US Business Bank Account for Non Residents

Two rules do most of the rejecting. Neither is about your business. Mercury names 48 banned countries and will not open an account for a founder living in any of them. The other rule is your address. It catches people whose country was never the problem.

You have the LLC. You have the EIN. Those were the easy parts.

Below are the three published rule sets, side by side. Each was read at the provider's own help centre on 9 August 2026.

Your country decides more applications than your paperwork does. Mercury and Relay both publish denylists. Every country they do not name is allowed. Bluevine works the other way and publishes an allowlist of 25 countries, so a country it leaves out is a no.

That one difference causes most of the confusion. Take two founders. A Vietnamese founder reads that Mercury welcomes international founders, applies, and is turned down, because Vietnam sits on a list he never saw. A Thai founder assumes Bluevine is US only, so he never applies, and Thailand is on the allowlist.

The table below holds every country named on either denylist. There are 53. Twenty two are blocked by Mercury and not by Relay. Two are blocked by Relay and not by Mercury.

Both lists were read on 9 August 2026. Mercury puts Cuba, Iran and North Korea under sanctions rather than on its main list. It adds the Russian occupied regions of Ukraine, naming Crimea, Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia. Both lists change. Read them the morning you apply.

Read Mercury's list and Relay's list in full. The framing differs. Relay calls its list terms set by its banking partner, and Mercury calls its own a risk policy.

Bluevine only takes an owner living in one of 25 named countries. Everything else is out. It also turns down sole proprietorships and nonprofits, so the entity has to be an LLC or a corporation with an EIN.

Source, Bluevine for international business owners, read 9 August 2026.

One finding is worth saying plainly. Every country on that allowlist also sits outside Mercury's banned list. So Bluevine opens no door Mercury has already shut. Pick it for its offer, not for access it does not add.

Your registered agent address is not one these providers will accept. Mercury says it in one sentence. The principal place of business may not be a registered agent, a P.O. box or a UPS Store address. Relay wants a second operating address if your legal address is a registered agent, and that one must not be another registered agent.

This is the quiet one. A founder abroad forms in Wyoming or New Mexico. The formation service hands him an address. He puts it on the banking application, because it is the only US address he has. It is also the exact thing being screened for.

What each one will take differs enough to matter.

Read at each provider's own documentation on 9 August 2026.

Mercury solves this one cleanly. It will take your home address in Sao Paulo or Nairobi. You do not need a US address at all. That is the fact most rival pages get wrong.

A related question has a different answer. Which mail forwarding address survives a bank check at all turns on the USPS commercial mail receiving agency flag, not on any one provider's policy. Our iPostal1 review covers what a CMRA address is and why it gets caught.

No provider here asks a non resident owner for a Social Security number. Three name the passport instead. What splits them is how they trace ownership and how they want the ID sent.

Read at each provider's own help centre and terms on 9 August 2026.

Mercury and Relay both trace ownership through holding companies. Say a Cyprus holding company owns half your LLC, and two people own half of that. Both of them are 25 percent owners. Both get checked. Naming the holding company will not do.

Relay adds a format rule that costs people a day. Photograph the passport, do not scan it. Keep all four corners in frame. Use PNG, JPG or JPEG. It also turns down Proton Mail addresses at signup.

Found will not open an account for a non resident. It says so plainly. Its help centre states that Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers are not accepted and a valid SSN is required. Its account terms limit eligibility to US citizens and lawful permanent residents with a US physical address.

An ITIN does not rescue this one. That surprises people. An ITIN solves plenty of other US tax problems. Here it does nothing.

Novo sits in between. Its guidance says non US owners may give a passport, an ITIN or a foreign ID number. That is softer than a policy. It never states a non resident route the way Mercury and Bluevine do. Try it after the two that publish a clear one.

Match your country to a list. Then match your address to a rule, and the order falls out by itself. There is no single best answer here. Eligibility is doing the choosing, not features.

Mercury is the default if you live outside the US. That is on eligibility, not on features. Its base plan carries no required monthly fee, and deposits are FDIC insured up to $5M through its partner banks and their use of sweep networks. Mercury is a fintech company, not an FDIC insured bank. Banking services provided through Choice Financial Group and Column N.A., Members FDIC.

Bluevine is the alternative if your country is on its allowlist. Its international offer is the strongest here. It suits a real balance. Bluevine is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services are provided by Coastal Community Bank, Member FDIC.

Relay earns its place for one reason. It permits 22 countries that Mercury does not. Ask about the personal address requirement before you apply. Relay is a financial technology company, not a bank, and banking services come from its partner bank.

Twenty nine countries are prohibited by both Mercury and Relay. None is on Bluevine's allowlist. So no provider we test publishes a route for a founder living in one. Bosnia and Herzegovina is one of the 29, which is why that r/llc thread never resolved.

We are not going to invent a way round it. The honest answers here are hard. The dishonest ones cost founders money.

What is true is that these rules ask where the founder and the money person live. Not the passport. Not the state you filed in. Refiling in Wyoming changes nothing. Nor does a new registered agent.

A compliance service can still help. It gets the rest of the file clean, the formation documents, the EIN letter, the ownership disclosure and the operating agreement. Then a decline is about the country rule rather than paperwork you could have fixed. Doola is the one on our tested list built for international founders, at $297 a year. It cannot override a country list and it does not claim to.

Some repeat rejections are not about your country at all. They are about documents. Put these six things in one folder first. Every provider on this page asks for a version of them.

That last one catches people out. Relay asks where the money that started the business came from, and for your annual personal income. Mercury asks for your source of funds and your US operations. Vague answers get sent for manual review, and that is where applications sit.

Once the account opens, the tax side arrives fast. A foreign owned single member LLC has to report every year, whether or not it earned anything. The penalty starts at $25,000. Our guide to Form 5472 for foreign owned US LLCs covers who files and what counts.

Yes. Mercury, Bluevine and Relay all take a passport instead of a Social Security number from a non resident owner. Bluevine says no US SSN is needed anywhere in its application. Found is the exception. It turns down both an ITIN and a foreign ID and wants a valid SSN. You always need an EIN for the business, which the IRS gives out free.

Almost always your country or your address. Mercury prohibits founders living in 48 named countries and Relay prohibits 31. Neither decision looks at your business at all. If your country is clear, check the address next. A registered agent address, a PO box or a UPS Store address is refused by every provider on this page.

No. Mercury says the principal place of business may not be a registered agent, a P.O. box or a UPS Store address. Relay wants a second operating address if your legal address is a registered agent, and that one must not be another registered agent. Mercury will take your real home address abroad. That is usually the simplest fix.

Not with these providers. Bluevine states that onboarding happens entirely online from any accepted country. Mercury and Relay both run fully remote applications. The in person rule people hit belongs to the retail banks. Bank of America, Chase and PNC all ask a non resident to finish at a branch.

Less than people expect. Found names ITINs as not accepted. Novo lists an ITIN as one option beside a passport and a foreign ID number. Mercury, Relay and Bluevine all run identity on the passport, not on a US tax number. Getting an ITIN just to open an account is usually work spent on the wrong problem.

Twenty nine countries are prohibited by both Mercury and Relay. None is on Bluevine's allowlist. No provider we test publishes a route for a founder living in one. These rules screen on where the founder and the financial controller live, so changing the state of formation or the registered agent changes nothing. Clean formation and EIN documents are still worth having.