US Banking Access Index for Non-Resident Founders (2026)
Which US business banking providers actually accept founders who live outside the US — documented from provider-published sources, not anecdotes. 19 providers,239 claims that survived independent re-verification against the original source pages. Where a provider publishes nothing, the cell says so instead of guessing.
Last verified: July 2026CC BY 4.0 — cite with attribution239 verified claims
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JSON carries the full evidence quotes · CSV is the acceptance matrix
Provider country lists change without notice
Re-verified quarterly against the source pages. Leave an email to get the diff when cells change — which providers opened, which closed, with the new source quotes.
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How to read this table
✓
Explicitly accepted
The provider publishes an acceptance statement covering founders resident in this country.
✕
Explicitly restricted
The founder is barred — but by three different kinds of evidence, from a named prohibited list down to a blanket rule that names no country at all. Every restricted cell says which; see below.
○
No published restriction
Not on the provider’s published restricted list, but no explicit acceptance statement either. Absence of restriction is not acceptance.
—
No published policy found
No citable provider-published policy found either way.
“No published policy found” is four different situations
39 of the 152 country cells resolve to unknown. Reviewing them together showed they were not one state but four, and the difference changes what you should do next — so every unknown cell now carries a second field naming which one it is, and a citation recording where we looked. “We could not find it” is only useful to you if you can see where we searched.
—
No policy published
The provider publishes no country-of-residence policy anywhere we looked. The citation on this cell is the page such a policy would live on.
—
Named, but not as residency policy
Provider material names this country — as a wire destination, for spend-management support, in marketing, or as a country of incorporation. None of those is evidence about founder residency.
—
Absent from a non-exhaustive list
The provider publishes a supported-country list that is explicitly non-exhaustive, so this country’s absence from it carries no information in either direction.
—
Provider pages conflict
Two live provider pages disagree and the provider publishes no single verdict. This is an unresolved conflict, not an absence of information.
“Explicitly restricted” is three different situations
61 cells resolve to restricted, and only 9 of them name the country on a published prohibited list. In 40, the provider names no country anywhere — the bar comes from a blanket rule such as “US citizens or permanent residents only”. The answer you get is the same in both cases, and it is correct in both. What differs is how much is published about you specifically, which is what you need if you plan to ask the provider or appeal. So each restricted cell now names its evidence type too.
✕
Named on a prohibited list
The provider publishes a prohibited or unsupported country list and this country appears on it by name. This is the strongest form of restriction evidence in the index.
✕
Absent from a closed eligibility list
The provider publishes an eligibility list that its own wording makes exhaustive — residence in a listed country is stated as a requirement, not an example. Absence from a closed list is a deduction from what the provider stated, not an inference from silence.
✕
Derived from a blanket rule
The provider names no countries anywhere. The restriction follows from a blanket rule — US citizens or permanent residents only, or foreign business customers cannot apply. The conclusion holds for the reader, but no country-level source exists behind this cell.
Acceptance by country of residence
Hover any cell for the underlying note. Country columns describe the founder's country of residence, not the LLC's state of formation. Full evidence quotes are in the JSON download and in each provider's detail card below.
Details column— one icon per dimension of the provider's card: owner ID, account rails, receiving from abroad, card issuance, onboarding, phone & 2FA. Color tracks the published state:green = published positive,amber = conditional or partial,red = published restriction,gray = no published statement. Hover for the value; click to jump to the cited sources.
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Provider details and sources
Mercury
Fintech
Accepts non-resident founders · Banking services via Choice Financial Group; Column N.A.
