Relay Banking for Anonymous LLCs (2026 Guide)

Yes. Relay opens business banking for LLCs, including anonymous LLCs formed in Wyoming, New Mexico, Delaware, and Nevada. Your state-level anonymity has no effect on the application, because Relay never relies on your Secretary of State record. It runs its own identity check on the owners instead.

Relay is one of the two banks we route non-resident founders to, alongside Mercury. It accepts non-resident-owned US LLCs using a passport and an EIN, with no requirement to fly to the US or hold a Social Security number. That makes it a genuine primary account for a founder who lives abroad and runs a US anonymous LLC.

Relay is a US business-banking and money-management platform. It is a fintech, not a chartered bank: the accounts and FDIC insurance are provided by its partner, Thread Bank, member FDIC. What sets Relay apart is depth of account structure rather than raw yield.

• Many checking accounts under one login, so you can split money by function instead of juggling one balance.
• Multiple savings accounts for reserves, taxes, and profit set-asides.
• No monthly fee on the free tier, with a paid Relay Pro tier that adds faster payments and other perks.
• Team access with roles and permissions, useful once you add a bookkeeper or partner.

Best fit: owners who run the Profit First method, real-estate investors who want one account per property, and any operator who wants to allocate cash across buckets automatically.

Yes. Relay opens accounts for non-resident-owned US LLCs. You apply with your passport, your EIN, and your formation documents, and you do not need to visit the US or provide a Social Security number. This is the same profile that Bluevine rejects, which is why we pair Relay with Mercury for founders who live outside the US.

The practical requirement is a valid EIN. A non-resident owner cannot bank a US LLC without one, so we obtain the EIN as part of formation before any bank application goes out. Once the EIN letter is in hand, Relay onboarding is fully remote.

Relay asks for the standard business-banking set:

• EIN confirmation letter (CP 575, or a 147C if the original is lost).
• State-stamped Articles of Organization.
• Signed operating agreement.
• A government photo ID or passport for each owner.
• Ownership details for anyone who holds 25% or more of the LLC.

The ownership disclosure is not optional. Under the Customer Identification Program (31 CFR 1010.230), every US bank must identify each beneficial owner. Your name goes on file with Relay and its partner bank, but neither publishes it, so your public-record anonymity is untouched.

Relay lets you open a set of named checking accounts inside one business profile and move money between them on a schedule or by percentage. That structure is what makes it the natural home for Profit First, where every dollar of revenue is split into buckets for profit, owner pay, taxes, and operating expenses the moment it lands.

Real-estate investors use the same feature differently: one checking account per property keeps rent, mortgage, and repair cash cleanly separated, so a single login shows the health of each unit without a spreadsheet. Each account gets its own number and its own debit cards, which keeps bookkeeping clean at tax time.

The short version: pick Relay if you want many sub-accounts for budgeting or per-property real estate, Mercury if you are a non-resident founder who wants a startup-grade primary account, and Bluevine if you are US-resident and want interest on idle cash.

Relay is built around structure, not yield or credit. It carries fewer lending features than some competitors, so if you expect to draw on a line of credit or business loans through your bank, Relay is not the right anchor. Its interest is also limited compared with Bluevine, which pays activity-gated yield on your balance. Cash you want to earn on is better parked elsewhere.

The free tier covers most owners, but faster payment rails and certain perks sit behind Relay Pro, a paid tier. None of that changes the core strength: for splitting and allocating money across many accounts, Relay is the cleanest tool we bank clients with.

Relay Pro is Relay's paid tier, and it earns its cost for owners who move money on tight schedules. It adds faster same-day ACH, no-fee incoming and outgoing wires up to a set count, and auto-transfer rules that route cash between sub-accounts on a percentage the moment revenue lands. Confirm the current Pro price on Relay, because it changes.

The free tier covers most owners: many checking accounts, multiple savings accounts, debit cards, and no monthly fee. Pro is worth it when you run high transfer volume, pay overseas contractors by wire, or want the auto-allocation rules to run your Profit First split without manual moves. A low-volume single-member LLC stays on the free tier without missing anything essential.

Yes. Relay connects as the payout account for Stripe and syncs with accounting software such as QuickBooks and Xero, so card revenue flows in and your books stay current without manual entry. Stripe settles to the Relay account in the LLC's name, and Relay's sub-accounts keep that revenue separated from reserves and taxes.

The accounting integration is where the sub-account model pays off. Each named account maps to a category in your books, so a bookkeeper sees profit, tax, and operating cash as distinct balances instead of one blended number. For a real-estate owner running one account per property, that structure exports cleanly to the accounting stack and makes tax season far shorter.

No, and no US bank account ever is. Under the Bank Secrecy Act and the Customer Identification Program (31 CFR 1010.230), Relay and its partner bank must collect and verify the identity of every beneficial owner who holds 25% or more of the LLC. Your name, ID, and address are on file.

What state anonymity protects is the public record. A Secretary of State search shows only your registered agent, not you. The bank knows who you are and is legally required to, but it keeps that information private rather than publishing it. Anyone who conflates state-record privacy with bank secrecy is misreading how anonymous LLCs work.