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

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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.
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.
 
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
 
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.
 
Novel bank I don't recommend I applied and after 40 days they replied that they can't onboard me
Did they charge you any setup / application fee ?
 
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.
How many business accounts did you end up with, and did you find other banks not listed here?
 
How many business accounts did you end up with, and did you find other banks not listed here?
Just Wise and Airwallex, though Wise disabled my account due to cryptocurrency related transactions. Mercury also ended up opening an account for my business, but since they only offer a USD account I have no use for it for now. Other than that, all the others either rejected me or kept my application pending.

Airwallex is serving me well, so I have not explored any other alternatives.
 
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Reactions: koohl and ilke
Thats a great resource ! I'd like to thank you as well :)
I was thinking, do we (as EU citiznes, with a US LLC) have to have a US bank account as our main account? Can i just select a bank or EMI in the EU?
 
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