Entity requirement
Requires a company formed and registered in the US or a US territory with existing or planned US operations; foreign-owned US companies supported. MSBs, adult entertainment, cannabis, internet gambling, trusts excluded.1
Owner residency & IDPassport-based ID accepted
No US citizenship or residency required to apply, per provider's help center; international applicants may provide a passport as ID; SSN/ITIN not listed among required application documents.1 2
Account railsOwn ACH routing + account number
Demand deposit accounts with own routing and account numbers at partner banks Choice Financial Group and Column N.A.; customers hold direct contractual agreements with the partner banks.1 2
Receiving from abroad†Accepts inbound international wires
Accepts inbound international wires in 139 non-USD currencies via both partner banks, auto-converted to USD on arrival — the account cannot hold a non-USD balance. The inbound FX cost depends on which partner bank the account sits at: Mercury states Column N.A. "converts incoming funds to USD at the mid-market rate" while Choice Financial Group "uses third-party intermediary banks that typically add a 2-3% markup to the exchange rate." Choice accounts additionally require the sender to populate Remittance Information (Section 70) or the wire may be delayed or returned.1
Card issuance†Publishes a card country list
Publishes a two-tier card-issuance country list distinct from account eligibility. Tier 1 (31 countries incl. Nigeria, Vietnam, Russia): neither physical nor virtual cards issued to residents. Tier 2 (15 countries incl. China, India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Philippines, Nepal, Sri Lanka): physical mail blocked, virtual cards still issuable and usable immediately. Elsewhere international shipping runs via Deutsche Post (2-3 weeks); shipments to Bahrain/Israel/Kuwait/Oman/Qatar/Saudi Arabia/UAE paused at access date.1 2
FDIC structure
Not an FDIC-insured bank; pass-through FDIC insurance via Choice Financial Group and Column N.A. and their Sweep Program Network Banks. OCC conditional approval (April 2026) for Mercury to establish its own chartered bank is pending.1 2
OnboardingFully remote
Provider's FAQ states applicants need not be physically in the US or a US resident; required documents are formation documents, IRS EIN document, and photo ID. No in-person or video-KYC step is published.1
Phone & 2FA†No published VoIP policyTOTP + passkey
2FA is fully phone-number-independent: SMS is not offered as a 2FA method at all — authenticator app (TOTP), security key, or passkey required. The published application-requirements checklist lists no phone number of any kind (silence-read of a complete checklist, not an affirmative statement). No published VoIP/virtual-number policy found (help-center searches for 'phone number' and 'Google Voice' plus full reads of the 2FA and eligibility articles).1 2
Marketplace payouts
Provider publishes support for marketplace/processor payouts (Shopify, Stripe, Amazon, Etsy) via the account's own account and routing numbers; instant RTP payouts limited to accounts at partner bank Column N.A.1 2
Provider-published country list: source
Reading notes (6)
- Country entries marked 'no published restriction' reflect absence from Mercury's prohibited-countries list only; Mercury states eligibility is determined following a full review of each application, and no page affirms acceptance for any specific residence country.
- The list runs to 48 countries plus 4 sanctioned regions and reaches well past the eight columned in this index; it is scoped to where a founder LIVES, not to citizenship. A reader whose country has no column here learns nothing from that absence — read the linked list. Named on it and not columned: Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Nepal, Venezuela and Angola, and — against the assumption that Europe is safe — Albania, Croatia and Latvia, the last two EU member states (verified against the list 2026-07-15).
- Mercury's published residence restrictions are stated for founders and financial controllers; no published statement addresses a passive 25%+ beneficial owner resident in a prohibited country.
- Registered agent addresses, P.O. boxes, and UPS Store addresses are not accepted for the company's principal place of business; residential addresses are accepted.
- Partner-bank structure is in transition: OCC conditional approval (April 2026) for Mercury's own bank charter is pending, and one FAQ section still names former partner Evolve Bank & Trust; the FDIC entry reflects the Choice/Column structure as of 2026-07-08.
- No published statement addresses video-KYC or personal proof-of-address requirements for individual owners; the remote-onboarding entry rests on the provider's statement that physical US presence is not required.
