I'm buying a place in Florida. Should I hold it personally, in an LLC, in my Canadian company, or in a trust?

It depends on the axis, and this page lays out each rather than picking for you. Start with what none of them changes: under Reg 20.2104-1(a)(1) the US estate-tax situs of real property turns on where the property is. What a vehicle does change is what you’re holding when you die. For corporate shares a regulation settles that rather than the statute, and for an interest in an LLC or a partnership nothing retrieved here settles it. A trust isn’t compared, because no trust source was locked.

Does this have to be decided before the closing?

No deadline in the classification regulation forces it. Deciding later still costs something, and several of those costs sit in that regulation. An election reaches back only 75 days from the day it’s filed. An election that changes an existing classification bars another for sixty months unless the Commissioner permits one, while an election by a newly formed entity effective at formation isn’t a change at all. And Reg 301.7701-3(g) deems an elective change to transfer the assets, so switching can move the property with or without a deed. The withholding regime sits on transfers of US real property.

• The election reaches backward from the filing, not forward from the closing. The effective date you request “can not be more than 75 days prior to the date on which the election is filed and can not be more than 12 months after the date on which the election is filed”, and an election naming an earlier date “will be effective 75 days prior to the date it was filed” (Reg 301.7701-3(c)(1)(iii)). Read to the end of paragraph (c), the regulation states no deadline for filing the election at all, and its only acquisition-dated rule is about a subsidiary acquired under section 338 rather than about buying real property. The 75 days is measured backward from the filing date, so it caps how far back an election can reach rather than running from any other event.
• A change costs a lockout that an election at formation doesn’t. An entity that makes an election “to change its classification” then “cannot change its classification by election again during the sixty months succeeding the effective date of the election”, while “An election by a newly formed eligible entity that is effective on the date of formation is not considered a change for purposes of this paragraph” (Reg 301.7701-3(c)(1)(iv)). The same paragraph says the Commissioner “may permit” an earlier change where more than fifty percent of the ownership interests, measured “as of the effective date of the subsequent election”, are held by people who owned none on the filing date or on the effective date of the entity’s prior election, which is a discretion the regulation gives the Commissioner rather than relief you can plan on.
• Withholding on a later transfer runs off the price rather than the profit. IRC 1445(a) requires the buyer to “deduct and withhold a tax equal to 15 percent of the amount realized” (IRC 1445). The section opens “Except as otherwise provided in this section”, and its exceptions are specific rather than general. Two of them run on the transferee’s own occupancy and the price: no withholding where “the property is acquired by the transferee for use by him as a residence” and the amount realized doesn’t exceed $300,000 (IRC 1445(b)(5), lifted by (b)(1)), and 10 percent substituted for 15 percent on the same use where the $300,000 exemption doesn’t already apply and the amount realized doesn’t exceed $1,000,000 (IRC 1445(c)(4)). Both key on the transferee acquiring the place for use as a residence, and on a move into an LLC or a corporation the transferee is the entity, so nothing here establishes that either exception reaches that transfer. Don’t read a sub-$300,000 move into your own LLC as outside the withholding. IRC 1445(e) is headed “Special rules relating to distributions, etc., by corporations, partnerships, trusts, or estates”, and the “etc.” is load-bearing: (e)(5) is a disposition rule rather than a distribution rule. It reads “To the extent provided in regulations, the transferee of a partnership interest or of a beneficial interest in a trust or estate shall be required to deduct and withhold under subsection (a) a tax equal to 15 percent of the amount realized on the disposition”. Whether regulations have been issued under it wasn’t checked here, so nothing on this page settles whether (e)(5) reaches your move in either direction. Getting FIRPTA withholding back owns those mechanics, and whether a given move into or out of an entity is a disposition is fact-specific.

What does holding it in my own name actually do?

It puts every consequence on you, and settles the situs question the LLC route leaves open. There’s no separate interest to locate, because what you hold is the property. Liability runs under state law, which this page doesn’t source, so anyone calling personal ownership safe or unsafe is citing something else.

