One question, 31answers, each one the country’s own record. The labels below are the ones its own instruments use rather than a vocabulary we imposed on them: where one country’s law has no equivalent of another’s test, the row is simply absent, because an empty cell would invent a comparison nobody made. Every line opens onto the law it rests on.
Countries answered
31
Exceptions by nationality
1
Oldest check
2026-09-21
Newest check
2026-10-08
Antigua and BarbudaCaribbeanVerified with official sourceMonitor - can change2026-10-05
What governs account opening here is not a banking statute but the Money Laundering (Prevention) Regulations, and they are strict in a particular way: where satisfactory evidence of identity is not obtained, the institution shall not open the account, and if business has already begun it must not proceed and an established relationship must be terminated. Satisfactory evidence is defined by result rather than by a document list - evidence reasonably capable of establishing, and in fact establishing, that the applicant is who they say they are - so there is no statutory checklist a newcomer can work through. The Regulations also require the due diligence to be completed before or in the course of establishing the relationship, and they single out the greater risk where the customer is not physically present.
If identity is not established
The account is not opened, and an existing relationship is terminated
Statutory document list
None
Timing of due diligence
Before or during the establishment of the relationship
Non-resident or remote customers
Treated as higher risk by regulation
ArgentinaSouth AmericaVerified with official sourceMonitor - can change2026-09-21
The central bank has told financial institutions in terms that a deposit account can be opened for a foreigner without a DNI, including someone still regularising their immigration status, and for non-residents. Identity is proved with the document that identifies you in your country of residence, consularised or apostilled. Whether a particular bank will do it is another matter - the regulator has removed the excuse, not the discretion.
Account for a non-resident
Expressly possibleas of 2023-09-27
Account without a DNI
Expressly possible
Identity document
The one that identifies you where you live
Instrument
BCRA Comunicación "B" 12635/2023
BarbadosCaribbeanVerified with official sourceMonitor - can change2026-10-05
Barbados still has exchange control, and that - not anti-money-laundering paperwork - is what decides how a newcomer's account works. The Exchange Control Act makes it unlawful for anyone but an authorised dealer to buy, borrow, sell or lend foreign currency without permission, and the authority is the Minister of Finance, who has delegated most of it to the Central Bank. The rule that matters to a new arrival is the Central Bank's definition of residence for exchange control, which is nothing like the tax definition: a national of another country counts as resident only after continuously residing in Barbados for at least three years and only if not on a work permit. Until then their Barbados dollar account is an External Account, their foreign currency account is a non-resident one, and the Central Bank has given general permission for their net salary to be credited to it.
When a foreign national becomes resident for exchange control
After continuously residing in Barbados for at least three years, and only if not on a work permit
Account of a foreign national who is not yet resident
An External Account - a Barbados dollar account with an authorised dealer in the name of a non-resident
Salary into an External Account
Permitted. General permission has been granted to authorised dealers for net salaries earned by such foreign nationals to be credited to their accounts
Foreign currency accounts
Open to residents and non-residents alike, and payments from them may be made without reference to the Central Bank
Currency notes out of the country
Up to the equivalent of BDS$2,500 in foreign currency notes and coins, within an annual travelling allowance of BDS$20,000
Who the exchange control authority is
The Minister of Finance, who has delegated much of the authority to the Central Bank of Barbados
BelizeCentral AmericaVerified with official sourceMonitor - can change2026-10-05
Belize still has exchange control, and that, not anti-money-laundering paperwork, is what decides whether a foreigner can bank here. A Belize dollar account for a non-resident needs the Central Bank's approval unless you fall into one of nine categories the Central Bank delegated to the domestic banks in 2017 - and those categories cover most people who actually move here: non-residents living and working in Belize, non-residents studying here, non-residents under the Qualified Retirement Programme, and non-residents who own property here. Foreign currency accounts are a different and much harder story: domestic banks are not permitted to open them for non-residents at all. The newest exception is the broadest. A national of Barbados, Dominica or Saint Vincent and the Grenadines admitted under the 2026 free movement Act may open a local currency account with no Central Bank approval at all.