Relay
Fintech
Conditional · Banking services via Thread Bank; Community Federal Savings Bank (international payments, facilitated by Nium)
Entity requirement
Requires a US-registered entity with a US operating presence; foreign-owned US LLCs accepted per provider's help center. LLC applications require an EIN and a physical US business address.1
Owner residency & IDPassport-based ID accepted
SSN or passport number accepted; non-US citizens verify identity with passport only, per provider's help center. The same page states the owner's personal address is a physical US address; ITIN is not mentioned.1
Account railsOwn ACH routing + account number
Business checking with its own account and routing number at partner Thread Bank, supporting ACH transfers, wires, and checks. International payments are provided by Community Federal Savings Bank, facilitated by Nium. Per the binding Deposit Account Agreement, the Standard Checking Account carries five tiers, and the lowest — Basic (Tier D) — is the tier the agreement names for "U.S. based entities with foreign beneficial owners", who "may be placed in this tier at account opening at Relay's sole discretion"; that tier caps incoming ACH at $2,000/day and $5,000/month, against $100,000/day at the Default (Tier B).1 2
Receiving from abroad†Accepts inbound international wires
Receives inbound international wires over SWIFT (USD and other currencies) and over Local Network rails for EUR, GBP and CAD — but only after the holder explicitly activates the feature and designates one checking account as the international-wire deposit account. Relay holds funds in USD only; non-USD wires are converted after receipt. A sender name that does not match the business name or a Beneficial Owner on file can cause the wire to be returned.1
Card issuance†Cards ship to US addresses only
Physical and virtual Visa cards; physical cards cannot be shipped outside the US — for an internationally-resident owner the card product is virtual-only in practice. Virtual cards activate immediately on creation with no published residency restriction beyond account eligibility.1 2
FDIC structure
Relay is a financial technology company, not an FDIC-insured bank; deposits are held at Thread Bank, Member FDIC, with pass-through coverage extendable up to $3,000,000 via Thread Bank's program-bank deposit sweep.1
OnboardingFully remote
Per a provider blog post, non-residents from many countries can open an account online from overseas, providing passport, a physical US address, company details, and income and source-of-funds information.1
Phone & 2FA†No published VoIP policyTOTP supported
Signup checklist requires 'a valid U.S. phone number' — but Relay's own 2FA article states a non-US number can be used for 2FA; both statements are help-center T1 and are recorded verbatim without resolution. SMS 2FA is the default; authenticator-app (TOTP) available by contacting support; email magic links are the default for new-device logins. Vendor explicitly recommends app-based 2FA for owners travelling abroad. No published VoIP policy (4 articles + site search, all read in full).1 2 3
Provider-published country list: source
Reading notes (8)
- Relay's prohibited-countries list applies to citizenship or residency: a resident of a non-listed country who holds citizenship of a listed country falls under the restriction.
- The prohibited-countries list is set by Relay's banking partner and displays no publication or update date; it can change without notice.
- The list runs to 31 countries of citizenship or residency and reaches well past the eight columned in this index. A reader whose country has no column here learns nothing from that absence — read the linked list. Named on it and not columned: Venezuela, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Haiti, Lebanon, Nicaragua, Ukraine and Bosnia and Herzegovina, among others (verified against the list 2026-07-15).
- Relay's help center states each beneficial owner's personal address is a physical US address, while also stating it accepts owners based outside the US; Relay's published pages do not reconcile the two statements.
- The remote-onboarding description comes from a provider marketing blog post, not the help center; no in-person or video-KYC requirement is published either way.
- ITIN is not mentioned on Relay's published pages; the stated identifiers are SSN or passport number.
- Acceptance is not the end of the question at Relay, and the constraint is one-directional. The Deposit Account Agreement's Basic (Tier D) — the tier it names for US entities with foreign beneficial owners — caps incoming ACH at $2,000/day while permitting $400,000/day outgoing and $200,000/day by domestic wire. A foreign-owned US LLC can therefore be approved, and pay out normally, while being unable to receive ordinary customer ACH payments. Wires are not subject to the incoming cap.
- Tier assignment is explicitly discretionary and unpublished: Relay "reserve[s] the right to assign, modify, or reassign your account tier and any associated transaction limits at any time, in our sole discretion, without prior notice to you", stating only that tiering "may be based on various factors, including but not limited to, transaction history, volume, risk profile, and account activity". No page states which applicants land in Basic, nor how to leave it. The agreement directs the customer to log in to see their own limits — so this cell cannot be resolved from published sources for any specific applicant.
