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:
- 👉 doola review: prices, what's included, who it suits
- 👉 Firstbase review: forming a US company from abroad
- 👉 Firstbase vs doola: what you really pay
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.
Disclosure: Payments Without Borders is my site. It contains labelled partner links (doola, Firstbase, Wise); they never change a status or the order of recommendations. Not financial or legal advice.
Top comments (1)
the moR-first framing is right for day-zero sellers, and the eligibility wrinkle worth flagging is that most merchant of record onboarding checks the country that issued the founder's ID rather than where the company later sits, so the accepted-countries list matters before the fee comparison does. on the US LLC route the recurring costs are the real filter: registered agent, state renewal, and the Form 5472 filing for foreign-owned single-member LLCs add up fast at pre-revenue, which is why the steady-revenue row in your table is the honest one. the receiving-account middle path also quietly changes tax reporting, since marketplace payouts land as gross receipts the freelancer reconciles themselves.