Yes. There is no citizenship or residency requirement to own a US business. You don't need a visa, a green card, or a US partner.
What you can't do is finance it the way most American buyers do. The SBA loan — the standard instrument behind a large share of US small-business acquisitions — is now completely closed to you, and it closed harder in 2026 than it ever has been.
That single fact reshapes everything about how a non-resident acquisition actually works. Here's the honest picture.
The SBA door is shut — and it's worth understanding how shut
For decades, SBA-guaranteed loans (the 7(a) and 504 programmes) required a business to be at least 51% owned by US citizens, nationals, or lawful permanent residents. Non-residents were largely excluded, but structures involving a US-citizen partner existed.
That changed in stages:
- In March 2025, SBA policy moved to requiring 100% beneficial ownership by US citizens, nationals, or lawful permanent residents. Any ownership by anyone outside those categories made the business ineligible.
- In December 2025, a notice briefly allowed up to 5% ownership by non-resident foreign nationals or citizens/residents living abroad.
- That was rescinded. Effective 1 March 2026, businesses must be 100% owned by US citizens or US nationals whose principal residence is in the United States or its territories. Lawful permanent residents — green card holders — were removed from eligibility entirely. Even a 1% stake held by anyone outside that definition disqualifies the whole application.
(Verified against SBA policy notices and multiple current sources, July 2026 — this area has changed four times in eighteen months and could change again, so confirm the current rule before acting.)
Two things follow. First, do not build a plan around an SBA loan, and be sceptical of anyone who suggests a workaround — the rules now require lender certification on beneficial ownership, and misrepresenting ownership on a federally guaranteed loan application is a serious matter, not a technicality.
Second — and this is the useful part — SBA exclusion is not the same as being unable to buy. The SBA is one financing instrument. It is not the only one, and for the size of business most of our readers target, it's not even the most common structure.
What you can legally do
You may own a US LLC or corporation as a non-resident. You may own 100% of it. You may buy an operating US business through it. None of that requires immigration status.
What ownership does not give you: the right to live in the US, the right to work in the US, or any immigration benefit whatsoever. Owning a company and being permitted to enter and work in the country are entirely separate systems. Anyone implying that an acquisition creates a visa path is misleading you — that's a question for a licensed immigration attorney, and the honest answer for most people is that ownership alone confers nothing.
You can, however, own a US business and run it from abroad. Thousands of people do.
How non-resident acquisitions actually get financed
Cash. Simplest, and more common at the small end than people expect. Businesses in the $50k–$300k range are frequently all-cash deals. If you're moving that capital from abroad, see our article on paying legally from your country — the exchange-control question is often the real constraint, not the acquisition itself.
Seller financing. The workhorse of non-resident acquisitions, and the structure to understand best. The seller accepts part of the price at closing and the remainder over time, secured against the business. Structures commonly involve a meaningful deposit and the balance over a period of years with interest, sometimes with performance conditions.
Why sellers agree: it widens the buyer pool, it can improve their total price, it may spread their tax, and — for a seller who cares what happens to the business — it keeps them invested in the transition. Why it works for you: it doesn't require a US lender to approve you.
What makes a seller say yes to a foreign buyer specifically: a serious deposit, evidence you can operate the business, a clean and fast process, and a personal relationship. This is a trust sale. Sellers of small businesses are people, not credit committees, and they choose buyers they believe in.
Earn-outs. Part of the price paid from future performance. Useful where you and the seller disagree on valuation. Requires careful drafting — this is genuinely a lawyer's job, not a template's.
Conventional (non-SBA) lending. Harder for non-residents but not impossible, particularly where the business has hard assets or you have a substantial US banking relationship and credit profile. Expect larger deposits and more scrutiny. This is where a real US credit file — see our credit article — starts to pay for itself.
Partnering with a US operator. Genuine partnership where someone with US presence runs operations and holds real equity. Legitimate, common, and useful. Note carefully: this is a real partner with real ownership and real involvement — not a nominee whose name is used while you actually control everything. That distinction is the entire difference between a structure and a misrepresentation.
The realistic capital picture
Honest numbers, because this is where people are most often misled.
Small online businesses — content sites, small e-commerce, small SaaS — commonly trade at a multiple of annual profit, frequently in the region of 2–4x for smaller and less established assets, higher for larger, cleaner, faster-growing ones. Multiples vary enormously by category, quality of earnings, traffic concentration and platform risk. Don't anchor on a number from an article; look at current listings in your category.