Wise Business
Fintech
Conditional
Entity requirement
Per Wise's help center, US business verification requires business name, company type, EIN, and a physical trading address (not registered-agent or virtual). Nevada and US-territory entities cannot onboard.1
Owner residency & IDPassport-based ID accepted
Non-US beneficial owners are asked for a photo ID copy, not an SSN; SSN applies to owners resident in the US or holding a US passport. SSN/ITIN is tied to living in the US; non-US citizens are asked for a non-US ID.1 2
Account railsVirtual / collection account
Wise states USD account details are not a bank account: an own account and routing number (ending 3150, 9519, or 9628) presenting as Checking, with incoming payments processed by an unnamed partner institution.1
Receiving from abroad†Accepts inbound international wires
USD account details receive locally (ACH, domestic wire) and internationally via SWIFT, provided USD details are available in the holder's region — Wise notes USD account details are not offered in some regions. Where they are not, Wise documents a workaround: receive USD via SWIFT into GBP account details using the GBP IBAN and SWIFT/BIC. Wise charges a fee to receive SWIFT payments and states correspondent banks may charge their own; Wise also rejects SWIFT payments that arrive without the recipient's address.1
Card issuance†Publishes a card country list
Business card availability is enumerated by account country (EEA/UK/CH + US, Canada, Singapore, Japan, Philippines, Australia, NZ, Brazil; Malaysia business explicitly excluded). India and Pakistan are absent from the availability lists — recorded as absence-from-list, not a stated ban. Digital cards follow the same country eligibility as physical (a non-eligible country of residence blocks replacement of both physical and digital) — the virtual-card workaround does NOT exist at Wise. International delivery is an option for some regions; US delivery-address temporarily unavailable for cards issued from other regions.1 2 3
FDIC structure
Wise is a Money Services Business, not an FDIC-insured bank. Pass-through FDIC coverage (up to 250,000 USD; Program Bank JPMorgan Chase) applies only via opt-in to the interest feature, gated to US-based customers.1
OnboardingFully remote
Identity verification is document-based per Wise's help articles (photo ID; ID plus selfie as a fallback), with no in-person step described. Wise publishes no explicit fully-remote statement.1
Phone & 2FA†No published VoIP policyTOTP + passkey
No US-number requirement; a mobile number of any supported country is registered and verified by SMS. 2FA methods include passkeys, Wise-app notification, authenticator app (TOTP), and SMS, with voice-call and WhatsApp as alternative code channels. No published VoIP policy (help-center search returns only unrelated articles); third-party SMS-reseller claims that Wise rejects Google Voice were excluded as commercially-motivated non-vendor sources.1 2
Marketplace payouts
Per Wise's help center, USD account details can be linked to Amazon US (local payouts only) and Stripe (USD among 14 payout currencies); ACH receiving is free, with limits starting at 20 million USD.1 2 3
Provider-published country list: source
Reading notes (6)
- FDIC-related details (Program Bank JPMorgan Chase, interest-feature eligibility) come from a Wise blog dated 2024-11-26 that the page itself marks as updated more than a year ago; current Program Agreement terms may differ.
- The exclusion of non-US residents from FDIC pass-through coverage is derived from Wise's published interest-feature eligibility criteria (US-based customer, US profile address, verified SSN/EIN), not from a Wise statement addressing non-residents directly.
- Country entries are based on Wise's published residence lists for holding money and for USD account details; Wise does not publish a single rule on the owner's country of residence for opening a US-entity business account.
- Wise publishes no explicit statement that onboarding is fully remote; the ID-plus-selfie option is described as a fallback when an SSN or ITIN is not accepted, and the absence of an in-person step was checked only on the reviewed help articles.
- Wise does not name the partner institution behind its USD routing numbers in its help center.
- The trading address for US business verification cannot be a registration agency, mail-forwarding service, or virtual address; a proof-of-address document is requested.
