Can a non US citizen open a business bank account for a company registered in one of the states? Yes, with the right bank you can. But the answer depends far more on which bank you pick than on your passport or your home country. Some banks want you in a branch. Others never ask you to leave your desk, and a few won’t talk to you until you have an address in the country.
Between the two of us we’ve opened nearly 10,000 accounts for companies over roughly twenty years. For this piece we went back to Bank Index, the open directory we run for banks and payment firms, and read what 14 US banks and fintechs say about owners who live abroad. We researched those cards in September 2026. The spread between them surprised us. We marked every card that needs a branch visit.
What every non-US owner needs first
Every US business account starts outside the bank, with a company formed in one of the states and a tax number for that company. That tax number is called an EIN. The IRS issues it to the company, not to you. Sort out both before you apply anywhere, because no bank on our list will open an account for a company that doesn’t exist yet.
After that the bank looks at the people behind the company. Everyone who owns a quarter or more gets an ID check. So does the one person in charge of it. For you that usually means a passport, a home address and a date of birth, checked the same way a bank would check anyone walking in to open a personal account, so keep those three details identical everywhere.
SSN, ITIN and a US address, explained simply
Two short abbreviations decide a lot of what follows, so it helps to know them before you read any bank’s rules. An SSN is the Social Security number that American citizens and people allowed to work in the country carry for life. An ITIN is a separate tax number that the IRS gives to people who need one for taxes but can’t get an SSN.
Most founders who live abroad have neither of them. That’s normal and no reason to quit.
The third thing every bank on our list cares about is an address, and founders abroad tend to lose the most time on it. Some want a street address inside the country for the business, for the owners or for both of them at once. Others take a home address in Lagos. That detail reshapes your whole shortlist.
Why your address matters more than your passport
Most founders expect citizenship to be the problem, and in the cards we read it almost never is. The friction comes from a local address, a local tax number for the owners and a visit to a branch in person. Each bank’s help pages list them.
A founder in Berlin or Bangalore rarely has any of them on day one, and getting even one can take weeks of paperwork and waiting. The same company gets opposite answers. It also explains a pattern we noticed across the 14 cards: the providers that publish clear rules for owners abroad are almost all fintechs, and the big banks mostly leave you to learn the rules in a branch.
The big banks: a US number, a US address or a visit
The large national banks treat a foreign owner as an exception to their usual process. Most of them publish the conditions somewhere deep in their help pages, a few clicks away from the product page you landed on. You have to go looking for them. We compared the six big-bank cards side by side for this piece, and only Bank of America said outright that no SSN is needed.
Chase is the most direct of the group. Its card says “Chase requires an SSN or ITIN and a residential address for every owner”, and “multi-member LLCs and entity-owned businesses must apply at a branch”. Picture a two-founder LLC with one owner in Lisbon and the other in Seoul, both without any US number or US address. That company is stuck before page one.
Bank of America is softer on tax numbers. Its card notes that foreign owners don’t need an SSN, but they do need a physical address in the country and an appointment at one of the bank’s financial centers. So you still have to fly in. We don’t know the wait for appointments.
Wells Fargo runs two paths for one account. Online, it wants a tax number and address. Everyone else brings government ID to a branch and opens the account there, in person, with a banker who may or may not have seen a file like yours from your part of the world before.
Capital One is strictest of all on residence. Its card says applicants have to be legal residents with a tax number, and that alone rules out most founders abroad. The business also needs a street address, not a post office box, and we found no exception for foreign owners anywhere on the card.
US Bank publishes no route for owners abroad. Its card only describes accounts sold through its own branches and its website, and we found nothing there for a founder living abroad.
Citi is the hardest bank here to read. Its business application sits behind the citi.com login, and the card notes that “a non-resident owner cannot see whether they qualify”. We find that more frustrating than is reasonable. You can’t read the rules first.
Online banks that still close the door
Being an online bank doesn’t make a bank open to foreign owners, and two of the cards we read make that very plain. Both of them catch founders off guard.
Axos Bank opens business checking online with no initial deposit, and on its product page that sounds like an easy start for anyone. Then, a few lines further down, the card adds the condition that matters most for anyone living abroad: “A business signer must be a US resident with a physical US address and a Social Security number”. It also says “Non-resident aliens without a US address are excluded”. That slightly undercuts the easy start, we think.
SoFi goes even further than Axos on residence. Its card says it “cannot support individuals or businesses residing outside the United States”, and that rule covers US citizens living abroad too. It offers no small-business account at all.
Where foreign owners do get in
The picture changes once you move to the fintechs built for remote teams. These providers publish their country rules openly, and most of them run the whole application online from start to finish for you. That can save you a flight. We counted five fintechs on our list that take owners abroad with a fully online application, with no branch and no flight.
Mercury is the clearest example on our list. Its card says “US-registered companies with founders living abroad apply fully online”. It also accepts a home address abroad. Refusals follow a published list of prohibited countries of residence, so check yours on that list before you start the form.
Bluevine runs a separate page for owners abroad. It names supported countries and conditions. The card adds a caveat, that “not all features are available to international customers”, so read the full feature list before you plan payroll, company cards or supplier payments around that account on day one.
Wise has the widest reach of this group. We checked its excluded list against the card. “Registration is online from most countries”, and the card names places it doesn’t serve, such as Cuba, Iran, Myanmar, Russia and Syria. Local account details cost a one-off GBP 50.
Payoneer goes wider still in its own filing. “Online registration is offered in more than 150 countries”, it says, and a receiving account opens once your documents are in. It probably suits freelancers who bill American clients.
Airwallex and Revolut sit somewhere in between those two. Airwallex only takes companies registered in its own fixed list of countries and territories, so check the list before you apply. Revolut accepts US-registered companies but limits the applicant’s country of residence, and “Applicants from other countries go on a waiting list”.
A bank account for a foreign owned LLC: what makes the file easier
Everything here starts with paperwork that agrees with itself, page by page. The EIN letter, the state filing, the operating agreement and the ownership chart should all show the same names and the same shares. Reviewers spot it when they don’t.
Keep fresh address proof on file for every owner. Then write one plain paragraph about your business. Say what you sell, and to whom. Say where the money comes from and how much you expect each month, then reuse that paragraph word for word on every form at every bank you try, from the first application to the fifth. A company that sounds different on each application looks like a different company to the person reading it at the bank.
Settle the address question as early as you can. Several big banks want a local street address, and Mercury accepts a home address abroad, so the choice shapes your first application.
How to open a US business bank account online as a non resident
For an owner who lives abroad, the fintech route is the realistic one for now. From the 14 cards, Mercury, Bluevine, Wise, Payoneer and Airwallex all take online applications from owners abroad, each with its own country list. Revolut does too for the places it accepts.
The big banks are a different story for remote founders. Wells Fargo’s online path needs a US taxpayer number, Bank of America wants an appointment and Chase sends many LLC structures to a branch. In our view a founder abroad should treat a big-bank account as a later step, once someone on the team has a local address or number and the company has a little US revenue to show the bank.
A non resident business bank account still has limits, even at a fintech that welcomed your application in the first place. Some cards and rails stay closed. Every provider can also review your file again after opening, so expect questions after a funding round or a change of owners.
Mistakes that slow foreign owners down
The most common delay we know of is a mismatch between documents. Say the operating agreement shows two equal owners and the ownership chart you attached shows a 60/40 split between the same people. A reviewer will stop right there.
Another slowdown comes from applying in the wrong order. The usual advice to start with the biggest bank in town turns out to be wrong for owners abroad, judging by these cards. A founder who starts with a bank that needs a branch visit can lose weeks before learning the door was shut from the beginning. Read each provider’s residence rules first.
A thin description of the business causes the rest, because the reviewer has to come back and ask what you do. “Consulting” or “e-commerce” tells a reviewer almost nothing. Name your clients, your countries and your expected monthly volume instead, and you’ll get far fewer questions back from the bank later.
How BankStore fits in for founders abroad
We started BankStore after watching founders apply blind to banks that were never going to accept them. Our business bank account page puts the idea in one line: “Compare banks by jurisdiction, business model, risk appetite, and requirements before you apply”. The comparison comes first, the application second.
Our bank matching tool builds the shortlist for you. You answer a few questions about your country, industry and product, and it ranks the providers most likely to say yes to a company like yours out of more than 1,400 on the platform. Ranking by country saves founders abroad time.
What a shortlist can’t change for you
No list changes a bank’s appetite for risk. If a provider won’t serve your country of residence, the answer stays no however tidy, complete and consistent your documents look. Our own page says as much: “BankStore does not guarantee account opening”, and every decision stays with the bank.
Country lists also change over time without much warning. Mercury and Wise both publish theirs. Both can edit them whenever they like. That is a guess about the future, of course, but we’d check the list again right before you submit anything at all.
Where this is heading for non-US founders
We expect the split to hold for a while yet. The big banks will probably keep tying business accounts to local addresses and tax numbers, for owners and for companies alike. The fintechs will keep competing for founders abroad with online applications and published country rules, because that is where their growth comes from.
For a founder outside the US we think the sensible plan is a fintech account first and a big-bank account later, once the company has a footprint in the country and a person who can sit in a branch. One question still stays open, though. Each provider decides case by case, and nobody we checked publishes how many foreign-owned applications it approves or turns down each year.
