Mercury Eligibility for Non-US Founders: The Country List

"we support U.S. companies founded by people across the globe as well as founders and venture capital firms."

"However, we're unable to open accounts for founders living in any of the countries and regions listed below."

Mercury, Prohibited countries.

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"Founders living in." That's the test, and it's the whole test. Mercury is explicit that non-US founders are welcome, which is why the list catches people by surprise; the objection is not to you being foreign, it's to your address.

Mercury publishes no date on this page. The September 1, 2026 date on everything below is ours, taken by hand, and it's the only date that exists for this content.

This is the distinction that matters and almost every guide flattens it. Mercury itself does not. Its page carries two separate headings.

Sanctioned countries and regions

Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and the Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine including Crimea, Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia.

These are legal obligations under US sanctions law. No US financial institution can serve you, no appeal exists, and no other provider will reach a different answer. This is not Mercury's decision.

Prohibited countries

Forty-eight of them, hand-counted from Mercury's page on September 1, 2026:

Afghanistan, Albania, Angola, Bangladesh, Belarus, Bhutan, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Central African Rep, Congo (the Democratic Republic of the), Congo (the), Croatia, Eritrea, Gambia, Haiti, Indonesia, Iraq, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Maldives, Mali, Mozambique, Myanmar (Burma), Nepal, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Palestine (State of), Philippines, Russia (Russian Federation), Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan (the), Syria (Syrian Arab Republic), Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Vanuatu, Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of), Vietnam, Yemen, Zimbabwe.

This one is Mercury's decision. It's risk policy, not law, and that difference is worth everything to you, because policy varies between institutions and law does not.

Read it again. Croatia and Latvia are European Union member states. Albania is a European country and an EU candidate.

This matters for two reasons.

It kills the framing that Mercury's list is about developing markets or weak documentation. Croatia and Latvia are in the EU, use the euro, and have identity infrastructure equal to anywhere. Their presence tells you the list reflects one compliance team's cost-benefit judgment about diligence, correspondent banking relationships and portfolio risk, not a ranking of countries.

And it means you cannot predict your own outcome. Founders in Kenya and Ghana get accounts. Founders in Latvia do not. There's no principle you can reason from, so check the list rather than guessing from how "established" your country feels.

The two are not interchangeable, and treating them as one bank with two names is the most expensive mistake in this category.

Relay's list runs to 31 countries, last updated August 11, 2026, and Relay publishes that date. Compare the two and five significant markets come apart:

If you live in Bangladesh, Indonesia, Nepal, the Philippines or Vietnam, a Mercury rejection tells you nothing about Relay. Apply there next.

Relay applies a wider test in one respect, though. It gates on citizenship or residency, and:

"The restriction applies to any business owner named on the Relay Account application, including beneficial owners."

Relay, Prohibited Countries. Last updated August 11, 2026. So a co-founder's passport can close a Relay account that your own residence would have passed. Mercury's published test is residence only.

Relay also includes Ethiopia and Guinea-Bissau, which Mercury does not. Neither list is a subset of the other, and you have to check both.

Forming in Wyoming does not get you a Mercury account. Neither does Delaware, New Mexico, or any other state.

The claim persists because it's adjacent to something true. You do need a US entity for Mercury, and Wyoming is a common and reasonable choice for one. But the entity requirement and the residence requirement are two separate gates, and satisfying the first has no effect on the second. Mercury's sentence is about founders living somewhere, and your state of formation is not where you live.

If a formation service implies that its Wyoming package opens Mercury to a Nigeria-resident founder, that is the claim to press them on.

Try Relay first if your country is on Mercury's list but not Relay's. That's the five countries above, and it's the fastest path.

Look at the other gates. Being unable to bank with Mercury does not stop you using Stripe, Shopify Payments, Apple Developer or Google Play, none of which tests where you live. It affects where the money lands, not whether you can earn it.

Ask Mercury anyway if your situation is genuinely ambiguous. Mercury's page says: "If you are domiciled outside of one of these countries, please reach out to our Support team assistance in opening your account." That's aimed at people whose domicile differs from where the application appears to originate. It's not an appeals process for a listed country.

Do not misstate your address. It's the obvious idea and it's a bad one. You'll be asked for proof of address at onboarding, and the institution's customer due diligence obligations did not go away when BOI reporting did.

Mercury publishes no last-updated date, so we cannot tell you when this list last changed or how often it moves. The count of 48 is ours, taken by hand, and Mercury may edit the page without notice or notation.

We have no data on approval rates for countries that are not on the list, and we are not going to imply that absence from the list guarantees an account. It means this particular gate does not close on you.

Can I open Mercury from Nigeria with a US LLC? No. Nigeria is on Mercury's prohibited-country list, the test is where the founder lives, and the entity makes no difference. Relay also lists Nigeria, so both of the usual fintech routes are closed and the answer is a different institution.

Can I open Mercury from India? India is not on either Mercury's sanctions list or its prohibited list as of September 1, 2026, so this gate does not close on you. That is not the same as an approval, which depends on the rest of Mercury's diligence.

Does a Wyoming LLC help? Only with the entity requirement, which is a different gate. It has no effect on the residence test, and no state of formation does.

What if I move? Mercury's test is where you live, so it moves with you. We have not verified how Mercury treats an existing account whose owner relocates to a listed country, and we are not going to guess at it.

Is Mercury a bank? Mercury provides banking services through partner banks rather than holding a charter itself. That structure is why partner-bank policy shapes eligibility, and it is the same reason Relay's list is driven by its own partner arrangements.