Payoneer
Fintech
Accepts non-resident founders
Entity requirement
No US entity or EIN required to open an account; applicants register as an individual or as a company registered in their own country, per the provider's signup FAQ. No published statement on foreign-owned US LLCs.1
Owner residency & IDPassport-based ID accepted
Documented verification accepts a national ID, driver's license, or passport plus proof of address; SSN and ITIN do not appear in published requirements (absence-based reading of the help-center FAQ).1
Account railsVirtual / collection account
USD receiving account is a virtual collection account with ABA routing and account numbers, accepting ACH credits only with no outbound transfers; per the provider's help center it "is not a bank account."1 2
Receiving from abroad†Accepts inbound international wires
Offers a dedicated SWIFT (wire) receiving account for USD alongside its local receiving accounts, positioned for payers in countries where Payoneer has no local receiving account.1
Card issuance†Ships cards internationally
Physical and virtual cards with free international shipping (expedited courier available at a charge); no full eligible/restricted country list is published — only explicit carve-outs (cards no longer issued to customers with a postal/actual address in Russia or India, plus an unpublished 'licensing restrictions' residual). Card eligibility additionally gated on receiving $100+ in payments in the last 6 months. Virtual cards created instantly.1 2 3
FDIC structure
Provider terms state US Payment Service funds are not FDIC-insured; the live help center corroborates the account is not a bank account. The sourced terms document dates to 2005-2013; current terms are login-gated.1 2
OnboardingFully remote
Online signup with document upload via the in-account Verification Center; no in-person step appears in published requirements, per the provider's help center.1
Phone & 2FA†No published VoIP policyNo TOTP option
A mobile number of any country is required for two-step verification (landlines rejected); no US-number requirement published. Verification channels are SMS, voice call, and Payoneer-app push notification plus a recovery code — no authenticator-app (TOTP) or passkey option is published. No published VoIP policy (3 help answers + site searches).1 2
Marketplace payouts
Provider's official China site states Payoneer connects with over 2,000 cross-border e-commerce platforms and networks for seller payment collection.1
Reading notes (6)
- Payoneer receiving accounts are payment-collection accounts, not US bank accounts; the USD account details accept ACH credits only, and funds are not FDIC-insured.
- The not-FDIC-insured and ACH-credit-only statements derive from a Payoneer terms document dated 2005-2013 hosted on a third-party mirror; current service terms are viewable only after account login, so supersession is possible.
- No-SSN/ITIN, no-US-entity, and fully-remote statements are inferred from the absence of such requirements in provider help-center FAQs, which are summaries rather than exhaustive requirement lists.
- Payoneer states some countries and territories cannot register but publishes no restricted-country list; its 'Supported countries' help answer has been removed, so country eligibility is confirmed only in the signup flow.
- India, China, and UK acceptance is inferred from official country resource hubs and localized sites rather than eligibility policy statements; Pakistan and Canada carry explicit account-opening or licensing pages.
- The identity of the current US partner bank(s) behind the USD receiving account is not confirmed in provider-published sources.
Brex
Fintech
Conditional · Banking services via Column N.A.
Entity requirement
Requires a US-formed entity with a US EIN, US operations, and a US physical address per provider's support page; the legal FAQ lists LLCs among accepted entity types; foreign-owned single-member LLCs are not specifically addressed. The address requirement is the binding one for a non-resident founder and is quotable: "All Brex applicants must have a U.S. physical address. If the address provided is a virtual address—defined as a registration address with no physical presence—then the Beneficial Owner (BO), Control Officer (CO), must maintain a physical presence and be verifiable in the U.S." The same page states "We do not accept USPS P.O. Boxes, private mailboxes (PMBs), or other mailbox services as valid business addresses." Read together: a founder abroad whose US address is a registered agent or mailbox service does not satisfy this, and no country-level rule is needed to exclude them.1 2
Owner residency & IDPassport-based ID accepted
