Verify WISE trading address within a half an hour – we have tried the below solutions with many of our clients.
Background:
Many of our clients use a US LLC to bill their clients and recently Wise has threatened to close the account if the trading address is not verified.
In this article, we will go through how different clients have solved the problem and which one is legally the best, “cleanest” option and the one with the highest probability of acceptance.
Introduction
Many online entrepreneurs living in countries across Asia or South America have opened a US company in the past few years.
Due to a loophole, this gives them a few advantages:
- No corporate taxes in the US (as an LLC in the US being taxed on personal level only)
- No personal taxes in the US (as the founder is neither an American nor lives in the US)
- the reputation of an American company for billing
But this loophole comes with the disadvantage that opening and maintaining a bank account can be hard as Wise and other bank accounts don’t consider or dislike this loophole.
Let us show you how can still make it work to use the bank account.
General tip:
Even if we can get a bank account to work for a foreign-owned US LLC it is not very wise to store a big amount of money on it because the asset could be frozen at any given moment.
We usually recommend to pay yourself out into your personal bank account or if you are very business-savvy to go a step further and create a holding structure.
You can read more about this below in the further reading section.
Further reading:
Read how online entrepreneurs use a US LLC to bill clients and a Hong Kong LLC to protect their money from closing bank accounts and the differences between a US LLC and a Hong Kong LLC.
If you want to know more about how to protect your money from freezing bank accounts, book a call with our legal tax accountant.
Wise trading address vs business address
It is important to first understand the differences between
- a trading address and
- a business address for Wise.
For Wise, a business address is the address of your company.
For most US LLC, this is basically their registered agent address and it is also publicly available on government websites.
To see the business address of companies in Florida, simply go to Sunbiz and type your company name.
On the other hand, a trading address is the location from where you work and conduct business.
So for most US LLCs this will be in the US, but for foreign-owned US LLC this location may actually be outside the US.
Wise trading Address verification: Which country?
Many struggle with which country to choose for their trading address due to
- fear of being taxes in the country of trading address (fear of communication with local tax department although they are digital nomads)
- fear of not understanding Wise KYC process and a foreign address is inappropriate
We have discussed this topic with ChatGPT and ChatGPT holds the opinion that Wise only accepts a US trading address because it is a US LLC.
ChatGPT reasons that there is a dropdown with many countries because Wise business also operates in other countries and it is a technical error that it shows all countries although the business address is in the US.
You can read our conversation with ChatGPT about how to verify the Wise business trading address here.
When looking at the Wise address, it says that the business address and the trading address can be in different countries (see screenshot below).
But pay attention that not all countries in the world can be chosen from the dropdown. There are many that are grayed out (Vietnam, Afghanistan) as Wise does not operate there.
We have even emailed the Wise customer support and they also verify that: Yes, you can have a different country as your trading address (see red underlined part in screenshot below).
So summary:
- The business address and trading address may be in different countries
- It has to be amongst the available countries in the dropdown.
So far this sounds very good for our digital nomads with a US LLC living in a foreign country.
On the first sight, this means you can basically upload a proof of residency in Thailand for instance and the problem is solved.
But unfortunately, the proof of verification is a bit more challenging and Wise does not make it easy.
Wise trading Address verification: Which document?
Wise trading address: Details on document
Now, comes the tricky part: The document for verification.
It could be very easy, but one requirement makes it actually hard:
The document should contain the name of your business (see screenshot).
For example, this would mean if you show them a lease agreement from a foreign country, then it needs to say that the property is being leased to your company, e.g. ABC LLC.
It is highly unlikely that a landlord in a foreign country would write such a lease agreement for a company in a foreign country, not mentioning the cost involved just renting a space for your US LLC.
Wise trading address: Document type
Wise itself says on its website that they accept the following types of documents (see screenshot):
- utility bills
- lease agreement
- a bank statement
- business license
- tax documents
- insurance policy
Now here it becomes interesting:
In the very last paragraph on above screenshot it says:
“If your business is a single-member LLC and it’s your only place of business – you can provide a document with your full name.”
This would mean any type of document from above to our name (lease agreement etc.) should work. They also say this in our email correspondence (see second red underlined sentence in screenshot below).