Belize dollar account for a non-resident
Delegated to domestic banks for nine categories since 19 June 2017; otherwise Central Bank approval
Delegated categories that matter to a mover
Living and working in Belize, living and studying in Belize, under the Qualified Retirement Programme, owning property in Belize
Foreign currency account at a domestic bank, non-resident
Not permitted
Qualified Retired Persons and foreign currency accounts
Do not qualify
CARICOM nationals under the 2026 free movement Act
May open a local currency account without Central Bank approval
Where a non-resident is pointed instead
Institutions licensed under the International Banking Act
BoliviaSouth AmericaSingle source - verify before relying on thisMonitor - can change2026-09-27
The document a foreign resident uses for everything in Bolivia is the foreigner's identity card, and holding one is not optional: anyone granted a temporary or permanent stay is required by law to obtain it from the identification service. What we cannot tell you is the banking rule itself. The financial supervisor's compilation of rules sets out what an entity must ask for when an account is opened, and its document server did not respond to us. Rather than put a bank's own page here and call it the law, we are saying where the gap is.
Identity document for a resident foreigner
Cédula de Identidad de Extranjero, issued by SEGIP
Card validity
Matches the temporary permit - one, two or three years
Permanent residents
Renew the card every five years
Banking rule for foreigners
Not established - see the note below
BrazilSouth AmericaVerified with official sourceMonitor - can change2026-09-27
Brazil's migration law gives a migrant a statutory right to open a bank account, in four words in a list of guaranteed rights. Two others here write banking into migration law as well - Guatemala as a right of residence, Mexico as a permission that does not depend on status. What no instrument does is say what you have to produce to exercise it. The current deposit-account rule revoked the old prescriptive lists and replaced them with a duty on each bank to verify and validate the identity and standing of its customers and to write its own criteria down in an internal document. Two things are therefore certain and one is not: the right exists, a tax number is effectively unavoidable because the revenue makes CPF registration compulsory for any non-resident holding a Brazilian bank account, and the document list is each bank's own.
Statutory right
Yes, guaranteed to migrants by the migration law
Tax number
CPF, compulsory for a non-resident holding a Brazilian bank account
Document list set nationally
No
Accounts for people domiciled abroad
Covered by the same resolution
Opening channel
Any channel the bank offers, including electronic, except voice telephone
ChileSouth AmericaVerified with official sourceMonitor - can change2026-09-27
The practical gate in Chile is the cédula de identidad. The state-owned bank's mass-market account, the CuentaRUT, is numbered with your Chilean ID number and is open to any Chilean or foreigner holding a current cédula, from age 12, with no income test and no credit check. That makes the residence permit, not the bank, the real requirement: the cédula follows the permit. The migration law meanwhile obliges public and private bodies to obtain a Rol Único Nacional for a foreigner who needs one to receive their services, and guarantees the right to move money in and out of the country.
Core document
Current Chilean cédula de identidad
Minimum age
12
Income test
None for the CuentaRUT
Account number
Your RUN without the check digit
Opening and maintenance fee
None
Duration once opened
Indefinite; either side may end it
International card use
Must be enabled first, then 1.9% per transaction, minimum USD 0.5
Identification before the cédula
A Rol Único Nacional obtained by the body that needs to identify you
Moving money abroad
A statutory right under the migration law
ColombiaSouth AmericaCorroborated by multiple sourcesMonitor - can change2026-09-27
Banking here runs through the cédula de extranjería, the identity card Migración Colombia issues to anyone holding a visa valid for more than three months. The trap is what happens while you wait for it: the receipt you are given when the card is being printed is expressly not accepted for opening accounts, so there is a gap between arriving and being bankable that nothing on the immigration side warns you about.
Core document
Cédula de extranjería
Who gets one
Foreigners over 7 holding a visa valid more than 3 months
The printing receipt
Not accepted for opening accounts
Venezuelan nationals
May use a Permiso de Protección Temporal
Proof of income
An employment or study letter, by category
Costa RicaCentral AmericaVerified with official sourceMonitor - can change2026-10-04
Costa Rican law says almost nothing about whether a foreigner may open a bank account. There is no provision in the migration law, and none in the residency regulations, that entitles a resident to one or tells a bank what to accept. The single statutory statement we found is in Ley 10008, the remote-worker law: its beneficiaries may open savings accounts in banks of the national banking system, subject to the anti-money-laundering statute and to whatever rules the banking superintendency issues. Everyone else is left to each bank's own customer-identification policy, which is a fact about that bank rather than about Costa Rican law - and which is why the identity document the migration directorate issues, the DIMEX, matters as much as the residency itself.
