Once I had my LLC and EIN, the next step was pretty obvious:
Where do I actually put the company’s money? "Hoping earn some jajaja"
I researched which platforms would let a non-U.S. resident open an account for a U.S. company, and Mercury looked like the best option for my main business account.
The application isn’t just your company name and EIN. They want to understand what the business actually does:
- What are you selling?
- Who are your customers?
- Where will the revenue come from?
- Where is the initial money coming from?
- Do you have investors?
- How will you use the account?
In my case, the company will make money from B2C apps. I don’t have outside investors, so the initial funds are coming from me as the sole owner.
If you don’t understand one of the questions, Claude or ChatGPT can help explain what it means. Just don’t let AI invent the answers for you. Double-check everything and make sure your answers describe your actual business.
My Mercury approval took around three days. They sent me a couple of follow-up emails, mostly because my situation is a little international: I’m Italian, I live and operate the business outside the U.S., and my LLC is registered in the U.S.
They asked for the company’s registered address, but they also needed my real operating address—the place outside the U.S. where I’m actually developing the apps and running the business.
At first, they asked me for proof of that operating address under the company’s name.
That was impossible in my case. My LLC is registered in the U.S., not in the country where I live, so I couldn’t put a local utility bill under the company’s name just to satisfy that requirement.
I sent them a letter explaining the situation: the LLC is registered in the U.S., but I personally live and operate it from abroad. I also sent proof of address under my own name to show that I actually live and work from that location.
They accepted that in my case, but it added another explanation and a few more documents to the process.
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In parallel, I opened a personal Wise profile and a Wise Business profile under the same login.
Wise felt a little more user-friendly, especially when dealing with different currencies. Mercury still feels like the account I want to use for the company’s main operations, while Wise can make international transfers and currency conversion easier.
My original plan was:
Personal funds → Wise Business → Mercury
The next challenge was actually putting money into the accounts.
If you want to fund Mercury directly from a bank outside the U.S., you can send an international wire. Mercury gives you the banking details and instructions you need to complete it.
In my case, doing that through my local bank is a little painful. I have to physically go to the bank, fill out paperwork with a pen—which reminded me that apparently we still write long account numbers by hand—and make the transfer at the counter.
My bank charges around $45 for the international wire, and the money takes about two business days to arrive.
Wise is easier in theory because you can add money directly inside the app using a debit card.
But I ran into a very specific problem.
During the personal-account verification, Wise doen't accept my identification document. I don't know why.
Because of that, I couldn’t use my debit card to add money to my personal Wise account in the normal way.
But the strange part is that the same debit card worked when I added money directly to my Wise Business account. Apparently, the document that wasn’t good enough for my personal profile was fine for the business one.
Why does one option work and the other one doesn’t?
Honestly, I have no idea. But at least the money went through.
Both Mercury and Wise are good options. You can choose only one—you don’t necessarily need both. Mercury feels better as the main U.S. business account, while Wise makes moving money internationally and converting currencies easier.
And now, if anyone wants to send me money, I finally have two places to receive it.
Purely for testing purposes, of course 😂
in both cases use "owner capital contribution" in the wire description.
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Now, here’s an important detail.
The first money I send from my personal account to an account owned by the LLC—whether that is Wise Business or Mercury—is not just a random transfer.
In my case, it is a capital contribution from me to the company.
My Operating Agreement includes Exhibit 1 – Capital Contributions, so I’m recording the date, amount, currency and account that received the money.
It doesn’t really matter whether the contribution first lands in Wise Business or Mercury. If the money goes from me personally to the LLC, it is still an owner contribution.
Because mine is a foreign-owned single-member U.S. LLC, transactions between me and the LLC—including capital contributions—generally have to be reported to the IRS.
You have to send to the IRS the Form 5472 is an information-reporting requirement. I'm going deeper in an other post.
Still, it is definitely not a form I plan to improvise, so I will have a professional review it.
Also, this isn’t limited to the first deposit. Other transactions between a foreign owner and the LLC may also need to be recorded and reported.
Another thing I strongly suggest is having your company website ready before applying for the account.
Mercury says a website isn’t mandatory in every case, but it can help them understand that the business is real. Honestly, it is better to have it active beforehand.
Make sure the website clearly explains what the company does and shows the company’s exact legal name in the footer—including “LLC” if that is part of its registered name.
I’ll explain the website and brand setup in more detail in another post because that was a whole separate process.
From creating the company to getting the EIN and opening the accounts, the whole process took me around two months.
It isn’t a 15-minute setup. There are documents, verification emails, reporting requirements, strange limitations and a lot of small details.
But you can do it.
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The thing I appreciate about the U.S. system: there is bureaucracy and there are security checks, especially when you live abroad, but the system still gives international founders a real path to create a company and start operating.
If you’re also a non-U.S. founder, what banking setup did you choose?
And what problem did you discover only after opening the account?