Calculator · structure × residence · Edition 2026.09
How much tax would you pay on your international company's profit, depending on where you live?
Three levels, in this order: the company's profit, corporate tax where the company sits (if any) and what you pay where you live when you distribute it. Choose your residence, enter the profit and compare nine structures; then open the one you care about.
Isaac Cubero · Checked on 14 September 2026
What is possible
Nine structures, living in Spain.
Estimated total burden on profit, lowest to highest, split into its three levels. Click a structure to open its entry.
The entry
US LLC, living in Spain.
On $120,000 of profit, the LLC pays nothing in the US and you pay $42,194 in Spain: 35.2% in total. Distribution does not change the figure.
Sources: IRC § 871 and § 6038A; IRS, Form 5472 instructions (foreign-owned disregarded entities).
Look-through entity: it pays no federal tax if it has no US activity, and its profit counts as yours in the year it arises, distributed or not. That is why distribution changes nothing here, and why it is the cheapest structure to run.
The LLC is a look-through entity (general income tax scale, distributed or not). Foreign companies are respected as such when effectively managed, with real means, abroad; the dividend goes to the savings scale. If the company is passive or has no substance, the CFC rule (art. 91 LIRPF) attributes the profit to you without any distribution.
- A single non-resident owner, no ETBUS, Form 5472 filed every year.
- All the profit is taxed as your personal income even if left in the LLC's account.
- If your country treats the LLC as opaque (or as resident by effective management), it is taxed like a local company.
- Employees, an office or a dependent agent in the US create ETBUS and the 0% disappears.
- The 0% applies to foreign-source income. If the LLC collects interest, dividends or rent from a US payer, that passive income bears a 30% withholding (§ 871(a)) even without ETBUS.
Methodology
Three levels, one rule per level, no substance in the figures.
What it models:a company with a single individual owner, with no activity or permanent establishment in their residence country. The LLC is treated as transparent (taxed as your income in the year it arises, distributed or not). The rest as companies: corporate tax where they sit, withholding at source if any, and the dividend in your residence with credit for withholding where the country allows it. The "company in your country" uses the general corporate rate and your residence's dividend taxation.
What it leaves out:substance. If the company is effectively managed from your country, that country can treat it as resident and tax it in full; if it is passive and without means, CFC rules attribute the profit to you without distribution. Nor does it include director's social security, salary, formation and running costs, or wealth taxes.
Rates:2025/2026 in each jurisdiction's currency, converted with fixed exchange rates. Edition 2026.09, checked on 14 September 2026. Residences share data and verification status with the LLC calculator.
Frequently asked questions
Which three levels does the calculator compute?
First, corporate tax where the company sits (0% in a transparent LLC or a qualifying free zone, 10% in Bulgaria, 22% on distributions in Estonia). Second, withholding at source when the dividend is paid, if any (5% in Bulgaria and Georgia). Third, what you pay in your residence country on that dividend, with credit for withholding where the country allows it.
Why is the LLC not always the cheapest?
Because it is transparent: all the profit is taxed as your personal income in the year it arises, at your country's progressive scale, even if you do not withdraw it. An opaque company pays its corporate tax and the dividend is then taxed at a rate that in many countries is lower than the general scale (Spain 19-30%, Portugal 28%). From a territorial country, however, the LLC wins: 0% at the top and 0% at the bottom.
What if I do not distribute the profit?
In an LLC nothing changes: you pay the same. In Estonia and Georgia you pay no corporate tax until you distribute. In the other companies you pay corporate tax and defer the dividend. The "how much you distribute" control shows the effect; what is retained appears as "stays in the company, untaxed for now", not as savings.
What about substance?
It is not in the figures and it is what decides the case. If you manage the foreign company from your country with no office, management or spending there, your country can treat it as its own resident and tax it in full, or attribute the profit to you under CFC rules even if you do not distribute. A local company is the only structure where that risk does not exist.
Cite and reuse
Each structure's rules and the engine, downloadable.
- JSON · StructuresCorporate tax, withholding, assumptions and sources for each structure, in two languages.
- JSON · ResidencesDividend and local-company rule for each residence country.
- Calculation engine · JavaScriptThe same functions this page uses.
Data and engine licensed underCC BY 4.0.
Suggested citation
Cubero, Isaac. International company tax by residence. Cheq Capital. Edition 2026.09, checked 2026-09-14. https://cheqcapital.com/en/international-company-tax-calculator/ CC BY 4.0.
Before choosing
The cheapest structure on the ladder is not always the one you can defend.
If you only care about the LLC, the LLC-by-residence calculator has the full entry for each country. To compare jurisdictions by bureaucracy and treaties, the Global Incorporation Index. And to decide, the guides by structure.