Statutory right of account access for foreigners
Only for remote workers under Ley 10008
What that provision allows
Savings accounts in banks of the national banking system
Conditions attached
Compliance with Ley 8204 and the anti-money-laundering framework
Implementing rules from the banking superintendency
Not found
Rule for residents generally
No instrument found; each bank applies its own customer-identification policy
CubaCaribbeanVerified with official sourceMonitor - can change2026-10-06
What the migration instruments show is that a Cuban bank account is not optional for anyone settling here: it is a condition of the status. A provisional resident must hold a bank account in the country operated regularly, among the seven things that make up suitable conduct and social insertion. An applicant for permanent residence must place a non-refundable thousand-dollar guarantee deposit at a Cuban bank branch, for themselves and for each accompanying foreigner. An applicant relying on wealth held abroad must show the availability of an account in Cuba of not less than six figures. And an account operated regularly is one of the acts that can establish effective migratory residence for someone short of the day count. What the instruments do not say is how a foreigner opens one, and we did not read the Banco Central de Cuba's rules.
Cuban bank account
A condition of provisional residence
Guarantee deposit
USD 1000, non-refundable, per person
Beneficiary of the deposit
The Fund for Migration Emergencies
Cuban account where the patrimony is abroad
Not less than six figures
Bank statements required
Two years of cash flow
Account-opening rules for foreigners
Not read
DominicaCaribbeanSingle source - verify before relying on thisMonitor - can change2026-10-05
Dominica uses the Eastern Caribbean dollar, which has been pegged to the United States dollar at 2.70 since before most of its residents were born, and its commercial banks are licensed under the Banking Act 2015 - the harmonised statute the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank's members enacted together. What Dominican law adds for a foreigner is one thing in particular: a foreign currency account is not an ordinary retail product but something allowed on application to the Financial Services Unit of the Ministry of Finance, made through the bank, and the Ministry's stated test is whether the applicant has a source of foreign earnings. We did not find an instrument prescribing the identification a bank must take, so nothing is stated about documents.
Currency
Eastern Caribbean dollar, pegged at EC$2.70 to US$1.00
Foreign currency account
On application to the Financial Services Unit
Identification a bank must take
Not stated here
Residence or status requirement for a local-currency account
None found in an instrument
Repatriation of capital
Allowed, usually to the extent of the foreign participation
Dominican RepublicCaribbeanVerified with official sourceStable2026-10-06
Dominican monetary law is permissive. The exchange regime is built on free convertibility of the peso, parties may transact in foreign currency on terms they freely agree, and the central bank is forbidden from requiring international exchange operations to pass through it. Nothing in the monetary statute conditions a bank account on residence or nationality. What does the gatekeeping is the anti-money-laundering law of 2017, which requires every obliged institution to identify the client and verify the identity from reliable and independent documents, to identify the beneficial owner, to understand the purpose of the relationship, and to keep doing so for as long as the relationship lasts. That is the rule a foreigner meets at the counter, and the document it is usually satisfied with is the identity card a resident gets - which is why residence and banking are linked in practice and not in law.
Exchange regime
Free convertibility
Transacting in foreign currency
Permitted, on freely agreed terms
Debts
Paid in the currency agreed
Residence requirement for an account in the monetary law
None found
What the bank must do instead
Identify the client and the beneficial owner
Temporary limits on short-term capital inflows
Possible, max 1 year
Foreign-investment registration
Within 90 days
EcuadorSouth AmericaVerified with official sourceMonitor - can change2026-10-04
Ecuador answers this the way Colombia does and then adds a condition nobody repeats. The supervisor's rule for the basic deposit account asks a bank to verify identity against an Ecuadorian cédula: the cédula de ciudadanía for Ecuadorians, the cédula de identidad for foreigners. A passport is not named. That puts the identity card before the account, and the visa before the identity card. BanEcuador, the state development bank, then publishes which cards it will actually accept, and the answer is a card held on a temporary visa of at least two years, or a permanent one. Someone lawfully resident on a one-year temporary visa holds a valid Ecuadorian cédula and is still outside that door.
