Item — HN Reader

This is probably the most stupid question you ever heard:

I'm from Indonesia, working in Malaysia. Mid of last year I incorporated a C-Corp in Delaware. The reason is so I can use Stripe to accept CC payments. Apparently to open bank account in the US, I need to be there in person, so I'm now stuck with a "sleeping" company (because I don't have time to go to US just to open a bank account, not to mention the expenses).

I have paid the franchise tax through my registered agent. Is that all?

Extra bonus if you can give me direction to get out from this stupid situation.

3 comments

My experience with this is yes that you need to be in the USA to open the bank account for the US corporation.

It MAY be possible to work something out if you deal with one of the multinational banks like Citi or HSBC but don't count on it.

To keep this sleeping corporation alive:

1. File the paperwork in Delaware every year and pay the fees there.

2. File a Form 1120 (the corporate income tax return) with zero income and zero expense. Technically a corporation has to file a return even if it has zero profit. Don't forget Form 5472 (foreign shareholder of US corp) if it applies to you.

Solution from this mess? Find a US partner who can co-own this thing with you. Then you have a US-based human as an officer/director who can do the footwork to open the bank account.

Meta solution to this mess: someone can start one of these things as a service for 10,000 people like you. This carries thermonuclear risk of course, which is probably why no one has done it.

My CPA opened me a bank account in the USA (he's from USA too) without me having to visit the states, is this legal? Or is there any risk to this approach?? I'm in the same case as the parent question you have answered :S

The requirement for being present in the US to open a bank account comes IIRC from the Patriotic Act

The multinational banks won't help you with this.

Not sure about that, though that's definitely part of what makes it harder and transactions tend to take longer to process. Ironically, it seems I already have a US account from years ago and never noticed. And I signed up for it online, though I had previously visited a Canadian branch. Apparently at least part of it is the routing numbers attached to the account. http://f.redflagdeals.com/showthread.php?t=1327886&mobile_ty...

HSBC might...

Thank you! I do hope someone can do what you suggested in the last paragraph. There's already similar services in e.g. Singapore to appoint local directors.

Hmm. All I can offer is that I know of at least one instance where Canadians were able to open bank accounts in the US so long as the bank in question was Canadian-owned. It's not standard-practice so it usually involves being a good customer for the bank or having a special paid plan. Here's a thread where people had the same issue: https://forum.lowyat.net/topic/1300881/all

I managed to open a US account with HSBC without being in the US but it was incredibly painful.

It involved getting a solid introduction to a client manager and relentlessly following him up over the course of 2 months to make it happen.

Incredibly painful when we were waiting for an account to put our investment capital into. If I had to do it again I would likely fly out - so long as I could tack on some business development in the process.