Hi everyone - I would lie to jump in here and say that we are so so so many non-US residents with total legit US businesses (LLC or else) with EIN and ITIN, facing exact same issue. It has become (almost) IMPOSSIBLE to have a payment gateway provider to accept process online stores payments (Shopify / Woo Commerce/ BigCommerce etc), generally for Dropshipping activities. The nature of this business model︀ is deemed high risk (and is on same list as Adult industry, ECB selling, guns︁ & ammo etc), imlpies statistically very high rate of charge backs & refunds, are deemed︂ selling "poor" products mainly from China - AND on top of that if owner is︃ non US resident and has no SSN, it means there is not score credit and︄ it is impossible to check his history as regards money-laundering and criminal records.
So basically,︅ dropshopping + no stocks in the US (= zero assets) + no SSN (= no︆ checkable history) = high risk of high charge backs/refunds + non resident owner (where are︇ you if there is a legal issue ?) ======== rejection from payment gateways.
It has︈ become a nightmare for everybody.
And there is an awful MASSIVE wave of accounts closed,︉ one after one non stop sine last year. And those non resident on US who︊ opened an online store before regulations became very strict are exposed to such random closure︋ as soon as the provider will run checks and realize there is no SSN.
I know of a Portuguese friend in this case, he had several stores on Shopify thru︌ US LLC and being non resident. 100% compliant, pays taxes everything. Well they closed all︍ his shops last month , no explanation. He has no more source of income.
Thats how horrible it has became.
So open a shop from where you are, and go︎ global.
Stripe currently rejects new applicants if non US applicants and if they do Dropshipping in the US thru LLC. And the old ones .... expect high risk of closure in the future if they run checks. With no explanations.