Identity document required
An Ecuadorian cédula
Account this rule governs
The cuenta básica
Refugees, under the rule
Foreign Ministry document attesting the 12-IV visa
BanEcuador, cards accepted
Temporary visa of at least 2 years, or permanent
One-year temporary visa
Holds a cédula and is still outside BanEcuador's door
El SalvadorCentral AmericaVerified with official sourceMonitor - can change2026-10-04
El Salvador is one of the few countries in this set where the documents a foreigner may present to open an account are written into a statute rather than left to each bank's compliance desk. The Ley para Facilitar la Inclusión Financiera created a simplified savings account and an electronic money record, and for both it says the same thing: the Salvadoran identity document, or, for foreigners, a passport or a temporary or permanent resident card. A passport is enough, which means the simplified account does not require residence. The price of that is a ceiling - accumulated transactions in a month may not exceed four monthly urban minimum wages for commerce and services, and no single transaction may exceed one - and three further limits: one such account per person per institution, electronic use only, and a balance untouched for five years passing to the State. Neither account needs a Salvadoran tax number. What none of this settles is the ordinary current account, whose conditions each bank sets, and we read no instrument governing those.
Documents a foreigner may show
Passport, or temporary or permanent resident card
Residence required for the simplified account
No
Tax number required
No
Monthly transaction ceiling
4 monthly urban minimum wages (commerce and services)
That ceiling in dollars
USD 1,635.20 a monthCALC (calculated by us, not published)as of 2025-06-01
Ceiling per transaction
1 monthly urban minimum wage
Accounts per institution
1
Dormancy
5 years, then the balance passes to the State
Ordinary current accounts
No instrument read
GrenadaCaribbeanVerified with official sourceMonitor - can change2026-10-05
Nothing in Grenadian law says who may open a bank account, and the question a reader actually faces is not about accounts but about moving money. The Exchange Control Act is still in force and was amended as recently as 2024; section 25A prohibits exporting foreign currency from Grenada without the permission of the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Finance, and a 2024 Order grants that permission in general terms for amounts below the equivalent of US$10,000. Above that, permission is needed. The banks themselves are licensed under the Banking Act of 2015, which replaced the Chapter the law portal still publishes, and Grenada has reported account information to the United States under a FATCA statute in force since 2017.
Statutory bar on a foreigner holding an account
None found
Foreign currency you may take out without permission
Under US$10,000 equivalent
Above that
Permission of the Permanent Secretary required
Currency
Eastern Caribbean dollar
Banking Act in force
Act 20 of 2015, from 10 November 2015
United States account reporting
In force since 29 September 2017
GuatemalaCentral AmericaVerified with official sourceMonitor - can change2026-10-04
Opening an account is written into Guatemalan law as a right of residence rather than as a procedure. The 2025 residence regulation lists it among the rights every temporary or permanent resident has, alongside staying lawfully, leaving and re-entering, acquiring property and taking a domicile. The Migration Code goes further for migrant workers and their families: they may bring their assets into the country and transfer money from accounts abroad into accounts duly accredited in the Guatemalan banking system, and no official may restrict that outside what the law already provides. What none of the instruments we read says is what a bank asks for at the counter, or whether a non-resident can open an account at all.
Right to open an account
Attached to residence by regulation
Transferring money in from abroad
A right of migrant workers and their families
Who may receive deposits
Banks authorised under the Ley de Bancos y Grupos Financieros
Documents a bank asks for
Not stated in any instrument we read
Non-residents
Not addressed by the instruments we read
A Guatemalan account for a pensioner
Accepted as proof the pension continues
GuyanaSouth AmericaVerified with official sourceMonitor - can change2026-10-06
Guyana's statute book says who a bank must identify, not who it must serve. The Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism Act forbids anonymous and fictitious-name accounts and requires a reporting entity to establish and verify the identity of every customer before a business relationship begins, naming the national identification card, the passport or another official identifying document, and the person's name, date of birth and address. Nothing in that Act or anywhere else we read conditions an account on residence, on a permit or on nationality. The Investment Act goes one step further for a foreign investor and says in terms that investors may open accounts in Guyanese dollars and in foreign convertible currency with any licensed bank. What a bank asks for beyond the statutory minimum is a matter for the bank, and we do not publish a document list we have not read from a bank's own terms.
Residence or permit required to open an account
Not required by any statute we read
Anonymous or fictitious-name accounts
Prohibited
Identity documents named in the Act
The national identification card, passport or other applicable official identifying document
Foreign currency accounts
Investors may hold accounts in Guyanese dollars and in foreign convertible currency with any licensed bank
Who the duty falls on
The reporting entity, not the customer
HondurasCentral AmericaVerified with official sourceMonitor - can change2026-10-04
The document that opens the door is the tax number, the RTN, and the tax authority says so plainly: one of the reasons to register is to meet the requirement of a procedure such as opening a bank account. A foreigner can get one on a passport or a valid residence card together with proof of an exact address, and the first issue is immediate and free. The banking relationship is not optional for some residents: a rentista or pensioner must show at application that their income will be paid into Honduras through a national financial institution, and must produce a certificate from that institution at every renewal confirming that it still is. Banks themselves are supervised by the national banking and insurance commission, whose own account-opening rules we have not read.
