Wise Business: There Is No Restricted-Country List

"You can hold money in your account if you live in one of the following countries and territories:"

Wise, Where do I need to live to hold money with Wise?.

Mercury and Relay publish exclusion lists. You look for your country, and not finding it is good news. Wise publishes an inclusion list, so not finding your country is the bad news, and it arrives silently.

Founders spend real time searching for "Wise restricted countries" and find nothing useful, because the document they need is the opposite shape.

We counted 79 entries.

That number is worth stating carefully, because two other figures circulate. An automated reading of the same page during this research returned 68. The commonly repeated figure is "over 100." Both are wrong against a hand count on the date shown, which is why we count rather than cite.

Andorra, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Belgium, Bouvet Island, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Cayman Islands, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, French Guiana, Georgia, Germany, Gibraltar, Greece, Guadeloupe, Guam, Guernsey, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Isle of Man, Italy, Japan, Jersey, Kuwait, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macao, Malaysia, Malta, Martinique, Mayotte, Monaco, Netherlands, New Zealand, North Macedonia, Norway, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Réunion, Romania, Saint Barthélemy, Saint Martin, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Sint Maarten, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay.

This is the part that matters for a non-US founder, and it is blunt.

India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Vietnam, Nepal, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Egypt, Kenya, Ghana, Morocco and Mexico are absent.

Of Prolify's main corridors, only the Philippines appears. Every other one is outside the list.

India gets a single line in Wise's restrictions note, saying you can hold money in your account "when travelling overseas." That is a different condition from residency eligibility, and we have not tested how it operates in practice.

This page governs holding money. It is not a statement that Wise is unavailable to you for everything.

Sending and receiving have separate coverage published on separate pages, which we have not yet retrieved. So the honest reading of an absence here is "cannot hold a Wise balance," and a reader who successfully sends money through Wise from India has not caught us in an error.

We would rather write the narrow true thing than the broad one that reads better.

Wise lists specific carve-outs for countries that are otherwise on the list:

Two of these bite a business directly. Bahrain, Israel and Malaysia are personal only, so a founder there cannot hold money in a Wise Business account even though their country is on the list. Hong Kong is the reverse, business only.

And Wise's own words on the last row:

"United States - you can't hold money if you live in Nevada"

Same source.

A US state carved out of a US-available product is the kind of detail that only surfaces from reading the page.

So the number for a business is not 79. Take the personal-only three off the list and Wise Business is open to residents of 76 territories, not the 79 the holding page names. We are showing our arithmetic because Wise does not publish that number and its own page is internally inconsistent about it: Israel appears in the personal-only restriction note but carries no asterisk in the list above it. Treat 76 as our count, not as a figure Wise stands behind.

Wise publishes its US business verification requirements, and the sentence that matters to a non-resident owner is this one:

We'll also ask for the SSN of the beneficial owners that reside in the US or have a US passport. For the non-US beneficial owners we'll request a copy of a photo ID.

A photo ID substitutes for an SSN. If you hold no US passport and do not live in the US, Wise asks for identification, not a number you cannot get. That is a narrower and better-documented position than most providers take, and it is stated rather than implied.

Two further constraints on the same page, both of which catch LLCs formed cheaply:

Due to licensing limitations, we're unable to onboard businesses from Nevada, and US territories (American Samoa, Guam, Mariana Islands, Virgin Islands).

This address has to be a physical location, we can't accept - PO boxes (except military PO boxes) / Registration agencies / Mail forwarding services / Virtual addresses

Read the second one against how a formation package is usually sold. The registered agent address you were given is a registration agency address. The mailbox add-on is a mail forwarding service. Neither will pass, and this is the point at which a founder discovers their entire US address is the one thing they cannot use.

Beneficial ownership is collected at the usual threshold, and Wise also makes you nominate one person as the controller.

Wise collects details of anyone who directly or indirectly owns 25% or more of a business, or who exercises control over it, and requires one person to be designated as the controller.[1]Wise, Verify your US business

Where is Wise's restricted-country list? There isn't one. Wise publishes the countries where you may live to hold money, and absence from that list is the restriction. Searching for the exclusion list is a dead end because the document is the other way round.

I live in India. Can I use Wise with my US LLC? India is not on the list of countries where you can hold money. There is a note about holding money in your account when travelling overseas, which is a different condition, and we have not tested it. Sending and receiving are covered by separate pages we have not yet retrieved.

My country is on the list. Does that mean a business account? Not always. Bahrain, Israel and Malaysia are personal accounts only. Hong Kong is business accounts only. Check the carve-outs, not just the list.

Why is Nevada excluded? Wise does not say. It states the exclusion without a reason, and we are not going to supply one.

Is the list stable? Unknown. Wise publishes no last-updated date, so we cannot tell you when it last changed. Our count and our reading are both dated September 1, 2026.