# Methodology: USD Receiving Account Eligibility by Country

Edition: `2026-11` (checked `2026-11-12`)

## 1. Question Measured

This dataset measures one specific capability across 6 cross-border payment providers, 30 corridor countries, and 3 account types (540 cells total):

**Can a new applicant in country X obtain dedicated US ACH and wire receiving account details (a US routing number and account number that a US client can pay like a domestic bank transfer) from provider P under account type T?**

General marketing pages routinely conflate four distinct capabilities:
1. Opening a login or holding a local currency balance.
2. Sending money abroad or spending with a travel card.
3. Receiving international SWIFT wires into a domestic bank account.
4. Obtaining dedicated US routing and account numbers (local USD account details) for incoming domestic ACH and wire payments.

A provider is marked `yes` in a cell only when its published eligibility documentation permits a new applicant in that country and account type to obtain dedicated USD receiving account details.

## 2. Dimensions and Scope (540 Cells)

### Providers (6)
- **Wise** (`wise`): Personal accounts, local business accounts (Wise Business), and US-incorporated entities (such as Delaware LLCs or C-Corps) with non-US resident owners.
- **Mercury** (`mercury`): US business accounts for US-incorporated entities (`us_company_resident_owner`). Mercury does not offer personal accounts or non-US local business accounts (`n/a` on `personal` and `local_business`).
- **Airwallex** (`airwallex`): Local business accounts (`local_business`) and US-incorporated entities (`us_company_resident_owner`) that open a USD Global Account. Airwallex is business-only (`n/a` on `personal`).
- **Payoneer** (`payoneer`): Personal/freelancer (`personal`) and local business (`local_business`) accounts. Payoneer does not publish a public country eligibility list for USD receiving account issuance; every `personal` and `local_business` cell is recorded as `unknown`, while `us_company_resident_owner` is marked `n/a` because Payoneer routes US entities through its standard business onboarding without a separate non-resident US-entity rule table.
- **Grey** (`grey`): Personal/freelancer multi-currency accounts (`personal`). Grey does not offer multi-user corporate or US entity accounts under this product (`n/a` on `local_business` and `us_company_resident_owner`).
- **Skydo** (`skydo`): RBI-authorized Payment Aggregator - Cross Border (PA-CB) issuing US virtual receiving accounts to Indian business and exporter entities (`local_business` in `IN`, `no` in the other 29 countries, `n/a` on `personal` and `us_company_resident_owner`).

### Corridor Countries (30)
- **South Asia (5):** Pakistan (`PK`), Bangladesh (`BD`), India (`IN`), Sri Lanka (`LK`), Nepal (`NP`).
- **Southeast Asia (5):** Philippines (`PH`), Indonesia (`ID`), Vietnam (`VN`), Malaysia (`MY`), Thailand (`TH`).
- **MENA (5):** Egypt (`EG`), Lebanon (`LB`), Turkiye (`TR`), United Arab Emirates (`AE`), Morocco (`MA`).
- **Sub-Saharan Africa (5):** Nigeria (`NG`), Cameroon (`CM`), Kenya (`KE`), Ghana (`GH`), South Africa (`ZA`).
- **Eastern Europe, Caucasus, and East Asia (5):** Ukraine (`UA`), Serbia (`RS`), Georgia (`GE`), Armenia (`AM`), China (`CN`).
- **Latin America (5):** Mexico (`MX`), Brazil (`BR`), Argentina (`AR`), Colombia (`CO`), Venezuela (`VE`).

### Account Types (3)
- `personal`: An individual or sole freelancer applying with personal residency and identity documents in the corridor country.
- `local_business`: A company incorporated and operating in the corridor country.
- `us_company_resident_owner`: A US-incorporated company (such as a Delaware or Wyoming LLC or C-Corp) whose founder, controlling officer, or ultimate beneficial owner (UBO) resides in the corridor country.

## 3. Status Values and Reason Codes

### Status Values (`status`)
- `yes`: New applicants in this country and account type can open the account and obtain dedicated US routing and account numbers according to the provider's published rules.
- `existing_only`: Existing customers who opened USD details before a cutoff keep them, or new account detail issuance is temporarily paused for new customers in this country (for example, Wise in Thailand).
- `no`: Published provider documentation blocks either account onboarding, balance holding, or USD account detail issuance for this country and account type.
- `unknown`: The provider does not publish a public country-level eligibility rule for USD receiving accounts and gates eligibility inside an authenticated dashboard flow after signup and KYC (Payoneer).
- `n/a`: The provider does not offer this account type at all.

