Link bank account for LLC: non-us resident without SSN, LLC doesnt do business in the US

[Birte]

Hi,

I have an LLC for non US-residents, doing business outside the US. I produce goods in China, store them in the EU and sell on the EU market. Therefore I created my Shopify Store.

I dont have an American SSN and I dont do business in the US. Hence I can neither open a US bank account nor a Shopify Balance account. 

Now I am trying to link my EU Wise bank account to the shop. But its not accepted either. The virtual help center assistant says it should be possible. But I tried manual and via Plaid but its not working. Plaid lets me open Wise, choose my account - but then says it failed. Manually I need to add bank details according to ACH, I can not choose SEPA.

Any idea what I can do?

Thank you so much for your assistance. ❤️

[Ollie]

Hey, @Birte.

Thanks for reaching out. 

When you attempt to connect your Wise bank account to your Shopify store, are you receiving any specific error messages? If so, could you let us know what the error message is? As this information may allow us to assist you further.

Looking forward to your response. 

[Birte]

Hi Ollie,

Thanks a lot for your fast response.

Attached the failure message I receive:

Couldn’t connect to your institution

If you need to use this app immediately, we recommend trying another institution. Errors like this may take some time to resolve, so you may want to try the same account later.

I assume the problem might be that my Wise account is an EU account and it says fon your page that for US companies one needs a bank account either located in the US or a Shopify Balance account. Unfortunately for both I do not meet the guidelines since I openend a specific LLC for non-residents doing NO business in the US. And to open a bank account I need to be in the US and do at least 50% business in the US.

I hope you can help me out. I am all set, just wanted to add the final details and then start selling. I did not expect that my Wise business account would not be accepted.

[Ollie]

Hey, @Birte.

Thanks for the follow up response. 

Can you clarify with me if this error message is displaying from your Shopify admin, by any chance? The reason I am asking is because you may need to reach out to Wise support for more insight to why you are receiving this error message. They may be able to provide you with additional insight to this. 

Looking forward to your response. 

[Birte]

Hi Ollie,

That is not specified. I am trying through the Plaid tool. And then the message appears. I will check with Wise anyways.

If you have any further ideas, let me know. 🙂

[Ollie]

Hey, @Birte.

Thanks for the response. 

I think that may be best in this case. If this error message is displayed in the Plaid tool - we are unable to look into the specific error further from our side. However, if you notice that you are receiving an error message regarding this from your Shopify dashboard, we may be able to take a further look into this. I feel it would be best to speak with Wise support to see if they may be able to provide some insight to why this may be occurring. 

Feel more than welcome to follow back up with us here.