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Ask HN: Is it legal/easy for a foreigner to open a bank account in the US?

3 points by lzm ↗ HN
I have a website hosted in the US, sustained by adsense ads.

Adsense transfers my earnings to a local bank account, and every month I pay the hosting provider with my local credit card.

However I lose a lot of money transferring money internationally due to taxes and rate conversions, and I'm wondering if I could keep the money in the US without being a US citizen, without having to physically go to a US bank.

Does anyone have more information on this?

5 comments

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foldr
You certainly don't need to be a US citizen to have a US bank account, but they would want you to show ID and give a US address if you want to open an account in the normal way. Not sure what other options there are.
sliverstorm
From what I've read, you need to present a SSN, or present yourself face-to-face to open an account. As I presume you can do neither of these...

Perhaps, if you have a very trusted operative living in the US they could take responsibility for the transfers? Although, sadly your email might read much like a Nigerian scam! :) Minus the poor grammar and spelling errors. And the claims of royal blood.

foldr
>you need to present a SSN

Just FTR, an SSN is absolutely not necessary to open a US bank account.

petercooper
In many countries you can get accounts that are denominated in other currencies. For example, Citibank does an account in the UK that's denominated in US Dollars - http://www.citibank.co.uk/personal/banking/international/eur... - this would resolve the rate conversion issue.

However I lose a lot of money transferring money internationally due to taxes and rate conversions, and I'm wondering if I could keep the money in the US without being a US citizen, without having to physically go to a US bank.

I don't know where you are, but in many jurisdictions, doing what you're suggesting to evade local taxation could be illegal (that is, locally in terms of tax evasion. Opening a bank account overseas is not an illegal act in and of itself).

For example, let's say you're a British citizen (just because I'm familiar with the British rules, but they're likely to be "similar" across much of Europe).. if you are domiciled in the UK and earn money in the US from a Web site you maintain from the UK, you owe the UK tax authorities tax on the full income from that site BEFORE any deductions.

So let's say you make $2000 a month and spend $500 on hosting. If you set up an account in the US and then eventually only remit $1500 to the UK, you would be breaking the law if you did not declare the full $2000 to the tax man. In which case, having the remote account has no benefit except for the rates.. and you can get that locally anyway, as I demonstrated above.