Can a foreigner buy a house in the USA?

What the law actually requires

Nothing about your nationality. Non-residents can hold US residential real estate in their own name or through an entity, and there is no federal register that turns you away for holding a foreign passport.

The restrictions that do exist are narrow and mostly not about properties. Several states limit foreign-principal purchases of agricultural land or property close to military installations. Residential property in a major city is almost never affected.

• No citizenship, green card or visa requirement for residential purchase
• Ownership can be personal or through an LLC or other entity
• State restrictions target farmland and land near defence sites, not city condos
• Beneficial-ownership disclosure has tightened: entity structures now report who ultimately owns them

Paying for it is the hard part

Most non-resident purchases are cash, because financing is the bottleneck. Lawful permanent residents and holders of qualifying work visas can usually get the same conforming mortgage a citizen gets. A non-resident with no US credit file generally cannot, and instead uses a foreign-national portfolio loan: commonly 25% to 40% down and a point or two above conforming rates.

Cash across a border means a wire, a correspondent bank, a compliance review and a settlement window measured in days. Every one of those is a place the purchase can stall, and none of them care that the money is good.

The taxes nobody mentions until closing

Two withholding rules catch foreign owners by surprise, and both are worth understanding before you buy rather than after.

On rental income, the default treatment for a non-resident is a flat 30% withholding on gross rent, before any expense is deducted. An election to treat the income as effectively connected with a US trade or business changes that to net-basis taxation, which is usually far better, but it is an election you have to make.

On sale, FIRPTA requires the buyer to withhold a percentage of the gross sale price, 15% in the common case, and remit it to the IRS. It is withheld on the price, not on your gain, so it can exceed the tax actually owed and be recovered later by filing.

• 30% default withholding on gross rental income for non-residents
• FIRPTA withholding on the gross sale price when a foreign person sells
• Estate tax exposure for non-residents is a separate and much harsher regime
• A US tax adviser who handles international clients pays for themselves here

Where a stablecoin changes the picture

The legal right to own has never been the barrier. The friction is in the rails. A stablecoin transfer settles in minutes, at any hour, without a correspondent bank deciding whether your wire looks unusual.

On USDC Homes the property is held by a single-purpose LLC, and that LLC's entire membership is one token. Buying the token is buying the whole property, and it settles onchain in USDC. You are not wiring dollars into an escrow account in a country you have never visited.

That does not make the tax questions go away. Withholding on rent and on sale still applies to the underlying property, and holding through an entity has its own consequences. Take advice before you buy, not after.