What that means practically: a business earning $50,000 a year might sell somewhere around $100,000–$200,000. With seller financing you might need 30–50% at closing — so realistically $30,000–$100,000 of your own capital for a business at that scale, plus working capital, plus deal costs.
If you're reading this with $5,000, the honest path is: build the foundation, build credit, grow your own income, and target the acquisition in a couple of years. That's not a brush-off — it's the difference between buying something real and losing your savings on something broken.
Where the businesses are
Marketplaces where small US online businesses trade include Flippa, Empire Flippers, Acquire.com, Motion Invest, Quiet Light and BizBuySell for offline businesses. Each has a different quality bar and fee model, and none vet as thoroughly as buyers assume.
Off-market — approaching owners directly, or through brokers and networks — is where better prices usually live, and where less competition sits. It's slower and requires more work.
A word on marketplace listings: the numbers in a listing are the seller's numbers. Verification is your job, and it's the job most first-time buyers do least well.
Due diligence: what actually matters
For a small online business, in rough order of importance:
Prove the revenue independently. Not screenshots — direct read-only access to Stripe, the bank account, the ad platform, the analytics. Screenshots are trivially edited and routinely are.
Understand traffic and its concentration. Where does it come from? One SEO keyword, one ad account, one referral partner, one platform? Concentration is the most common hidden risk in online businesses. Check the search-visibility history for a cliff that coincides with a Google update.
Test the customer concentration. If three clients are 70% of revenue and one has a relationship with the founder rather than the business, you're buying a much riskier asset than the P&L suggests.
Find out why they're selling. The stated reason is often incomplete. Declining trend, a platform policy change coming, a supplier problem, a legal issue, burnout that reflects a genuinely unpleasant business.
Establish what transfers. Domain, trademarks, content, code, supplier relationships, ad accounts, social accounts, email list — and whether platform terms permit the transfer at all. Some accounts genuinely cannot be transferred, and that discovery belongs before closing.
Check the operational reality. How many hours a week does it actually take, and can it be run from your time zone? Some businesses look passive and are not.
Use escrow. Always. Escrow.com or the marketplace's own service. Never send funds directly to a seller you met online, however convincing.
And engage a US attorney for the purchase agreement. Not a template. The asset-versus-share-purchase decision alone has consequences worth many times the legal fee.
The tax and structure question
You'll usually acquire through a US entity rather than personally. Which entity, and how it's taxed, is a real question with real consequences — and the answer differs depending on whether the business generates US-source income and whether you'll have US employees or offices. An acquisition of an operating US business is far more likely to generate effectively connected income than a passive structure.
That changes your US filing position materially. Get a cross-border CPA involved before you structure the deal, not after you've closed. This is the single most common expensive mistake in non-resident acquisitions.
The honest timeline
- Foundation and credit: 6–12 months if you're starting from nothing
- Finding the right business: 3–6 months of genuine searching
- Diligence and negotiation: 1–3 months
- Closing and transition: 1–2 months
Somewhere between one and two years from standing start to owning a business, done properly. Faster is possible if you already have capital and a company. Much faster usually means you skipped the diligence.
Should you do this yourself?
You can. People do. The marketplaces are open, escrow services are public, and diligence is a discipline you can learn.
Do it yourself if: you have the capital, you're buying something small and simple, you have time to learn, and you can afford for the first one to go badly.
Get help if: it's a meaningful portion of your net worth, the deal involves seller financing you need structured properly, you're moving capital across a border with exchange-control implications, or you've never done diligence on a business before.
What advisory actually buys you is deal flow, valuation discipline, structuring the seller-financed portion, running diligence properly, and being the person who says "walk away" when you've fallen in love with a listing. That last one is worth the fee on its own.
What we do
We provide buy-side advisory — sourcing, valuation, diligence, structuring seller financing, LOI through close, and the transition. For qualified clients, we also offer co-investment through our Equity Partners programme — direct equity in specific deals, never pooled funds. Our fee structure is public on our pricing page: a retainer plus a success fee.
We can't promise you a deal, and we won't take you on if your capital position means the honest answer is "build first, buy later." We'd rather tell you that in the first conversation than take a retainer for a search that can't close.
Keep reading
Before you buy, make sure your US entity is structured correctly — our guide to choosing the best US state for your LLC covers the Delaware vs Wyoming decision. Once you've acquired, you'll need a US business bank account — our guide covers the top rejection causes. And for your annual US filing obligations, read our Form 5472 guide — the $25,000 penalty for non-filing applies regardless of whether your LLC had income.
For more context, see visa options for owning a US company.