Required Registered Business for Payment Methods

Payments + Shipping & Fulfilment

Topic summary

A prospective merchant in Estonia wants to launch a Shopify store selling niche products within and outside the EU. They’ve encountered a barrier during payment setup: both Stripe and PayPal require a registered business name/number to operate.

Key Question:
Is it legally impossible to use these payment providers in Estonia without officially registering as a company?

Context:
The merchant’s initial plan was to test the business model and observe consistent revenue flow before committing to formal business registration. They’re seeking clarification on whether Estonian legislation mandates official company registration to access these payment gateways, or if alternative pathways exist for early-stage sellers.

Summarized with AI on November 22. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
1

Hello!

I would love to start a Shopify store running from Estonia, selling niche goods to markets both inside and outside of EU. However when setting up the main payment methods for my store in both Stripe and PayPal, I run into the issue of them requiring a legally registered business name/number.

Does this mean that in my legislation there is no way to operate with these payment providers unless I register as an official company in Estonia?

My idea was to get it done if I see a consistent revenue flow and see if it even works out.