Wise trading Address verification: Solutions
So now we are left with these solutions in case we are a single-member US LLC (meaning only one shareholder which fits to most US LLCs) to verify our trading address:
- Solution 1: Document on the name of the US LLC (either foreign country or USA)
- Solution 2: Document on our personal name (either foreign country or USA)
Let us see how different customers have worked around this using both solutions,
Wise trading address verification: Solution 1 – Document with name of US LLC
Document with US LLC company name and foreign trading address
The first option is using an address (personal) outside of the US.
Let us see the ways that have worked for others to verify it:
Document: Insurance in a foreign country.
German clients have bought insurance for their US LLC (30 Euros for a year) under the name of the LLC and with a German address.
So this would comply with Wise’s requirements that:
- it needs to obtain the trading address
- contains the name of the US LLC
Some have used the insurance provider NeoDigital and bought an insurance for personal liability (see screenshot how it looks like).
Probability to work: Medium
Document: Lease agreement in a foreign country.
You can let your landlord write a lease agreement between himself and your company that he is leasing an office space to you.
Make sure to have:
- a proper letter head with a logo
- name of the landlord and address is displayed
- name of your US LLC and address is displayed
- details of the contract
Probability to work: Low
A customer of ours tried this and they rejected the lease agreement. The lease agreement probably needs to fit a certain format and criteria that the staff does not tell us.
Document with US LLC company name and US trading address
If you choose to have a trading address in the US, then there are a couple of more things that you should be aware of.
Important note:
Wise accepts only read addresses. This means they don’t accept registered addresses that are mailboxes.
Wise actually has a database to check these addresses, so just adding the address on the surface may already get flagged and it will ask you to change to a different one.
But some registered addresses may still work – this is just a matter of trying it out.
So there are couple of address options you have:
- You take your registered address and hope that Wise does not have this included in their database as a mailbox address
- You ask a friend in the US for their address and whether you may use it as a trading address
- You actually rent out an office space in the US (which can be too expensive)
We go through the document types that have worked for our customers.
Document: Business bank statement from Relay
Although Wise writes on their website that they don’t accept bank statements from fintech banks such as Revolut or Relay, for some customers it did work out (see screenshot below).
So it may depend on Wise automatic system whether it can identify a fintech bank from the bank statement.
Note:
You can easily change your business address in Relay, but it does not work on the desktop version.
It needs to be done through the mobile application and then the bank statement can be downloaded through the desktop application again.
Probability to work: High (if it’s not a fintech) otherwise low.
Document: Lease agreement in the US
As we had discussed above with your foreign address, here you can also use a lease agreement.
In this case you can ask a friend or another landlord in the US to write a lease agreement or an approval that you may use their address as a trading address for Wise.
Probability to work: High
Document: Annual Report for your US LLC
Interesting enough for some of our customers, they just simply uploaded the annual report for their US LLC.
You can find your annual report online when searching for your company name.
For example:
Here is the online information of a US LLC and down below the page you can download its annual report.
Please note that if the address used in the annual report is a registered address saved in the database of Wise as a mailbox address, it will not work.
Before uploading the document try to edit the trading address with the address in your annual report and see whether there is an error or whether it gets accepted.
Probability to work: High (if addressed in annual report not a registered address known by Wise).
Wise trading address verification: Solution 1 – Document with personal name
As we have confirmed from Wise itself, they have said that as a single-member LLC we can simply send them a document with our personal details.
We assume that this solution only works when you email the support team directly at Wise.
Because they automatic system cannot identify whether you are a single-member LLC and this has to be done manually by the staff.
So here are the solutions that can work out:
Document: Bank statement from personal bank account
In the past a few clients have also tried to upload a personal bank statement including their first and last name which has worked.
It would both fulfill Wise’s requirement of a bank statement and that is your personal name,
Just make sure that it is not a fintech bank such as Revolut, N26 etc.
Probability to work: High
Document: Lease agreement to your name
By theory this should also work out as Wise lists this as a valid document.
In practice, one of our customer has tried this but they rejected it (see screenshot below).
We suppose that they are looking for a certain form of a document when asking for a lease agreement.
Probability to work: Low
Document: Insurance on your personal name
Using a document by an insurance company has successfully worked for our customers.
They basically had a contract with an insurance company on their own name that they simply uploaded.
Again:
You probably need to email with Wise support individually for this.
They don’t bite so simply get in touch with them.
Here in the screenshot below you can see how they accepted the insurance document of our customer.
At the end of the day:
The thing that is needed most is patience.
If you want to solve this problem once and for all and not rely on Wise’s mercy as a US LLC owner, watch this video:
