proof is generated at the moment of filing and it is in your hands immediately, whereas international mail leaves a gap of weeks in which you have a receipt for a posting and no evidence of an arrival. The IRS does not acknowledge receipt of a Form 5472 either way. No letter comes back confirming it was filed, so whichever route you take, the record you create yourself is the only record you will ever have.

Fax at 300 DPI or higher. A standard-resolution fax of a form with small print and boxed digits can arrive with an EIN that cannot be read, and an unreadable return is treated as an incomplete one.

What goes in the packet, and in what order

Form 5472 is never filed on its own. It is an attachment to a return, and for a foreign-owned US disregarded entity that return is a pro forma Form 1120. Assemble the packet in this order:

1. The pro forma Form 1120, with Foreign-owned U.S. DE written across the top
2. One Form 5472 for each related party the LLC transacted with
3. Any Part V or Part VI statements, each immediately behind the Form 5472 it belongs to

Do not staple. If you are also sending a reasonable cause statement for a late filing, it goes on top, in front of the return itself, so the reviewer reads why before reading what.

The pro forma Form 1120 is deliberately almost empty. The only information required on it is the name and address of the foreign-owned US DE, plus items B and E on page 1. Items C and D, date incorporated and total assets, are not required. You may complete them, and if you do, they must agree with Form 5472 Line 1c and the formation date. Complete both or neither. The detail of every box is in what the pro forma Form 1120 actually requires.

Before you send anything, run through the full Form 5472 filing checklist. Delivery is the last step, and the errors that cost money are almost all upstream of it.

The deadline, and what it means for posting

The deadline is April 15 for a calendar-year filer, extended to October 15 by filing Form 7004. A disregarded entity uses its owner's US tax year, or the calendar year if the owner has none.

A faxed return is filed on the day the fax completes. A mailed return posted from outside the United States is a genuine risk near a deadline: allow real transit time, and if you are close to April 15 and posting from Lagos, Karachi, Manila or Dubai, fax instead. Missing the date exposes you to $25,000 per form per year under IRC §6038A(d)(1), whether or not the LLC had any income or owed any tax.

Keep proof, because nothing is sent back

Keep the transmission confirmation or the certified mail receipt with a complete copy of what you sent, and keep them together. A penalty asserted years later is answered with evidence of what was filed and when, and that evidence is entirely yours to produce.

Keep it for longer than you would keep an ordinary return. Under IRC §6501(c)(8), the period for assessing tax does not close until the required information has been furnished, so for a late or catch-up filing the clock starts when you file rather than when the tax year ended. How the statute of limitations works when Form 5472 was never filed sets out what that means for a year you have not yet filed at all.

If your LLC is foreign-owned with a single related party and standard transactions, filetax.co generates your completed Form 5472 and pro forma Form 1120 packet in under 15 minutes for $99, assembled in the order above and ready to print or fax.

Where to send a late return, and where a penalty response goes

A late Form 5472 goes to the same Ogden address or the same fax number as an on-time one. There is no separate address for delinquent filings, and there is no queue to join first. If you are filing several missed years, each year is its own complete packet with its own pro forma Form 1120, and a single reasonable cause statement can cover all of them. What the years cost you and which relief paths are open is set out in penalty exposure and the relief paths for a missed Form 5472.

A penalty response does not go to Ogden. If you have already received a CP15 or CP215 notice, it carries its own address and in most cases its own fax number, and your reply goes there rather than to the filing address, because a named person or unit is working that case. Send it where the notice says. The same applies to a Form 843 claim for abatement: it follows the notice, not the return. How Form 843 is used to ask for abatement of a Form 5472 penalty covers what that claim has to establish.

If your situation involves several years of unfiled returns, actual US-source income, or more than four related parties, an automated tool is not the right answer and a qualified CPA review is the appropriate next step.