Tax number needed to open an account
Yes
Identity document for a foreigner
Passport or valid residence card
First issue of the tax number
Immediate and free
Proof of address
Required, in original
Rentista and pensioner income
Must arrive through a Honduran financial institution
Proved again
At every residence card renewal
Supervisor
Comisión Nacional de Bancos y Seguros
JamaicaCaribbeanVerified with official sourceStable2026-10-06
What a Jamaican bank asks for is set by the Bank of Jamaica's guidance notes on money laundering, published in the Jamaica Gazette Extraordinary in June 2018. They require positive identification from a short list - a valid driver's licence bearing a photograph issued where the person resides, a current passport, a voter's identification card, or a signed employer identity card - plus the customer's address, date and place of birth, nationality, contact numbers, a photograph, and a Taxpayer Registration Number. Two references are required as well, and the guidance says in terms that this applies to customers who are visitors to the island and not transacting business under a work permit. The one relief for a newcomer is on the tax number: the Bank recognises that visitors, people here on a work permit and enrolled students would not reasonably be expected to have one.
Identification
One of four listed documents
References
Two, for customers other than longstanding ones
Taxpayer Registration Number
Required, with an exception for visitors, work permit holders and enrolled students
Authority
Bank of Jamaica guidance notes, gazetted 14 June 2018as of 2018-06-14
MexicoNorth AmericaVerified with official sourceMonitor - can change2026-10-04
Mexican law is unusually explicit that a foreigner may bank here. The migration law says a foreigner may make bank deposits and buy securities whatever their migration status and without any permission from the Institute; its regulation says a foreigner with lawful status may open bank accounts. What the law does not settle is what a bank will accept as identity, because that is set by anti-money-laundering rules the finance ministry issues for credit institutions, and those are published as a stream of amending resolutions rather than as a consolidated text. In practice the gate is the population registry number, which follows from a residence card.
Migration permission needed
None
Deposits and securities
Open to a foreigner whatever their migration status
Opening an account
Stated in the regulation as available to a foreigner with lawful migration status
What decides the documents
Anti-money-laundering rules issued by the finance ministry for credit institutions
The practical gate
A population registry number, which follows from the residence card
Buying property
Also open whatever the status, subject to the constitutional restriction near coasts and borders
NicaraguaCentral AmericaVerified with official sourceMonitor - can change2026-10-05
Residence is not a condition of banking in Nicaragua. The anti-money-laundering rule the superintendency imposes on supervised institutions lists the identity documents a bank must demand, and it has a line for every situation: a resident foreigner uses the residence card, a non-resident foreigner uses a passport carrying a valid entry stamp, and a non-resident foreigner from a CA-4 country may use a passport or a national identity card. A visitor can therefore be identified, which is the first gate. The rule says nothing about minimum balances, proof of address or source-of-funds thresholds beyond requiring the institution to understand the origin of the funds, the purpose of the relationship and who the beneficial owner is - those are each bank's own policy, and the superintendency's rule says in terms that it applies without prejudice to them.
Residence required to open an account
No
Document for a resident foreigner
Residence card
Document for a non-resident foreigner
Passport with a valid entry stamp
Document for a non-resident foreigner from a CA-4 country
Passport or national identity card
What the rule requires beyond identity
Origin of the funds, purpose of the relationship, and the beneficial owner
Minimum balance or proof of address in the rule
Neither
Supervisor
Superintendencia de Bancos y de Otras Instituciones Financieras
Panama's banking regulator rewrote its anti-money-laundering rulebook in January 2026, and the new agreement repeals the 2015 one every guide still cites. For a foreigner the identity document is the passport, and what the bank must keep is narrow and specific: the pages with your photograph, signature and particulars, and the page carrying the entry stamp into Panama. That stamp requirement is the quiet barrier - it does not apply where the bank recruited you abroad, through a group affiliate or through an international-licence bank, but it does apply to someone walking into a branch. A national identity document from your own country is acceptable only in defined cases, and the document has to be current when the account is opened.
