The bank accountTwo routes, and yours depends on whether you can travel.
This is where most projects stall, so it is worth saying plainly: a traditional U.S. bank almost always requires someone to show up at a branch. A digital platform opens from your house, but gives you no Zelle. That is the whole dilemma.
Route 1 · Traditional bankSomeone travels and opens it at a branch. It comes with Zelle, a chequebook and a name everyone knows.
Route 2 · Digital accountOpened from home, with no trip. It does ACH and wires, in and out, but it has no Zelle.
What decides itWhether one of the owners can travel to the United States, and whether your business needs to receive Zelle.
Route 1: a traditional bank, in person
Start with the part that matters: in practice, no traditional U.S. bank opens a business account for a foreign owner unless somebody shows up at a branch.
Several of them advertise online applications, and that is true for someone who lives in the United States and has a Social Security number. From abroad those forms stall. So plan the trip from day one, and use the table to choose which bank is worth walking into: what changes from one to another is whether they take an owner without a Social Security number, and what they charge you to keep the account. Everything here comes from each bank’s own pages and fee schedules, reviewed in September 2026.
| Bank | Does it accept an owner without a Social Security number? | Monthly maintenance fee | How you avoid that fee | Business Zelle |
|---|
| Chase | Does it accept an owner without a Social Security number?Yes: it accepts ITIN and passport | Monthly maintenance fee$15 | How you avoid that feeWith a 2,000 dollar daily balance, or 2,000 dollars collected through Chase, or 2,000 dollars spent on their business credit card | Business ZelleYes |
| Bank of America | Does it accept an owner without a Social Security number?No: it asks the applicant to be a U.S. resident | Monthly maintenance fee$16 | How you avoid that feeWith a 5,000 dollar combined balance or 500 dollars in debit card purchases. They do not charge it for the first twelve months | Business ZelleYes |
| Wells Fargo | Does it accept an owner without a Social Security number?No: it requires a Social Security number from every signer | Monthly maintenance fee$15 | How you avoid that feeWith a 2,000 dollar daily balance or a 5,000 dollar combined balance. They do not charge it for the first 64 days | Business ZelleYes |
| U.S. Bank | Does it accept an owner without a Social Security number?Yes: it accepts ITIN, and its own form allows foreign identification | Monthly maintenance fee$0 | How you avoid that feeThere is no fee to avoid | Business ZelleYes |
| PNC | Does it accept an owner without a Social Security number?Its checklist asks for a Social Security number | Monthly maintenance fee$12 | How you avoid that feeWith a 500 dollar average balance or 500 dollars spent on their business credit card. They do not charge it for the first three months | Business ZelleYes |
| Truist | Does it accept an owner without a Social Security number?Its agreement covers non-residents with a passport and a W-8 form | Monthly maintenance fee$0 | How you avoid that feeThere is no fee to avoid | Business ZelleYes, but it charges 1% to receive, up to 15 dollars |
About that monthly fee: it is not a charge for having the company, and in most cases you never pay it. It is a maintenance fee the bank waives if you keep a minimum balance or move a certain amount through the account, exactly as the fourth column says. Two of the six charge nothing at all.
One clarification about Bank of America, because it is easy to misread: their requirement is about you, not about your company. Your LLC is a U.S. company and that is not in question. What they ask is that whoever applies lives in the United States, so for an owner who lives abroad that bank is out, however perfect the company file is. And watch two details in the table: Wells Fargo does not accept a registered agent address or a virtual office as the company address, and Truist charges 1% on every Zelle payment your business account receives.
If you take that route: who travels, and with what
Who travelsOne person, not all the partners. If the company has a single owner, that owner goes and there is nothing to discuss. If there are several, it should be the one with the largest stake: in practice we have seen these banks want whoever shows up to hold at least 80% of the company. Below that they start asking for the other partners to sign before a notary, or to come along.
How they must appear on paperWhoever travels has to be named in the company documents as a member or an authorized signer. If they are not there, the bank will not open the account, no matter how real their stake is. We settle this when we draft the Operating Agreement, before anyone buys a ticket.
