Banking Access Index - Verified US bank acceptance for non-resident founders
Show HN: Banking Access Index – 19 US banking providers, 8 countries, CC-BY
The Banking Access Index is a rigorously researched dataset that documents which US business banking providers actually accept founders living outside the US, based solely on provider-published sources. Covering 19 providers and 8 countries, it features 239 verified claims, each backed by citations and re-verified quarterly. The index distinguishes between explicit acceptance, explicit restrictions (with evidence types), and unknown states, offering clarity in a landscape often clouded by anecdote. Downloadable as JSON or CSV, it empowers global founders to make informed banking decisions.
Which US business banking providers actually accept founders who live outside the US — documented from provider-published sources, not anecdotes.
- reid_58
Useful dataset. The country coverage gaps would be interesting to fill in over time.
- jettfu
I run a US LLC from Hong Kong. Every time I needed to open or replace a business account, I hit the same wall: the comparison articles rank providers by monthly fee and never answer the only question that decides anything, which is whether the provider will accept me at all given where I live.
So I built the boring version. 19 providers × 8 countries, 152 cells, one of four states per cell, each backed by a verbatim quote from the provider's own terms or help centre:
explicit_accept (26) — they say in writing that they take founders resident there
explicit_restrict (61) — they say in writing that they do not
no_published_restriction (26) — I read their published restrictions and this country is not on them
unknown (39) — no published source answers it
That last state is 26% of the grid and it is the part I care most about. The failure mode in this category is treating silence as a yes. A provider not listing your country is not the same as a provider accepting your country, and almost every roundup I have read flattens those two into one green checkmark. Splitting them is most of the value here.
Two things that surprised me while building it.
15 of the 19 are not banks. They are fintechs sitting on a partner bank. That changes what "FDIC insured" means for your balance and who actually decides your account gets closed, and it is nearly invisible in the marketing. One provider's own pages put checking-account coverage at $250,000 through its partner bank while a separate savin […]