Getting it in the right hands

Address the packet to the PIN Unit at 1973 Rulon White Blvd in Ogden, or fax it to 855-887-7737 at 300 DPI, and keep the confirmation with a copy of everything you sent. Those three things are the whole of the delivery step. Everything that goes wrong at this stage goes wrong because a foreign-owned US DE was treated as an ordinary corporation filing an ordinary Form 1120, and it is not one: it files a nearly empty return to a dedicated unit for the sole purpose of carrying a Form 5472, and the IRS routes it accordingly.

If you have not filed yet and the deadline has passed, file to the same address anyway. A late Form 5472 filed voluntarily, before the IRS makes contact, is a materially better position than one filed after a notice, and the difference is measured in the continuation penalty of $25,000 per 30-day period that IRC §6038A(d)(2) adds once the Service has notified you. filetax.co prepares the packet for $99 per year, with a reasonable cause statement covering every year in one document for $199.

Frequently asked questions

Where do I mail Form 5472?

Internal Revenue Service, 1973 Rulon White Blvd, M/S 6112, Attn: PIN Unit, Ogden, UT 84201. This is a dedicated address for foreign-owned US disregarded entities. The Instructions for Form 5472 state that these filers do not use the address given for Form 1120.

Can I fax Form 5472 instead of mailing it?

Yes. Fax the complete packet to 855-887-7737 at 300 DPI or higher. Faxing is filing, not a supplement to mailing, so do not also post a copy of the same year. The transmission confirmation is your proof of the filing date.

What is the IRS fax number for Form 5472?

855-887-7737. It accepts the pro forma Form 1120 with Form 5472 and any attached statements. Send at 300 DPI or higher, because a low-resolution fax of a boxed EIN can arrive unreadable.

Where do I mail Form 1120 for a foreign-owned LLC?

To the Ogden PIN Unit address above, not to the address in the general Form 1120 instructions. The pro forma Form 1120 filed by a foreign-owned US DE exists only to carry Form 5472, and it is worked by a different unit from ordinary corporate returns.

Can I e-file Form 5472?

No, not as a standalone foreign-owned US DE filing. There is no electronic route for a pro forma Form 1120 filed solely to carry Form 5472, which is why the IRS provides a fax number for it.

Does the IRS confirm it received my Form 5472?

No. No acknowledgement is issued for a mailed or faxed Form 5472. The only proof of filing is the one you create: a fax transmission confirmation, or a USPS certified mail receipt, kept with a complete copy of the packet.

Where do I send a late Form 5472 for a previous year?

The same Ogden address or the same fax number. There is no separate address for delinquent filings. Send each year as its own complete packet with its own pro forma Form 1120, and put a single reasonable cause statement covering all of them at the front.

Where do I mail Form 843 for penalty abatement?

To the address on the notice you are responding to, not to the Form 5472 filing address. A penalty notice is worked by the unit that issued it, and a claim sent to the return address instead can sit unmatched to the case.

Should I use certified mail?

Yes, if you mail. The IRS sends no acknowledgement, so a certified mail receipt is the only evidence you will have that the packet was posted and delivered. From outside the United States, fax is generally the stronger option for exactly this reason.

I sent Form 5472 to the wrong address. What now?

Do not assume it was forwarded internally. Send a complete copy to the Ogden PIN Unit address or fax it to 855-887-7737, keep proof of the second sending, and keep your evidence of the first, which establishes an earlier date if the question of timeliness is ever raised.

Do I need to send anything to my state as well?

Yes, separately, and it is not covered by this filing. Form 5472 is federal. Delaware franchise tax, the California LLC fee and equivalent state obligations are filed with the state and have their own deadlines and addresses.

Related pages

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• Form 5472 Filing Checklist - What You Need Before You Start →

  Before starting Form 5472, gather these documents and data points. This checklist walks through everything needed to file correctly the first time.

• Pro Forma 1120: What It Is and Every Field You Complete →

  A Pro Forma 1120 is a Form 1120 filed as a cover sheet for Form 5472. It computes no tax. Only the name and address block, Item B and Item E are completed. Everything else stays blank.

• Missed Form 5472: Penalty Exposure, Relief Paths, and How Bad Your Case Actually Is →

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