Passport number and country of issuance accepted in place of an SSN for individuals, per provider's legal FAQ; passports accepted as KYC photo ID; ITIN is not mentioned on any fetched provider page.1 2
Account railsOwn ACH routing + account number
Checking is a commercial checking account at partner bank Column N.A. with its own routing number (121145349) for inbound ACH and wires; treasury and vault are separate Brex Treasury LLC cash-management services.1
Receiving from abroad†Accepts inbound international wires
Receives international wires in USD only; wires denominated in a foreign currency are converted by the partner bank before landing. Brex applies a country list that gates international wires in BOTH directions — a country absent from the supported table is unsupported. All eight countries columned in this index appear in the supported table as of the access date.1
Card issuance†Ships cards internationally
Physical cards ship to 'most international addresses' — verbatim: "To make Brex available to businesses that operate internationally, we ship physical credit cards to most international addresses", and "When you request a physical card in your Brex dashboard, you'll be asked to select your country. There you can enter your international address." CITATION REPAIRED 2026-08-14: the article carrying that quote was deleted and now 301s to the generic Brex card overview, which contains no shipping-country statement; the quote is preserved via a Wayback snapshot rather than the value being deleted, because a rotted citation is not a changed policy. UNCITED SUB-CLAIM, flagged not removed: an earlier version of this summary asserted a '13-country extra-paperwork list for courier delivery (incl. China, Brazil, Philippines, Vietnam)'. That list is not present in the Wayback snapshot, nor in brex-card-overview, nor in using-brex-internationally, all read on 2026-08-14 — so it is recorded here as searched-for and not located, rather than silently retained as fact or silently dropped. Virtual cards self-serve per spend limit. Card USAGE barred in sanctioned regions (Crimea/Donetsk/Luhansk; Russia network suspension) — still live on using-brex-internationally 2026-08-14.1 2 3
FDIC structure
Brex is not a bank. Checking carries FDIC coverage up to $250,000 through Column N.A.; vault funds are swept to program banks for up to $6M in pass-through coverage, per provider's support page.1
OnboardingFully remote
Application described as fully online per provider's support page: EIN verification letter (CP 575 or 147-C), formation documents if not sourced from state databases, passport accepted as ID; no in-person step published.1 2
Phone & 2FA†No published VoIP policyTOTP + passkey
A mobile number is collected at application but its US-ness is never stated — recorded as unknown, not inferred. 2FA offers authenticator app (TOTP) or SMS, and passkeys can replace both password and MFA for eligible users, so ongoing auth is phone-number-avoidable. No published VoIP policy (support-site search + full read of the 2FA article). Whether SMS 2FA can target a non-US country code is UNVERIFIED (the update-2fa-method article 404s).1 2 3
Marketplace payouts
The Brex business account's checking leg is "a commercial checking account provided by Column N.A., Member FDIC", and the product page advertises free same-day ACH payments. NOTE (corrected 2026-08-23): the product page documents OUTBOUND ACH only — it carries no statement about receiving payments, checks, wires, or an account/routing number, and the previous summary asserted all four from this source. No published statement on Amazon, Stripe, or other marketplace payouts was found.1
Provider-published country list: source
Reading notes (5)
- Brex's support page states all applicants require a US physical address, while its product FAQ accepts a US or international address for the principal place of business but excludes registered-agent, PO box, and UPS box addresses. The two published pages differ on this point.
- The up-to-$6M FDIC figure applies to vault funds swept to program banks; checking coverage is up to $250,000 at Column N.A., and treasury funds are invested in a money market fund that is not FDIC insured.
- The linked restricted-country list governs wire transfers, not founder residency; the page states the list is subject to change and lists 'Macedonia', a country name retired in 2019. Brex publishes no founder-residency country list.
- The statement that Brex serves non-US founders draws in part on a provider blog post about the Stripe Atlas partnership dated June 2024; no newer published statement on this was found.
- The legal FAQ's entity-type list appears under card-product qualification criteria rather than as a banking-specific eligibility statement.
Novo
Fintech
US residents/persons only · Banking services via Middlesex Federal Savings, F.A.