Identity document for a foreigner
Passport
Entry-stamp page
Required
Rulebook in force
Acuerdo 1-2026as of 2026-01-16
When it took effect
6 months after promulgation
Adaptation period for the identity rules
Until 30 June 2027
Expired passport
Must be renewed by the customer
ParaguaySouth AmericaVerified with official sourceMonitor - can change2026-10-04
Paraguay's regulator permits a basic savings account to be opened on the sole presentation of an identity document, under the simplified due diligence regime, and says in terms that the whole procedure may be carried out remotely. No minimum to open, no minimum balance. That is the opposite of what the relocation guides say, which repeat that physical presence is compulsory and that no Paraguayan bank opens an account remotely; the reglamento permits what they call impossible. Two limits keep it honest. The account is in guaraníes only, and monthly credits are capped at whatever SEPRELAD sets for simplified due diligence - a figure the reglamento defers to rather than states, so we do not state it either. Above that ceiling you are sent to a conventional account and the full due diligence that goes with it.
To open
An identity document, and nothing else named
Remote opening
Permitted, in its entirety
Minimum to open
None
Minimum balance
None
Currency
Local currency only
Monthly credit ceiling
Set by SEPRELAD, not stated in the reglamento
Above the ceiling
A conventional account, with full due diligence
PeruSouth AmericaSingle source - verify before relying on thisMonitor - can change2026-09-21
Until June 2025 a foreigner needed a carné de extranjería to open even a basic account, which tied banking to having completed a residence procedure. The banking regulator changed that: since 16 June 2025 an identity card, a passport or any document legally recognised for identifying foreigners is accepted for a basic account or a simplified electronic-money account. A basic account is a restricted product with daily and monthly caps on deposits and withdrawals - the gate has moved, not disappeared.
Documents accepted for a basic account
Carné de extranjería, identity card, passport, or other legally recognised foreigner IDas of 2025-06-16
Instrument
Resolución SBS N.° 00908-2025
In force from
16 June 2025
Previous position
DNI or carné de extranjería only
Product limits
Daily and monthly caps on deposits and withdrawals
Ordinary savings accounts
Not covered by this change
Saint Kitts and NevisCaribbeanVerified with official sourceMonitor - can change2026-10-05
What a bank asks a newcomer for is not set by banking law here but by the Anti-Money Laundering Regulations made under the Proceeds of Crime Act. They require identification procedures before a business relationship is established, define identification as establishing a person's true identity and obtaining conclusive evidence supported by independent documentation from a reliable source, and let the bank finish the verification afterwards only where the business is not urgent and the money-laundering risk is small. Nothing in them lists documents. The reason a Kittitian bank asks for a reference, a utility bill and a source-of-funds explanation is this regulation, and the specific list is the bank's own policy rather than law.
What sets the document requirements
Anti-Money Laundering Regulations, not the Banking Act
Timing
Before the relationship is established
Documents the law names
None
Penalty on the institution for not having procedures
$50,000, plus $250 a day
Beneficial ownership
Identified for any non-individual customer
Saint LuciaCaribbeanVerified with official sourceStable2026-10-05
The statutory duty is on the bank, not on the customer, and it is drawn widely: a financial institution must take reasonable measures to satisfy itself as to the true identity of anyone seeking to transact with it, including anyone acting on behalf of someone else, and must require satisfactory evidence of identity in accordance with guidance notes as soon as practicable after first contact. Where a customer is acting for another, the institution must establish the true identity of that other person as well. An introduction from another financial institution with a written assurance that identity has been verified is itself satisfactory evidence. What the Act does not do is set a document list, a minimum deposit, or any distinction between a resident and a non-resident customer: all of that is bank practice, and we have read no bank's terms.
Who the duty is on
The financial institution
Statutory document list
None
Different rule for non-residents
Yes, in section 17
Introduced business
A written assurance is enough
Occasional transaction that triggers due diligence
The rules are the Anti-Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Regulations of 2014, and they are more accommodating than the reputation of a small offshore jurisdiction suggests. Customer due diligence has to be applied before a business relationship is established - but regulation 11(4) lets a bank open an account first and verify afterwards, provided the account is not closed and no money moves until verification is done. Due diligence has to be repeated at least once every five years and whenever a customer's identification information changes, which includes a change of address: moving here is itself a trigger. A bank that cannot complete it must refuse the relationship, and one that fails to apply the measures commits an offence carrying a fine of $100,000.
