How to get a Stripe account (Outside U.S)

Payment gateways are the crucial part of online businesses and it can be a real issue if you live in countries where payment gateways like Stripe/Paypal are not supported.

I had launced my online portal for customers to manage their services and I needed Stripe for accepting credit cards on my website. Unfortunately, Stripe doesn’t operate in my country, so I started looking for ways I can get a stripe account and fortunately I found a way.

Requirements for Stripe

To start accepting payments with Stripe you need:

1. A US checking bank account
2. EIN/SSN
3. A US Phone Number
4. A US Address

The straightforward way to get a Stripe account if you’re not located in the US is:

1. Apply for Stripe Atlas, you pitch your business and they register a company for you in us and a bank account in Silicon Valley Bank and you can have your Stripe account. (It costs $500 and most tech companies get accepted so you have to pitch it very creatively if you’re an econ business)
2. Or you can register a company yourself in the US and get a US bank account manually which will cost you a bit less.

And the other way is to get all of the requirements virtually, and it costs like $12, Let’s get started.

1. US Bank Account

We will use Payoneer to get a US Bank Account that can accept ACH transfers (Stripe uses ACH for making transfers). It also provides a prepaid Mastercard (in some countries) to withdrow funds directly from the card.

In case your country doesn’t support the MasterCard, you will receive funds to your local bank account directly. (takes just 24 hours, once funds are received from Stripe)

Signup for Payoneer

Registering an account with Payoneer is very straightforward you will get $25 signup bonus if you use my link Click here

It requires you to fill very basic details and then validate your identity by uploading a passport or driving license soft copy.

Once you are registered successfully they will verify your account, it took less than 2 days in some cases for the whole process because some countries don’t support the prepaid mastercard.

If your country is eligible to get a mastercard from Payoneer, It takes less than a week to receive the card on your address and activate it.

You can then start to accept ACH payments from Stripe, you will find all your virtual bank accounts under Global Payment Service

2. EIN/SSN

SSN (Social Security Number) is only issued to U.S residents or temporary working residents by the United States Social Security Administration.

The alternative is to get an EIN (Employer Identification Number), it’s used to identify a business entity in the United States.Getting an EIN remotely is pretty easy, It took me less than 10 minutes.

1. Download the form and fill it.
2. Call the IRS — phone number (+1 267-941-1099). Press 1 to continue in English then It will ask you If you are requesting an EIN for an entity outside US, press 1 again.

It will then connect you to an agent and they will register the form for you, just read out the fields you filled before in the form.

3. Once the form is complete they will read it out to confirm details, and ask you to write down your EIN, and they also send it via mail to your home address.

3. US Phone Number

You can get a US phone number from Sonetel. It forwards all the calls to your local phone number and it costs less than $2 per month, you can also receive texts directly to your email (Which will be required during phone verifications)

4. US Address

Getting a US mailing address is very easy, there are plenty PO BOX services which you can find online, I recommend using USAMail1 they provide you with a US mailing address which you can manage online, and it only costs $9.99/month. Also if you already have a forwarder you may use the mailbox they provide you with as well.

Once you receive packages/mails you can chose to have them forwarded to your local home address or shred them.

Registering a Stripe account.

Now that we have everything we need, let’s setup our Stripe account. Go to Stripe Signup Page and fill the details and confirm your email.

Once you’re in your dashboard, click on activate your account link in sidebar and fill out the form.

Country: United States

Business type: Individual / Sole Proprietorship

EIN: Your EIN number which you got from the IRS

Address: The address you got from USAMail1

Phone: Phone number from Sonetel

SSN: 0000 (If it says enter a valid ssn, use the last 4 digits of your EIN number)

Bank Account: Log in to your Payoneer account -> Receive -> Global Payment Service -> copy routing number and account number.

Once you submit your request to go live you will be contacted by email to verify your identity. Below you will the sample of the email I had sent to them:

Thank you for the email. I am a foreign person currently regarding in Jamaica. I have registered a company with the IRS. However, I do not possess a SSN however, I can provide an EIN with a valid ID if that helps. I look forward to your reply.

You will then receive a follow up email with a link to verify your identity; it will then ask you to verify yourself by uploading a ID, you can upload your passport or any valid national ID and it will verify you and you can start accepting payments.