Entity requirement
Per provider's help center, accounts open only for business owners who reside within the US, and the business is required to be registered in the US.1
Owner residency & IDSSN required
Per provider's help center, SSN, US residential address, and US cell phone number are required for all applicants; beneficial owners above 25% ownership also provide an SSN. No ITIN or passport substitute is stated.1 2
Account railsOwn ACH routing + account number
Accounts carry ACH routing number 211370150 with a unique account number; deposit account services are provided by partner bank Middlesex Federal Savings, F.A. Novo states it is a fintech, not a bank.1
Receiving from abroad†Accepts inbound international wires
Receives both domestic and international wires. The asymmetry is on the outbound side: Novo states account holders cannot send domestic wires, and routes outbound international payments through a Wise integration rather than its own rails.1
Card issuance†Cards ship to US addresses only
Physical debit cards ship to the personal address on the account, and the application itself requires a US address — no international shipping path published. Virtual card is self-serve but moot for a founder abroad because the account requires a US home address at application.1 2
FDIC structure
Per provider, deposits are held by Middlesex Federal Savings, F.A. (Member FDIC) and insured up to $250,000. Single sponsor bank; no multi-bank sweep program is published.1
OnboardingFully remote
Fully digital application with no branch visit, per provider. Requires an unexpired US government-issued ID or passport, a US-carrier mobile phone, SSN, and a US address — open to US residents only.1
Phone & 2FA†VoIP numbers blocked (published)SMS-only 2FA
The hardest published phone gate in the dataset: a US cell number from a major carrier is required, and Novo publishes an explicit VoIP/virtual-number block. SMS-only verification (device auth mandatory, no opt-out; no TOTP or passkey), with a published email-code + security-questions fallback for users outside the US.1 2 3
Marketplace payouts
Direct-deposit ACH payouts supported via routing number 211370150 (appears as Middlesex Federal Savings at the payer); Stripe integration with Novo Boost per provider. No published Amazon-payout statement found.1
Reading notes (5)
- All eight country restrictions derive from Novo's blanket statement that accounts open only for US-resident owners of US-registered businesses; no country is individually named on any Novo page.
- Novo's marketing requirements page carries a generic industry-checklist line mentioning 'passport and ITIN for non-U.S. owners'; the help-center policy pages state SSN and US residency are required. The marketing line describes the industry generally, not Novo's own acceptance policy.
- Novo publishes no per-country account-eligibility list. A separate, unpublished country list exists for blocking card transactions; it is distinct from the account-opening policy stated here.
- Novo does not publish whether the account structure is a direct deposit account or a pooled/custodial arrangement; its pages state only that deposits are held by Middlesex Federal Savings, F.A. and insured up to $250,000.
- The direct-deposit setup article was last updated roughly three years ago; the routing number it lists is corroborated by a help-center article updated within the last four months.
Bluevine
Fintech
Conditional · Banking services via Coastal Community Bank
Entity requirement
Requires a US-registered LLC or Corporation with a valid EIN for international owners; the provider states other tax IDs do not suffice for its application "right now", per the help center.1 2
Owner residency & IDConditional
Residents of supported countries apply with a valid passport instead of an SSN, plus a US legal address (physical or non-physical); US applicants provide an SSN. ITIN is not addressed for checking eligibility.1 2
Account railsOwn ACH routing + account number
Checking account carries its own ACH routing number (125109019); banking services are provided by Coastal Community Bank, Member FDIC, per provider's help center.1
Receiving from abroad†Accepts inbound international wires
Accepts inbound international wires in 39 currencies with settlement in USD, at a flat fee of up to $15 per wire that is reduced on the paid Plus and Premier plans.1
Card issuance†Virtual cards only from abroad
The textbook account-vs-card gate: Bluevine's international-owners product accepts business owners residing in 21 listed countries (incl. India), but 'Physical debit cards are only available to ship to U.S. addresses.' Virtual debit cards issue immediately with no published residency restriction — for an abroad-resident owner the card product is virtual-only.1 2
FDIC structure
FDIC insurance up to $3,000,000 per depositor on a pass-through basis through Coastal Community Bank, Member FDIC, and its sweep-network program banks; Bluevine is not itself the chartered bank.1
OnboardingFully remote
Online application with passport-based identity verification for international owners; the account is managed remotely and no in-person step appears in the published process.1
Phone & 2FA†VoIP numbers blocked (published)SMS-only 2FA
Two published statements that do not reconcile, recorded verbatim without resolution: the application article accepts 'a U.S. or international number that can receive SMS messages', while the MFA article requires 'a U.S. number connected to a cellular network' as 'the only type of MFA we support' AND publishes a VoIP block naming Google Voice. SMS-only (plus app push); no TOTP or passkey. How the 21-country non-resident cohort satisfies US-cellular MFA is unexplained in vendor docs — carried as a caveat, not resolved by inference.1 2
Marketplace payouts
Provider states the account receives unlimited incoming ACH and domestic wires on a single routing number; no fetched page names marketplace payouts (Amazon, Stripe) as accepted.1
Provider-published country list: source
Reading notes (3)
- Bluevine publishes a supported-country allowlist rather than a restricted list; the list is introduced with 'including' and footnoted as subject to change at any time, so absence from the list is not a published restriction.
