How to Open a Bank Account for Non-U.S. Residents
We get asked all the time to help people set up a U.S. bank account in Delaware. If you are not a U.S. resident, it is possible to set up a bank account in America, but it is not easy. Most banks will want you to come to their branch in person. If at all possible, we recommend just setting up a PayPal account, Google checkout account, or bank account in your home country. There are banks that do this service for their clients, but you really have to get a good banker that is willing to work with you!
We recommend national banks like Wells Fargo, Chase, HSBC, or Citibank. Often we hear HSBC is the easiest for people because they have worldwide locations and you can go into a bank closer to where you are, instead of flying into America just to set up a US bank account for your Delaware LLC or Delaware corporation.
Please don’t get duped by services offering to set up a US bank account for you. There’s absolutely no way for some incorporation service to set up a Delaware LLC or Delaware corporation bank account for you, without you doing most the work! You will more than likely pay for their “Guidance” and they’ll just give you a whole bunch of crappy paperwork for you to fill out and let you deal with a banker that will want you to fly to America and meet with them in person.
When we form the company for you, we will have a filed certificate of formation or certificate of incorporation for you, initial resolutions, and an LLC operating agreement or corporate bylaws in your online account at all times. If the bank requires you to show a certificate of good standing, we can order that for you, or you can get it yourself at: Delaware Certificate of Good Standing.
If you are truly going to fly to the U.S. and open a U.S. bank account for your Delaware company, we recommend buying the optional certified copy and certificate of good standing on our incorporation order form, just in case you get a grumpy banker that is being difficult with you. Then you’re not calling us last minute and overpaying for us to get these documents for you last minute.
If you need to put down our address for the bank account address, that is fine, but we legally cannot forward you a physical debit or credit card without a physical mail forwarding option, such as the one we offer in our Delaware virtual office service for $19 a month. We really do not want to upsell you something…that’s not our goal. It is an option if you do need it, but most of our clients do not need to pay us anything else besides $29 a year to act as their Delaware registered agent.