If your goal is to simply set up a merchant account, you don't need to register a corp/LLC. You can just go to your local city hall and obtain a DBA (doing business as). The DBA will allow you to open a bank account, which in turn will allow you to open a merchant account.

Long-term, I would advise to register an umbrella corp/LLC and obtain a DBA for each of your websites. In my experience, most banks do not understand that a single company can operate multiple domain names so eventually you end up with multiple corporations and LLCs just so that you can maintain multiple merchant accounts. DBAs are a much simpler and cheaper way to get around this.

The main benefit of this setup is that you can still do offline work (e.g. consulting) where you live. Since you are required to foreign-quality in every state you do business in, it wouldn't help you to incorporate in Vermont if you have local clients in another state - you'd just be doubling your paperwork, yearly filing fees, taxes, etc.

I am selling online, and I am not even American, and I never been in America before!

Apply for Employr identification no., and then apply for PayPal Payments pro. It will cost you around $30/mo.

Also you can have it hosted on Yahoo! stores/ small business - which is invented by PG - former known as viaweb :D

I think this is a good, fast and reliable solution for you.

Did you get a bank account in the US? If so, how?

This question comes up so frequently on another forum I made a blog post about it years ago. To the best of my knowledge it still works.

http://www.kalzumeus.com/2007/08/15/banking-for-the-uisv/

Good question!

I asked my best friend - which is American - to do it using her personal info, so she created a bank account specially for it, and she applied for EIN, for the taxes.

I am from Egypt, and Paypal is not even enabled for Egyptians, so it could be impossible for me to do it, without the help of "someone American".

Thanks for info! For the same reason (PayPal for businesses is not available in Russia), I have a reseller contract with a company that accepts payments, including PayPal.

I think that Godaddy offers a service for international merchants who want to sell online. I am not sure if their service is reliable or not, but it's expensive anyway.

If you know someone American who trust you so much and vice versa, then you can do the same I did. Believe me, I never met that friend in real life, because I never been in America!