Stripe doesn't work in your country? The 3 setups that actually do

Hafedh Ben Dhia — Mon, 02 Nov 2026 12:28:04 +0000

Stripe only accepts businesses in about 50 countries. I'm a web developer in Tunisia, one of the countries it doesn't serve, and finding a clear answer to "how do I get paid online from here?" took me weeks.

Here's what I learned: almost every working setup is one of three things. Your goal decides which one comes first.

1. A merchant of record (the fastest start)

A merchant of record (MoR) is the legal seller of your product. It charges your customers, handles VAT and sales tax worldwide, and pays you out to your bank account.

✅ No foreign company needed
✅ Best for digital products and SaaS
⚠️ Higher fees than a direct processor
⚠️ Eligibility depends on the country that issued your ID, so check the provider's accepted list first

2. A receiving account (for freelancers)

If clients or marketplaces pay you, a receiving account (Payoneer, Wise) gives you account details in foreign currencies they can pay into. You then withdraw to your local bank.

✅ Simple for freelance and agency work
⚠️ Wise publishes the list of countries whose residents can hold money: check yours

3. A US company (to use Stripe itself)

A US LLC unlocks Stripe from almost anywhere. Stripe sees a US business, and payouts go to the company's US account.

The setup is the easy part. The yearly costs are what matter:

Registered agent and state fees, every year
Form 5472 every year for a foreign-owned single-member LLC. The IRS penalty for not filing is $25,000.
A US business account, which is a separate approval (Mercury, for example, doesn't serve founders living in some countries)

The two services most founders abroad use are doola and Firstbase, and they're priced very differently: yearly plans that can include the IRS filing vs a cheap setup plus à-la-carte services. I compared them using only their official pricing pages:

To move the money home afterwards, many founders use Wise Business. I wrote up what Wise asks for, including the address question that trips people up: Wise Business for a US LLC owned from abroad.

Which one should you pick?

Your situation	Start with
Selling digital products, no revenue yet	A merchant of record
Freelancer paid by clients or marketplaces	A receiving account
Steady revenue and you need Stripe	A US company

Check your own country

Provider lists change silently. This year Mercury removed Bangladesh, Indonesia and Vietnam from its excluded countries, with no announcement. So I built a free, country-by-country checker where every status links to the provider's official page and the date it was checked:

👉 Payments Without Borders: 24 countries, in English, French, Arabic and Spanish.

If your country's page is wrong or missing, tell me in the comments and I'll fix it.