Personal Word from Fred

[friedrich5000]

"Getting proper Banking for a Disregarded Single Member Pass Through US LLC without any substance is definitely way harder and more expensive compared to the entire Setup we are offering right now."

completely false

I've opened bank accounts in Capital one and Bank of America (these are real banks) for single member foreign owned LLC and it was very simple and fast, only thing is that you need to travel to the branch in person and best if you have ITIN number. Do you have any real experience with US banking ?

This setup doesn't make much sense in my opinion,

Banks outside the US are not keen on US LLC's either simply because of the Reporting Requirements.

are you trying to tell us that its easier to get banking for panama corp than for US LLC ? Panama is blacklisted isnt it.
Extra reporting requirements for US entity (FATCA) apply if members are US citizens, non-us members its no reporting or limited reporting.

 

[zbio]

Difficult to open a bank account fot US LLCs? I opened a Mercury bank account few weeks ago with my residential address in the UE...

The process is extremely easy

 

[Cloudbanck]

I have a friend living in Argentina who opened an account with Mercury for a US LLC two weeks ago. Took 24 hours.
EMIs have gotten a little bit more tricky with the address for US LLC owned by non-US residents, but it's still totally doable.

There are still tons of EMIs across the world that accept US LLC owned by non-US residents. My list:
For US LLC: Mercury (US), Levro (US), Airwallex (SG), Verifo (Lith), Zen (Lith), Ebury (UK), Zyla (US based, Chinese owned), Bancoli (US), VertoFX (UK), Currencies Direct (UK), FV Bank (Puerto Rico), Yoursafe (NL), Ecommbanx (CY), Paysera (UK), Pingpong (China), Meow (US), Rho.co (US), Novo.co (US), Lili.co (US), Relay (US), Bluebanc (US), Narvi (Finland ?), Satchel(Lith ?)

And as someone mentioned, one can also go to the US and open an account at a traditional bank in the US.

 

[Fred]

Yes like mentioned here - proper US Banking with Personal Visit in the US - lots of people here in the forum can't even get a Visa to the US.

I don't understand how you can compare EMI Banking with proper Retail Banking what we offer to the Forum.

I'm happy that you are happy with your US LLC Setup - no bad feelings at all - same as I'm happy to provide Forum Users with our new 0% Tax Offshore Panama Setup.

I understand that this Forum tends to have a self dynamic either in the one or the other direction - I know this when back then everyone was moving to Dubai and was going for our DLS Dubai Service.

At the end I can just say that what we are providing is working and that every client is getting what he is looking for and that's what it is about at the end of the day.

Don't do the mistake a lot of people including me did in the past with Dubai having this one and only holy grail.

 

[drysponge]

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.

You dont have to search for very long on here to find threads with people complaining about their EMI accounts getting closed restricted or rejected
its facile to state its easy/hard to open (and maintain) these accounts, depends on your situation and your businesses needs.
i also think its a moot point, what freds offering and a chase business account you went to the branch to open have different use cases.

Extra reporting requirements for US entity (FATCA) apply if members are US citizens, non-us members its no reporting or limited reporting.

heres the fatca definition of a us person

The term “U.S. Person” means a U.S. citizen or resident individual, a partnership or corporation organized in the United States or under the laws of the United States or any State thereof, a trust if (i) a court within the United States would have authority under applicable law to render orders or judgments concerning substantially all issues regarding administration of the trust, and (ii) one or more U.S. persons have the authority to control all substantial decisions of the trust, or an estate of a decedent that is a citizen or resident of the United States. This subparagraph 1(aa) shall be interpreted in accordance with the U.S. Internal Revenue Code

an llc fits this definition regardless of who the members are, i don't know requirements are getting reduced from being foreign owned.

 

[Fred]

You dont have to search for very long on here to find threads with people complaining about their EMI accounts getting closed restricted or rejected
its facile to state its easy/hard to open (and maintain) these accounts, depends on your situation and your businesses needs.
i also think its a moot point, what freds offering and a chase business account you went to the branch to open have different use cases.

heres the fatca definition of a us person

an llc fits this definition regardless of who the members are, i don't know requirements are getting reduced from being foreign owned.

I was just about to mention this as well.

US LLC with some kind of EMI is for sure fine for some people however you shouldn't compare EMI Banking with proper Transactional Retail Banking with a Walk-In Branch - yes you can open a local US Bank Account however you need to be able to get a US Visa and have expenses for for the Account Opening as well as for the Travelling.

Reporting requirements are in place for sure - that's why most EMI's are not keen to touch the US as it means additional Reporting Requirements for them.

Again if you are fine with a US LLC and a WISE Account and it's working for you that's not a problem.

However accept the fact that a 0% Tax Panama Offshore Company with a Nominee Director Setup and a Transactional Retail Bank Account with a Crypto Cash Out Scheme is by some people required as well and especially for such purpose you should stay away from the US as far as you can for several obvious reasons.

I'm looking forward that in a couple of weeks DLS Offshore Clients are reporting back how things are working out for them and I'm very sure that our clients are going to be happy and get what they are looking for same like back in the days with DLS Dubai.

 

[zbio]

Us llc works perfectly for many online enterpreneurs depending where you establish your tax residency.

I live now in bkk and most businessmen are using US LLC with mercury, EMI, and traditional US banks (after having some months of bankimg history with Mercury it seems it is easy to open a traditional bank account if you travel to the US, I havent done it yet).

Some people I have met here also have or had a Dubai company. Most of them are closing those companies. They say there is no need to have expensive and over complicated set ups when you can just go for a US LLC.

But I guess that solution does not fit for many.

 

[Cloudbanck]

US LLC with some kind of EMI is for sure fine for some people however you shouldn't compare EMI Banking with proper Transactional Retail Banking with a Walk-In Branch

About traditional Banks vs EMIs.

My life time record is that I have had 20 bank accounts in 7 countries, about 2/3 EMIs and 1/3 traditional banks. I have had 1 account closed down and that was a traditional bank in the UAE. And another one was a UK traditional bank (TSB) where I got this:

​

Dear Cloudbank

We’ve cancelled your Internet Banking access

Thank you for getting in touch about your Internet Banking access with User ID

We’ve now cancelled your Internet Banking service, as you requested. Please visit tsb.co.uk if you decide you’d like to register again.

​

Like wtf, I never asked them to close down my internet banking.

Never had any problems with EMIs either for personal or business accounts. This is of course just one anecdote, but both traditional banks and EMIs have to follow the same regulations, and Im not sure if one looks at overall statistics the risk of getting closed down is lower with a traditional bank.

But beside the risk of getting your accounts closed, traditional banks definitely cause more hassle. They can ask you to come into a branch office to sort out some basic issue - which can be a problem if you live on a different continent to the closest branch. And traditional banks seem to treat international transfers as something complicated requiring a bureaucratic process, while EMIs typically do it in one click and with lower spreads/fees.

I recently had a traditional bank randomly set the limit for international transfers to zero. I had to spend hours on phone calls back and forth with them to raise the limit, and they still only raised it to the amount I said was a typical transfer.

Back in 2001 I realised that it would be nice to have a bank with no branch offices, so they are forced to have good internet banking where everything can be sorted out online, and they can never ask you to come in to a branch office. So I closed down my retail account at a traditional bank and opened an account at a niche bank that was internet (and phone) only (the concept of EMIs didnt exist at the time). Was super happy with that experience, and have mainly banked with EMIs ever since, just 1/3 with traditional banks, and all my banking headaches have come from traditional banks.

Also EMIs are increasingly getting banking licenses blurring the difference between traditional and EMI. Like Revolut are planning on offering mortgages in Ireland this year.