• Rent, with both bases in one place. IRC 871(a)(1) puts a flat 30 percent on the gross rent with no deductions against it, “but only to the extent the amount so received is not effectively connected with the conduct of a trade or business within the United States”. The section 871(d) election takes rent that “but for this subsection, would not be treated as income which is effectively connected” and moves it to graduated rates on net income after deductions (IRC 871). Different bases, so those two percentages aren’t comparable on their own, and which of the two you want is a separate decision.
• Estate situs, settled by regulation rather than by statute. Property of a nonresident who wasn’t a US citizen is US-situs if it is “(1) Real property located in the United States” or “(2) Tangible personal property located in the United States …” (Reg 20.2104-1), so the condo and the furniture are both inside. IRC 2104 has no real-property subsection at all, which is why the citation is the regulation. What the exposure costs is on US estate tax for Canadians; no dollar estate-tax figure appears here.

What does a US LLC change, and what does it leave open?

It changes how the entity is classified for US federal tax, it changes nothing about where the property sits, and it leaves the largest question in the decision open. A domestic LLC doesn’t default to a corporation. Under Reg 301.7701-3(b)(1), unless the entity elects otherwise, a domestic eligible entity is “A partnership if it has two or more members” or “Disregarded as an entity separate from its owner if it has a single owner”.

• The default has two branches. One member means disregarded. Two or more means a partnership, and then what you hold is an interest in a partnership rather than the property. A domestic LLC appears nowhere in the per se corporation list, which Reg 301.7701-3(a) itself cites as Reg 301.7701-2(b) (1), (3), (4), (5), (6), (7), or (8), leaving out (2) because that paragraph is the elective association route. So corporate treatment has to be asked for.
• Asking is a filing with a condition attached. A single-owner eligible entity “can elect to be classified as an association or to be disregarded as an entity separate from its owner” (Reg 301.7701-3(a)), it goes on Form 8832, and “An election will not be accepted unless all of the information required by the form and instructions … is provided” (Reg 301.7701-3(c)(1)(i)).
• Foreign entities run the other way, which matters if a Canadian entity is in the structure: a foreign eligible entity defaults to “(B) An association if all members have limited liability” (Reg 301.7701-3(b)(2)(i)).
• How Canada treats a US LLC isn’t derivable from this regulation, and that treatment is why the route has its reputation. The US LLC problem for a Canadian resident covers it.

Here’s the part the incumbent pages answer and shouldn’t. IRC 2104, IRC 2105, Reg 20.2104-1 and Reg 20.2105-1 were each read to the end of every enumerated item, and none of them enumerates an interest in a partnership or an LLC as a class of property and gives it a situs. IRC 2104 is stock at (a), certain revocable and within-three-years transfers at (b), and debt obligations at (c), and that’s the whole section. IRC 2105 runs to life insurance, bank deposits and certain debt obligations, works of art on loan, and a regulated investment company provision that’s dead by its own terms for deaths after December 31, 2011. Where a partnership does turn up in the enumeration, it turns up as an obligor or a depositary rather than as something the decedent holds. The word itself appears twice, both times in Reg 20.2105-1: at (j), for “deposits with a branch outside of the United States of a domestic corporation or domestic partnership”, and at (m)(1), where “the primary obligor on the debt obligation is a domestic corporation or domestic partnership”. IRC 2105(b)(2) uses it the same way, for deposits with a foreign branch. And a domestic partnership is reached without the word being used, once in each of the two regulations and through the same defined term: Reg 20.2104-1(a)(7) gives US situs to a debt obligation whose primary obligor is “A United States person (as defined in section 7701(a)(30))”, Reg 20.2105-1(k)(1) uses that identical phrase on the not-US-situs side, and IRC 7701(a)(30)(B) is “a domestic partnership”. Banking branches and debt obligations, in other words. None of those places is about a partnership interest held by the decedent.

There is a rule in the neighbourhood, though, and it’s why this is an open question rather than a blank. Reg 20.2104-1(a) enumerates eight classes of US-situs property. The two quoted earlier on this page are the first two of the eight, and the fourth is residual, subject to the specific exceptions elsewhere in it and in Reg 20.2105-1: “intangible personal property the written evidence of which is not treated as being the property itself, if it is issued by or enforceable against a resident of the United States or a domestic corporation or governmental unit” (Reg 20.2104-1(a)(4)). The obligors that paragraph names are a US resident, a domestic corporation and a governmental unit. A domestic partnership isn’t among them and neither is an LLC. The paragraph’s own parenthetical points the same way rather than the other, saying those specific exceptions give it “relatively limited applicability” for deaths on or after November 14, 1966. Both facts point away from the paragraph reaching an interest in one of those. Neither of them says it doesn’t, and nothing retrieved here says it does, so this page doesn’t resolve it.