When due diligence must be done
Before the relationship is established
Account opened before verification is complete
Permitted, with the account frozen
Periodic review
At least once every five years
A change of address triggers re-verification
Yes
If due diligence cannot be completed
The relationship must be refused or terminated
Penalty on the bank
$100,000 on summary conviction
Occasional transaction threshold
$2,500 for money services business, $10,000 otherwise
Currency
East Caribbean dollar
SurinameSouth AmericaVerified with official sourceMonitor - can change2026-10-06
The rule a foreigner meets at a Surinamese bank counter is the Wet Identificatieplicht Dienstverleners of 2002. It obliges every service provider to establish the true identity of the client before providing a financial service, and lists what will do it for a natural person: a valid driving licence under the Rijwet 1971, a valid identity card, a valid travel document, or another valid document from the client's country of origin that satisfies that country's legal requirements. That last limb is the one that matters here. The statute does not require a Surinamese document, a residence permit, a Surinamese address or any immigration status at all; it requires that the identity be established and recorded, and it accepts a foreign document for the purpose. Name, address, place of residence, telephone number, date of birth, nationality, occupation and where relevant the employer are recorded, along with the type, number, date and place of issue of whatever document was used.
Residence permit required to be identified
No
Foreign identity document
Accepted where it meets the legal requirements of the client's country of origin
Proof of address
Address is recorded; the Act does not require it to be evidenced
Foreign company
Identified by a deed drawn up by a Surinamese notary
The BahamasCaribbeanVerified with official sourceMonitor - can change2026-10-08
The Financial Transactions Reporting Act, 2018 is the statute a bank applies when you walk in, and it names no documents. Section 7(1)(a) requires a financial institution to identify the identity of a facility holder by means of verifying reliable, independent source documents, data or information, and section 7(3) requires it to take account of its own risk assessment for that customer and relationship. Where the risks identified are low the institution shall conduct simplified due diligence; where there is a suspicion of activity related to an identified risk, enhanced measures are required. Beneficial owners with a controlling interest must be identified, and trusts are opened up by name - settlor, trustees, protector, beneficiaries or class of beneficiaries, and the trust's accountants and tax advisers. Separately, every new individual account carries a Common Reporting Standard self-certification of the holder's residence or residences for tax purposes. What the Act does not do is tell you which papers to bring: that is each institution's own policy, and it is a fact about the institution rather than about Bahamian law.
Statutory standard
Reliable, independent source documents, data or information
Prescribed document list in the Act
None
Beneficial ownership threshold for a corporate facility holder
The rules a newcomer meets at a bank counter are in the Financial Obligations Regulations made under the Proceeds of Crime Act, and they are unusually specific about foreigners. Regulation 15 lists what a financial institution must obtain on initiating a business relationship - full name, permanent address with proof of it, date and place of birth, nationality, place of business or occupation, occupational income, signature, the purpose and intended nature of the relationship and the source of funds - and requires a valid passport, national identification card or driver's licence to be obtained or examined. Regulation 15(3) then adds the sentence that matters to someone who has just arrived: where the business relationship involves a foreign customer a reference shall be sought from the foreign customer's bank. Regulation 13(3) requires at least two forms of identification. What the newcomer does not meet is exchange control. Act No. 10 of 1993 repealed the payments, securities and most of the miscellaneous parts of the Exchange Control Act and all four of its Schedules, leaving authorised dealers and the import and export of currency. Trinidad and Tobago therefore has no exchange control regime of the kind Barbados still operates.
Reference from a foreign bank
Required for a foreign customer
Forms of identification
At least two
Acceptable identity documents
A valid passport, national identification card or driver's licence
Source of funds
Required at the outset, not on a later request
Exchange control
Repealed in substance in 1993
What survives of exchange control
Authorised dealers, and restrictions on the import and export of currency and gold
UruguaySouth AmericaSingle source - verify before relying on thisMonitor - can change2026-09-21
The state bank publishes its requirements, and for a non-resident foreigner they include a condition that is easy to miss and expensive to discover late: since September 2021 a new non-resident client must take out a fixed-term deposit of at least five thousand US dollars for a minimum of 181 days. Residency is not required to open an account, but that deposit is.
Residency required
No
Non-resident deposit
USD 5,000 minimumas of 2021-09-01
Deposit term
At least 181 days
Identity document
Passport, or the national ID for Argentina, Brazil or Paraguay
Proof of income
Required
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