### Reason Codes (`reason`)
Populated when `status = no` (empty otherwise):
- `restricted_list`: The country appears on a provider's explicit prohibited, unavailable, personal-profile-blocked, or currency-restricted list.
- `not_in_supported_list`: The country is omitted from the provider's positive list of eligible countries where balances or USD accounts can be opened.
- `not_served`: The provider serves only a specific domestic market (Skydo serves India only).
- `sanctions`: The country is subject to comprehensive OFAC or international sanctions (`CU`, `IR`, `KP`, `SY`, `VE`).

### Evidence Types (`evidence_type`)
- `provider_page`: Current official help center article, API JSON payload, or terms page fetched directly from the provider.
- `provider_archive`: Historical snapshot retrieved from the Internet Archive Wayback Machine (`web.archive.org`).
- `signup_flow`: Documented onboarding gate where public pages omit country rules and defer eligibility to post-KYC dashboard requests.

## 4. Provider Rule Precedence and Primary Sources

Every cell is derived deterministically by combining parsed country sets from `sources/<provider>/<doc>/<date>.ext` with the rule definitions in `rules/<provider>.yaml`.

### 4.1 Wise (`rules/wise.yaml`)
Wise USD account detail eligibility depends on the intersection of three official articles:
1. **Wise Help 2810318** (`https://wise.com/help/articles/2810318/can-i-get-usd-account-details`):
   - **Unavailable countries (`usd_unavailable`):** Residents cannot get USD account details if their address is in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Belarus, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Cuba, Eritrea, Guinea-Bissau, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Myanmar, Nevada, Nigeria, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Serbia, Somalia, South Sudan, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Syria, Turkiye, United Arab Emirates, Ukraine, Venezuela, or Yemen.
   - **Restrictions for Wise Business accounts (`business_us_address_blocked` and `business_personal_profile_blocked`):** Added between September 30, 2026 and November 2, 2026. Wise Business accounts cannot get USD account details if the business has a US address in (or if the owner's personal profile has an address in) Bangladesh, Belarus, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, China, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eritrea, Guinea-Bissau, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Russia, Serbia (unless incorporated in the US, UK, Australia, or Canada), Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Ukraine, or Yemen.
2. **Wise Help 2813542** (`https://wise.com/help/articles/2813542/where-do-i-need-to-live-to-hold-money-with-wise`):
   - Because Wise requires a customer to hold a balance in order to open USD account details, a country must appear in the positive balance-holding list (`hold_supported`), subject to country-specific exceptions in that table:
     - **Thailand (`hold_paused`):** Wise temporarily stopped issuing currencies and account details for new customers in Thailand (`existing_only`).
     - **Brazil (`hold_brl_only`):** Residents in Brazil can only hold BRL (`no`, `restricted_list`).
     - **India (`hold_travel_only`):** Personal accounts in India can only hold money via the Wise Travel Card when travelling overseas (`no` on `personal`).
     - **Malaysia (`hold_personal_only`):** Only personal accounts can hold balances; Wise Business cannot hold balances in Malaysia (`yes` on `personal`, `no` on `local_business`).
     - **Countries omitted from 2813542 (`not_in_supported_list`):** Nepal, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, Kenya, Ghana, Armenia, and Mexico are not in Wise's balance-holding table (`no`, `not_in_supported_list` on `personal` and `local_business`).
3. **Wise Help 71lNXW0Ls3gEFhUH8PtodV** (`https://wise.com/help/articles/71lNXW0Ls3gEFhUH8PtodV/receiving-payments-for-indian-businesses`):
   - **India Business override (`india_business_usd`):** Wise Business in India provides local USD account details for incoming business payments up to EUR 25,000 equivalent per invoice with e-FIRC generation (`yes` on `local_business` in `IN`).

### 4.2 Mercury (`rules/mercury.yaml`)
- **Mercury Support 28771710754580** (`https://support.mercury.com/api/v2/help_center/en-us/articles/28771710754580.json` and `https://support.mercury.com/hc/en-us/articles/28771710754580-Prohibited-countries`):
- Mercury serves US-incorporated companies (`us_company_resident_owner`) and bars onboarding or access when a founder or beneficial owner resides in a country on its Prohibited countries list.
- Among the 30 corridor countries, 11 are on Mercury's Prohibited countries list as of November 2026 (`PK`, `BD`, `NP`, `PH`, `ID`, `VN`, `LB`, `NG`, `CM`, `UA`, `VE`), leaving 19 corridor countries eligible (`yes`) if the founder incorporates a US entity and satisfies Mercury's verification requirements.
- Historical Wayback captures show Mercury expanded this list between February 7, 2026 and September 3, 2026, adding Bangladesh (`BD`), Indonesia (`ID`), Nepal (`NP`), and Vietnam (`VN`).

### 4.3 Airwallex (`rules/airwallex.yaml`)
- **Airwallex Help 4408591334937** (`https://help.airwallex.com/hc/en-gb/articles/4408591334937-Eligible-Countries-and-Territories`) and **Airwallex Help 4419267227417** (`https://help.airwallex.com/hc/en-gb/articles/4419267227417-Documents-required-for-companies-in-the-US`):
- Airwallex only onboards businesses incorporated in its Eligible Countries and Territories list, and for US-incorporated companies requires that no beneficial owner or controlling person live outside that same Eligible Countries list.
- Among the 30 corridor countries, 9 appear on Airwallex's Eligible Countries table (`IN`, `PH`, `ID`, `VN`, `MY`, `TH`, `CN`, `MX`, `BR`) and 21 do not (`no`, `not_in_supported_list`, or `sanctions` for `VE`).
- For `us_company_resident_owner`, Airwallex Help 4419267227417 additionally requires proof of US operating presence and explicitly rejects registered-agent addresses and statements from online platforms or neobanks.

### 4.4 Payoneer (`rules/payoneer.yaml`)
- **Payoneer Local Receiving Accounts** (`https://www.payoneer.com/local-receiving-accounts/`):
- Payoneer advertises USD local receiving accounts globally but does not publish a public country eligibility table or country exclusion list for USD receiving account issuance. Eligibility is determined inside the authenticated dashboard (`Receive -> Global Payment Service`) after signup, KYC, and in some corridors volume or questionnaire thresholds. All 30 corridor countries are recorded as `unknown` on `personal` and `local_business`.

### 4.5 Grey (`rules/grey.yaml`)
- **Grey Support 9680610** (`https://support.grey.co/en/articles/9680610-why-can-t-i-request-a-us-account`) and **Grey Support 6383103** (`https://support.grey.co/en/articles/6383103-grey-s-non-supported-countries`):
- Grey publishes a positive table of countries eligible to request a US bank account in article 9680610, alongside a general non-supported jurisdictions list in article 6383103.
- Among the 30 corridor countries, 17 are listed as eligible in article 9680610 (`IN`, `PH`, `ID`, `VN`, `MY`, `TH`, `EG`, `TR`, `AE`, `NG`, `CM`, `GH`, `ZA`, `MX`, `BR`, `AR`, `CO`) and 13 are ineligible (`PK`, `BD`, `LK`, `NP`, `LB`, `MA`, `KE`, `UA`, `RS`, `GE`, `AM`, `CN`, `VE`).

### 4.6 Skydo (`rules/skydo.yaml`)
- **Skydo Terms of Use** (`https://www.skydo.com/terms-of-use`) and **Skydo FAQs** (`https://www.skydo.com/faqs`):
- Skydo Technologies Private Limited holds Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Payment Aggregator - Cross Border (PA-CB) authorization to provide international collection accounts (including US virtual accounts with FIRA/e-FIRC issuance) exclusively to Indian entities exporting goods or services (`yes` on `local_business` in `IN`, `no` with `reason = not_served` in the other 29 countries).

## 5. Parser Guardrails and Reproducibility

To prevent silent HTML drift when providers redesign their help centers:
- Every HTML, JSON, or Markdown snapshot is stored in `sources/<provider>/<doc>/<YYYY-MM-DD>.ext` and indexed with its SHA-256 hash in `data/sources.csv`.
- Every parser in `eligibility/` runs `check_count_guard()`, which raises a `ValueError` and halts the build if a parsed country list returns 0 countries, falls below its minimum expected size, or changes by more than 33.3% relative to a baseline count.
- Verified manual overrides (such as authenticated signup-flow checks) can be placed in `data/overrides.csv` without modifying parser code; override rows take precedence over rule evaluation and require an explicit `evidence_type`, `source_url`, and `checked_date`.

### Running the Pipeline Offline
```bash
python3 -m eligibility fetch
python3 -m eligibility parse
python3 -m eligibility derive
python3 -m eligibility history
python3 -m eligibility render
python3 -m unittest discover -s tests
```