Silence isn’t an exemption, and neither is an unresolved rule. “No rule that names it” and “not US-situs” are separate claims, and only the first has a source. So this page doesn’t tell you an LLC interest sits outside your US gross estate, and it doesn’t tell you it sits inside. Both answers rest on case law and rulings that weren’t retrieved here, which is what makes it the biggest open question. A check-the-box election doesn’t settle it either: no source retrieved here bridges Reg 301.7701-3 to IRC 2104 or IRC 2105, so what an election does to situs is unsourced in both directions.

What does putting it in my Canadian corporation add?

Possibly two layers of US tax, plus a Canadian charge for using the place. IRC 882(a)(1) reaches “a foreign corporation engaged in trade or business within the United States during the taxable year” and taxes it on income effectively connected with that business, so the first layer turns on that predicate rather than on ownership. IRC 884(a) then adds “a tax equal to 30 percent of the dividend equivalent amount” on top. A treaty ceiling of 5 per cent can cut that second rate, but only for a qualified resident under IRC 884(e)(1), a test on the facts, and it isn’t simply 5 per cent of the statute’s base.

• The 5 per cent isn’t automatic on Canadian residence. IRC 884(e)(1) says no treaty “shall exempt any foreign corporation from the tax imposed by subsection (a) (or reduce the amount thereof) unless (A) such treaty is an income tax treaty, and (B) such foreign corporation is a qualified resident of such foreign country”. IRC 884(e)(4)(A) supplies the qualified-resident test, which turns on who owns the company and where its income goes. That test has to be run on the facts, and this page doesn’t run it for you in either direction. The ceiling also measures the earnings it caps its own way, so it isn’t simply 5 per cent of the statute’s base.
• The ceiling has its own measure. It sits in Article X(6), whose rate was cut from 10 per cent to 5 per cent by Schedule IV Article 5(1); that instrument replaces the rate and nothing else, so the rest of the paragraph is the text as originally enacted. For a company that meets the qualified-resident test, IRC 884(e)(2)(A)(i) substitutes the treaty rate into the statutory computation, and 884(e)(2)(B) applies the treaty’s other limitations as well: the paragraph’s own words put the tax on earnings “attributable to permanent establishments” and then measure those earnings its own way, so the ceiling isn’t simply 5 per cent of the statute’s base. A quote showing 30 percent alone for a Canadian company has left the treaty out, and a quote showing 5 per cent alone has left the treaty’s conditions out.
• There’s a Canadian charge too, and it doesn’t come from US law. ITA 15(1) includes in a shareholder’s income “the amount or value of the benefit” where “a benefit is conferred by a corporation on a shareholder”, and ITA 15(7) carries subsection 15(1) to a shareholder of a non-resident corporation. Whether personal use of the company’s condo is that benefit, and what it’s worth, is what What a US rental inside a Canadian corporation costs, and how to get out is for.
• The estate answer really is different here, because of what you hold. Shares are US property “only if issued by a domestic corporation” (IRC 2104(a)), which is a necessary condition rather than a deeming rule, and the affirmative placement is regulatory: foreign-corporation stock sits outside US situs “regardless of the location of the certificates” (Reg 20.2105-1(f)), with the mirror for domestic stock at Reg 20.2104-1(a)(5). The property underneath stays US-situs; the shares sit outside.

So which vehicle should I use?

That’s your call, and these are the axes. Read the table one cell at a time; cells get quoted back later. The trust column is deliberately empty: no trust source was locked for this page, so a trust is outside what this page can compare.

