Selling Into the US? Do It in This Order.
Entity, EIN, bank or wallet, underwriting: the five steps foreign companies take to sell into the US, and why the order matters.
This week we walked through US market entry for foreign companies one step at a time. Monday covered why Stripe US needs a US entity. Tuesday covered forming one with Stripe Atlas. Wednesday covered the US bank account, and Thursday covered the wallet route that skips it.
None of those steps is especially hard on its own. What costs foreign companies weeks is doing them out of order: forming an entity before deciding whether they need one, applying for a bank account before the tax ID arrives, or setting a launch date before anyone has talked to a processor's underwriting team.
Here's the sequence, and what to plan for at each step.
Step 1: Decide Whether You Need a US Entity
You can sell to US customers without a US company. Cross-border processing, where a processor outside the US handles the card payments, works fine for many businesses. You pay for it in cross-border fees, currency conversion and, often, lower approval rates, since US card issuers tend to treat foreign transactions more cautiously.
A US entity can unlock domestic processing and domestic pricing, and many US processors, Stripe US included, require one. But the entity has its own ongoing costs: tax filings, accounting, a registered agent and annual compliance. A merchant of record is a narrower option, where another company sells on your behalf and takes on those obligations in exchange for a larger cut.
Plan for it: Put a number on your yearly cross-border costs at your expected US volume, and compare it with the yearly cost of running a US entity. That comparison should drive the decision, not whichever provider you want to use.
Step 2: Form the Entity
This is the fast part now. Stripe Atlas and similar services can set up a US company in days, with the paperwork handled online.
What formation doesn't do is decide how the company will run. Where you incorporate isn't necessarily where you'll owe tax or need to register. Someone still has to keep the books, file the returns and handle the annual reports.
Plan for it: Before you form, name who owns tax, accounting and annual filings for the US company, whether that's someone internal or an outside firm.
Step 3: Get the EIN
The Employer Identification Number is the company's US tax ID. Most banks and payment processors want it before they'll open anything.
For founders with a US Social Security number, getting one is quick. Without one, the application usually goes through a slower channel, and the wait can run for weeks. That wait sits directly in front of the next two steps.
Plan for it: Apply for the EIN the day the entity exists, and build the wait into your launch date rather than discovering it later.
Step 4: Choose the Bank Route or the Wallet Route
On the bank route, card revenue settles into a US business bank account. Banks have to verify everyone who owns 25% or more of the company, plus a person who controls it, and many traditional banks still expect a branch visit for foreign-owned accounts. Online banks are more open, but have eligibility limits of their own.
On the wallet route, some card processors now settle US card revenue as USDC to a wallet the merchant controls. Customers still pay by card. Because there's no bank in the flow, there's no bank approval to wait on.
The catch is what comes after settlement. US payroll, tax payments, rent and most US vendors still want dollars from a bank account.
Plan for it: Map where your money has to go after it settles. If the answer includes US costs, you'll need the bank eventually, and the wallet route is a bridge rather than the destination.
Step 5: Clear Processor Underwriting
This is the gate on either route. Before a processor lets you accept cards, it reviews your business model, ownership, website, policies and history. A newly formed US entity has no US processing history, so expect more questions, and possibly a reserve or delayed payouts until you build a track record.
Plan for it: Have your processing history from other markets, your refund and fulfillment policies and your volume projections ready. Ask about reserves and payout timing before you sign, not after the first payout is held.
The Takeaway
Each of these steps gates the next one. The entity decision shapes everything that follows, the EIN gates the bank, the bank or wallet gates settlement, and underwriting gates all of it.
Companies that lose weeks entering the US usually didn't hit an unusual problem. They hit an ordinary one they hadn't sequenced for. A US launch date set before the EIN application is a guess. Map the order first, then set the date.
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