What they need in order to enterA valid visa or travel authorization for the United States. That part is yours: we do not handle visas or consular appointments, and no company formation gets you one.
What they take to the branchThe file we prepare: formation documents, the EIN letter from the IRS, the Operating Agreement, the banking resolution and their passport. With an appointment booked in advance, it is usually resolved in one visit.
Where does that 80% come from? Not from the law. The federal rule only obliges the bank to identify anyone holding 25% or more, plus one person with control, and it does not even require them to appear in person. The 80% is what banks ask for in practice, because the more concentrated the ownership, the fewer people they have to verify. It is their policy, not a legal requirement, and that is why it can differ from one branch to another.
Route 2: a digital account, without travelling
There are platforms that open accounts for U.S. companies with foreign owners entirely remotely, and the account works like any other for what matters. What they do not give you is Zelle, and not out of stubbornness: Zelle only works if the bank itself belongs to that network, and these platforms run on partner banks that do not offer it to their programs. If your business depends on receiving Zelle, the digital route is not for you.
What it doesReceives and sends ACH transfers, receives and sends domestic and international wires, charges in dollars and comes with a debit card.
What it does not doZelle. And no digital platform offers it, so changing platforms will not solve that one.
What they ask you forThe EIN, the formation documents, the Operating Agreement and the owner’s passport. Everything we already prepared.
The four platforms this case usually comes down to
Checked one by one in their own help centres and price lists in September 2026. They change these policies without warning, so we confirm them again when your filing is under way.
| Platform | Foreign owner with no SSN | Countries it turns down | Outgoing wires | FDIC insurance | Base cost |
|---|
| Mercury | Foreign owner with no SSNYes: passport and EIN, no Social Security number | Countries it turns downIts own public list, by country of residence | Outgoing wiresYes, in and out, at no cost | FDIC insuranceUp to 5 million, through partner banks | Base cost$0 |
| Relay | Foreign owner with no SSNIts own pages contradict each other on this | Countries it turns downIts own list, by residence and by nationality | Outgoing wiresYes, from 5 dollars | FDIC insuranceUp to 3 million, through a partner bank | Base cost$0 |
| Wise Business | Foreign owner with no SSNYes: passport and EIN, no Social Security number | Countries it turns downIts own public list, by country of residence | Outgoing wiresSends and receives, but it is not a bank wire | FDIC insuranceNo, unless you opt into their interest feature | Base cost$0 |
| Payoneer | Foreign owner with no SSNYes, though they do not state it in writing | Countries it turns downNo list of its own: it follows U.S. sanctions | Outgoing wiresNo: the account only receives | FDIC insuranceNo, never | Base cost30 dollars a year if you receive little |
Those lists are where the detail matters, and the difference between the two ways of writing them decides plenty of cases: some platforms look at where you live, others at which passport you hold. Venezuela is the clearest example, and the question we are asked most. Mercury blocks by country of residence and says so in writing, so a Venezuelan living in Colombia, Panama or Spain is eligible. Relay blocks by residence and by nationality, so a Venezuelan passport closes that one wherever you live. Wise names Venezuela on its blocked list. Payoneer publishes no list and follows U.S. sanctions instead, which do not cover Venezuelan citizens as such, so it is the one case we cannot answer in advance. In short: if you live in Venezuela today, none of the four is a confirmed option, and the realistic route is a traditional bank, since the banks themselves have no Venezuela rule.
Two more details worth knowing before you choose. Relay blocks international wires when any owner holds Panamanian or Bolivian nationality, even though it opens the account without trouble. And Wise and Payoneer are not banks: they say so themselves in their terms. Payoneer goes further, and its own help centre states that the receiving account can only receive, not send, so paying a supplier means moving the money elsewhere first.
A word on the lists themselves: of the countries our clients write from, the only one under a comprehensive U.S. embargo is Cuba. Venezuela has sanctions aimed at the government, at PDVSA and at certain sectors, not at people, and Colombia, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Argentina, Ecuador, Bolivia and Brazil have no country sanctions program at all. So when a platform turns your country down, it is its own risk policy and not a legal prohibition. That is why the answer can differ from one platform to the next, and why it is worth asking rather than assuming the door is closed.