The question	In your own name	US LLC, one member, no election filed	Canadian corporation	Trust
What is the vehicle for US federal tax before any election?	Nothing to classify: personal title means there’s no entity, so US federal tax runs straight to you	Disregarded as an entity separate from its owner under Reg 301.7701-3(b)(1) where it has one member and no election has been filed; with two or more members the same paragraph makes it a partnership instead, and neither default is a corporation	Not classified here: which rule puts a particular Canadian company in the foreign-corporation category wasn’t sourced. IRC 882(a)(1) reaches a foreign corporation only where it is engaged in trade or business within the United States, and then on income effectively connected with that business	Not compared here, because no trust source was locked for this page
Is the US real property itself US-situs for estate tax?	Yes. Real property located in the United States is US-situs under Reg 20.2104-1(a)(1), and the furniture in it under (a)(2)	Yes, and a one-member LLC with no election filed doesn’t change the answer, because Reg 20.2104-1(a)(1) makes US situs turn on where the property is located	Yes, the property stays US-situs under Reg 20.2104-1(a)(1) even though the corporation is what holds it	Not compared here, because no trust source was locked for this page
Is the situs of your interest in the vehicle settled?	There’s no separate interest to locate, since what you hold is the property	No, and that’s the answer with one member or with several: IRC 2104, IRC 2105, Reg 20.2104-1 and Reg 20.2105-1 name no situs rule for an interest in an LLC or a partnership, and the residual intangibles rule at Reg 20.2104-1(a)(4) names a US resident, a domestic corporation and a governmental unit as its obligors, and neither a partnership nor an LLC is among them, so it stays UNCONFIRMED in both directions	Yes, and it points away from the US: shares are US property only if issued by a domestic corporation (IRC 2104(a)), and foreign-corporation stock is placed outside US situs by Reg 20.2105-1(f)	Not compared here, because no trust source was locked for this page
Does the vehicle add a second layer of US federal tax?	There’s no entity layer to add, so the US tax on the rent lands on you	Not while it stays a one-member LLC where no election has been filed, which Reg 301.7701-3(b)(1) disregards; file Form 8832 to elect corporate treatment and you’ve created one	Maybe. IRC 884(a) adds a tax equal to 30 percent of the dividend equivalent amount on top of the IRC 882 tax, and the 5 per cent treaty ceiling (Article X(6), operative text Schedule IV Article 5(1)) isn’t automatic on Canadian residence: IRC 884(e)(1) allows no treaty reduction unless the company is a qualified resident under 884(e)(4)(A), and the ceiling is expressed on earnings attributable to permanent establishments and measures them its own way, so it isn’t simply 5 per cent of the statute’s base	Not compared here, because no trust source was locked for this page
Can personal use trigger a Canadian shareholder benefit?	There’s no corporation for ITA 15(1) to attach to, so this axis is empty	Not sourced here, because it depends on how Canada classifies a US LLC and Reg 301.7701-3 doesn’t answer that	ITA 15(1) attaches where “a benefit is conferred by a corporation on a shareholder”, and ITA 15(7) carries it to a shareholder of a non-resident corporation; whether personal use of the property is that benefit is left to the sibling guide	Not compared here, because no trust source was locked for this page
Does the vehicle protect me from liability?	Not answered here. Liability is state law and this page sources federal tax only	Not answered here. Reg 301.7701-3 is federal tax classification and says nothing about state-law liability	Not answered here, for the same reason: state-law liability is outside what this page sources	Not compared here: no trust source was locked, and state-law liability is outside what this page sources for any vehicle

UNCONFIRMED in that table means unconfirmed, and it isn’t rounded into a “no” elsewhere on the page. The liability row gives the same answer in all four columns on purpose, because a federal tax classification regulation is the wrong instrument for a state-law question.

What’s left is a trade, and this page won’t make it for you. Personal ownership answers every tax question in the table and answers them as direct tax exposure, with no entity in between to change the tax answer. The Canadian corporation changes what you hold at death, and against that it carries a first US layer where the company is engaged in a US trade or business, a second layer whose treaty ceiling depends on conditions this page can’t test for you, and a Canadian benefit charge to be worked out on the facts. The LLC leaves its central estate question open, which is neither a debit nor a credit until somebody sources it.

What should I do next?

Two moves, in this order. Write down what the place is for and how long you expect to hold it, then put it in front of whoever advises you. Then choose the vehicle before title moves, because changing it later transfers US real property again, and even without a deed an election is deemed to transfer the assets under Reg 301.7701-3(g), on top of a sixty-month lockout. Weigh the LLC option with its situs question open. If the place is seasonal, what a snowbird’s Florida condo actually triggers covers the residency side, and the corridor page for Canadians buying US property has the running order.

This guide is general information, not tax advice for your specific situation. Which points apply, and how, depends on your facts.