I tried opening a US business account in 18 EMIs, here's the result

luckystar said:

I have opened half a dozen Mercury and Relay accounts easily for US companies for non-US owners with addresses outside US in three different industries. The difficulty factor was about the same (quite easy). Between the two, I prefer Relay, though their support can be very slow to respond. I found the response time improves after you have an approved account, however I never tracked response times so this statistic could just be my imagination.

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Why you prefer Relay?

Mercury has very attractive currency conversion if paid by debit card in other currency than USD. I paid around 0.2% fee. ATM withdrawal in foreign currency should be favorable, but I haven't tested it yet.

12345 said:

Mercury has very attractive currency conversion if paid by debit card in other currency than USD. I paid around 0.2% fee. ATM withdrawal in foreign currency should be favorable, but I haven't tested it yet.

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Apart from mastercard / visa fees?

Dylan Walsh said:

I'll definitely also try Airwallex if I open a U.S. LLC

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They are good and have been reliable the last 5 years for us.

One of my friends' businesses was rejected by Airwallex, and Mercury closed the account after 1 year (even with US operations).

Not sure why, maybe because US operations were with another non-resident US entity.

All legal, EU citizenship

Novel bank I don't recommend I applied and after 40 days they replied that they can't onboard me

janet25 said:

I have a US LLC, am non-resident in the US, and signed up to 18 different EMIs.

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Not sure if somebody asked already, but what state is your LLC incorporated in?

I asked a bunch of EMIs where we didnt have clarity if they would open an account for a US LLC. Here are the responses:

Statrys:
"At Statrys, we primarily onboard companies that are incorporated in Hong Kong, Singapore, or the British Virgin Islands, although there are some exceptions. For your US LLC, we encourage you to submit your application through our website, and our dedicated onboarding team will review your business profile and get back to you with the next steps."

Verifo:
"Please be informed that the US companies with [EU country] UBO are acceptable, but before providing confirmation we need additional information on company’s activities."

Interpolitan:
"Business account: Like above, the business can be registered anywhere that is not sanctioned, other than the US. Unfortunately, due to tax reasons we cannot onboard US entities. If your business had an entity registered elsewhere, we would be able to onboard that."

Narvi:
"We appreciate your interest in opening a business account with us.
Please send an application from the front page of narvi.com.
Our compliance team will review your application and keep you informed."

So only a clear no from Interpolitan. Definitely a possibility for the others (even if Statrys seems a longer shot), depending on citizenship and residency of the owner, and activities and size of the US LLC.

very useful post @Cloudbanck - nice to share with us.

Thanks for publishing the list. This is very helpful.

I presume you have an EIN. Do you also have an ITIN?

12345 said:

Novel bank I don't recommend I applied and after 40 days they replied that they can't onboard me

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Did they charge you any setup / application fee ?

One more:

Amnis based in Switzerland International Payments with the #1 Platform - fast & simple | amnis
"Unfortunately we do not support this setup. We only onboard USD LLC when the UBO/Director is resident in the US as well. But thank you for your request and your interest in our service."

JohnLocke said:

Did they charge you any setup / application fee ?

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no, fortunately

And a more positive one:

Paysera, https://www.paysera.com/ from the UK
"Yes, you are able to open a business account with us for your LLC. In order to do so, you need to first open a personal Paysera account"

janet25 said:

I have a US LLC, am non-resident in the US, and signed up to 18 different EMIs.

This is the result after a week:

1. 3S Money - Asked for $20 to process my application + it charges $100 a month for having the account open
2. Airwallex - Approved
3. Brex - Rejected because I have no venture capital (startup focused apparently)
4. Currenxie - Doesn't offer services to US businesses
5. Juni.co - Doesn't offer services to US businesses
6. Mercury - Application still pending
7. Novel - Application still pending
8. Payoneer - Wants the withdrawal account to be in the LLCs name (no point having the account then)
9. Paypal - Doesn't offer services to US businesses to non-residents
10. Paysera - Doesn't offer services to US businesses
11. Payset - Doesn't offer services to US businesses
12. Relay - Won't accept my proof of address because it's not in english. Support doesn't answer through e-mail
13. Revolut - Doesn't offer services to US businesses
14. Satchel - Asked way too many questions about where funds would come from, how much and where they would go to before even opening the account
15. Stratys - Doesn't offer services to US businesses
16. VertoFX - Application still pending
17. Wallter - Asked for 500 EUR to open the account
18. Wise - Approved

Hopefully this helps others in the future.

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How many business accounts did you end up with, and did you find other banks not listed here?