We’re getting serious about starting up a business branch in New York! As a Belgian agency, we have the luxury that many associations can assist with your US expansions. I’m pretty sure every country has them, you need to find them. I encountered one of them by accident and then got redirected to each and all of them from there.
It’s easy to just go for it, it’s a bit more complex than that if you want to do it right and want to make sure you’re not banned from the US for doing some illegal stuff. We started by joining Belcham, a Belgian agency that offers assistance, office space, advice, and a strong network of same-minded businesses that also want to move, or already made the move to the USA.
There I learned all the different tax rates per state in the US, that tax rates depend on where you’re invoicing to and not where you’re invoicing from, and that there are multiple business formats with each their benefits or flaws. We’ve also found our legal and accounting partner through the Belcham network.
Besides Belcham, in Belgium we also have FIT. A government instance that gives advice and financial support for businesses that want to grow overseas.
You will need a lawyer to file all your required documents and register your business in your preferred state. We went for a corporation and the business structure is the following: Each corporation will need a Director, a President, and a Treasurer. They can all be the same person if needed, but you need to register a person who will be accountable for those titles. A heads-up: The President can only sign to start the firm through a notary. You’re not required to go to the USA for this, a notary in your country is fine too.
I still don’t know much about all that paperwork so to make sure I am not telling any lies, I will simply suggest searching for a lawyer and follow their assistance.
Starting a bank is another adventure. I wanted to hop by a bank and open a business account for our business, but apparently, the Belcham office that we have is not allowed. Banks don’t allow coworking spaces as legal addresses to open up a bank account.
That wasn’t even my first problem, also everyone who will receive authority over the bank account does need to be there in person. Compared to starting and registering the actual business, where everything is allowed remotely – for starting a bank account you will need to go the the USA physically. Which I did, but not with everyone who will receive access to the banking details of Weichie.com Inc.
We’re halfway there for our US adventure but we’ll get there! Opening a bank account is for the next chapter!