ahmed, among all these comments the one by ari_1 is the only one i would attest to. i am not a u.s. citizen nor a resident but i was in u.s. as a graduate stu

ahmed, among all these comments the one by ari_1 is the only one i would attest to. i am not a u.s. citizen nor a resident but i was in u.s. as a graduate student between 2007 and 2010. i formed my company http://www.pratimaanllc.com http://www.pratimaanllc.com in 2009 and went through the situations that you are considering. i even have an eVerify number so that i can hire persons with valid work permit in the u.s. who are not u.s. citizens or residents. my company was originally an industrial design firm but i found many people interested in the basic questions that you are faced with. i re-geared my company to provide start up services like the ones you require. no matter what, a company in the u.s. needs to be bound to a human's Social Security Number (SSN). A company can be formed by the Employer Identification Number (EIN) of another company which, in itself can be tied to an EIN of another and so on. but eventually there is a human's SSN tied to this arrangement. forming a foreign company's u.s. subsidary is common and easy in every state due to the reforms in 2008 where practically every state adopted simpler procedures and "Uniform Corporation Codes". it is so simple that many state governments have a daily limit (15 or 20) on the number of companies that can be created with the same SSN or EIN. yes, a daily limit means that there are people registering more than 15 companies daily with the same SSN. the most crucial component is a manager within the u.s. who carries out the "fiduciary" obligations partnering to the company's daily operations. you don't have to explain all these operations and the managers'complete role at the time of incorporation. but you really ought to do thin in an "operating agreement" which basically a document maintained at the company premise explaining the company's bylaws, rules, regulations, roles etc. depending on the state, registering a company can take between $50 to $300 as a processing fee taken by the secretary of state's office. as a personal observation, states on the west coast and the east coast are the most expensive, the central ones are the cheapest. i registered my company in iowa, another one in seattle and one ind washington d.c. i'm operating them from india. all these offices were merely to grab market share based on the services i am providing and for giving my employees a sense of belonging and ownership. i'm an industrial engineer and i believe that work must inculcate such a notion in a worker. but what you really ought to consider is, why do you actually need an office and bank account in u.s.? do you expect more than 5 daily transactions? is you plan to accumilate these daily transactions at the u.s account and transfer them to yourself in egypt monthly to avoid transaction fees? something like that does make sense but... to start out, using paypal would be a valid and worthwhile advice. all the paper work takes time, money and will remove you from the actual process of dealing with your customers and providing them the service/product they need. all the u.s. banks have weird hidden fees and shopping for banks is an arduous task which, is also a very serious managerial decision. if you want to chat more send me a hollar on my company's website. but as ari_1 suggested, concentrate on proving Market Value Proposition before dealing with the backend processes that companies eventually need to handle. wish you all the best, sam khan