- Bluevine's two published country lists do not match: the help-center article names 23 countries while the international-owners landing page fetched the same day omits at least Croatia.
- The FAQ permits a 'non-physical' US legal address for international owners, while the help center states P.O. box and mail-service addresses are not accepted; no fetched page reconciles the two statements.
Found
Fintech
US residents/persons only · Banking services via Lead Bank
Entity requirement
US sole proprietors, single/multi-member LLCs (EIN required at opening), corporations, and partnerships supported; foreign-owned entities and entities based outside the US appear on the published prohibited list.1 2
Owner residency & IDSSN required
Per account terms, available to US citizens or lawful permanent residents with a US physical address; per provider's help center, a valid SSN is required and ITINs are not accepted.1 2 3
Account railsOwn ACH routing + account number
Account carries its own routing and account number at Lead Bank; account terms describe it as a subaccount of an omnibus account held in the bank's name for the customer's benefit, not a directly titled DDA.1 2
Receiving from abroad†Accepts inbound international wires
Receives domestic and international wires using the account's own account and routing numbers, but the inbound wire must be denominated in USD — Found places the currency conversion on the sender, so a client paying in local currency bears the FX cost and the account holder cannot see the rate applied. Found charges nothing for the inbound wire; intermediary banks may.1
Card issuance†Cards ship to US addresses only
Account itself is US-only (US address + SSN required), so card geography is bounded by account geography; no card-shipping country policy is published. Virtual card issued at account opening; in-person card use abroad gated on one prior domestic in-person transaction.1 2
FDIC structure
Pass-through FDIC insurance up to $250,000 per depositor via Lead Bank, Member FDIC; Found is a financial technology company, not a bank. Terms reference deposit placement via the IntraFi network.1
OnboardingFully remote
Fully online signup; required information is legal name, US residential address, date of birth, and SSN. No in-person step, passport path, or video-KYC path is documented.1
Phone & 2FA†No published VoIP policySMS-only 2FA
A valid phone number is required for verification (SMS code with a voice-call fallback); whether it must be a US number is not published — recorded as unknown, not inferred (account-level US-address/SSN requirement makes the question largely moot). No published VoIP policy (5 help/security pages searched + site-scoped web search). No TOTP or passkey published; OTPs sent on sensitive actions.1 2
Marketplace payouts
Per provider's help center, payouts from Square, Shopify, Etsy, Stripe, and other online platforms are supported via the account's own account and routing numbers; Amazon is not named on any fetched page.1
Provider-published country list: source
Reading notes (5)
- All country-level entries derive from one blanket statement that Found is only available in the United States; Found publishes no per-country restricted list, and no individual country is named in its policy.
- Found's legal account terms describe eligibility with a social security number or tax identification number, while its help center states ITINs are not accepted and an SSN is required; the help-center policy is the stricter of the two.
- P.O. boxes, virtual mailboxes, and mail-forwarding addresses are not accepted as an LLC business address at signup.
- Foreign-owned entities and entities based outside the United States appear on Found's prohibited-businesses list; this covers foreign-owned single-member US LLCs.
- References to Piermont Bank as Found's partner bank are outdated; current legal documents name Lead Bank.
Lili
Fintech
Conditional · Banking services via Sunrise Banks, N.A.; Column Bank, N.A. (wires)
Entity requirement
Requires a US-registered entity; accepts LLCs (single or multi-member), C-Corps, S-Corps, and general or limited liability partnerships. Sole proprietorships are not supported for international applicants.1
Owner residency & IDPassport-based ID accepted
International applicants apply with a foreign passport number and EIN; no SSN required. Lili's general SSN article states the owner's SSN is always required, but carries a footnote excepting non-US residents, who may apply for their business entity with a passport number instead.1 2 3
Account railsOwn ACH routing + account number
Business checking held at Sunrise Banks, N.A. with its own ACH routing number (09101




