Mercury for Paraguayan Residents: Your US LLC Banking Stack

Mercury is not really a bank for your personal use. It is for your business.

A U.S. LLC is probably one of the cheapest and easiest company structures you can set up, and it makes getting banking significantly easier and cheaper. Besides this, if you work with companies…it is significantly easier to deal with them if you send invoices from a real company instead of you as a freelancer.

Mercury is simply one of the best options you can get for that U.S. LLC for many purposes, but not for all. Here you'll see when it is great and when it doesn't right fit.

Important: Opening Your Account (Don't Get Queued)

This is critical: You need to use an affiliate link.

If you don't use a link (mine or someone else's), you will be put at the back of the queue and they might not open the account for you.

Sign up using code “bauniq-llc” or use this affiliate link to put yourself at the front of the queue. (Remember, if you don't use an affiliate link, you will likely be placed at the end of the queue.)

You get $250 (and I get $250) if you receive/deposit more than $10k in your first 3 months.

What You Get with Mercury

Mercury gives you a U.S. dollar-based business bank account. It’s not multi-currency, so it won't fit every single purpose you have.

It is stable, which is why so many entrepreneurs use it, especially for U.S. LLCs owned by foreign entities.Just to give you an idea of how stable it is, I had more money running through a new company and they asked me for KYB information and said I had to provide it within 1.5 months. That is very lenient.

The software is solid. You can receive money via the ACH and SWIFT networks, and it makes paying yourself or paying for services incredibly easy using virtual credit or debit cards.

Your "Virtual Card" Strategy

You can create as many virtual debit and credit cards as you want, and here is a strategy I use: create one virtual card for each service you use.

This makes it very easy for you to track exactly what you are spending money on. More importantly, you can put a spending limit on each card.

For example, if you have cloud hosting server costs with Hetzner, you can set that card to a $250 limit every month. This way, they can’t just suddenly start charging your credit card more money without you knowing.

The Cashback You Earn

You get a cashback of roughly 3% on everything you spend.

If you have about $1,500 of services that you use in your company every month. So in return, you earn like $40 a month in cashback, which is really good.

Invoicing (The Good and The Bad)

Mercury has its own invoicing software. Honestly? It completely sucks, but... it works. It has some weird attributes, but it gets the job done.

You might still want to look for an invoicing system that works across platforms, especially if you receive money differently depending on the currency, sometimes via Mercury, sometimes via OneSafe.

Another problem with Mercury is that it's not really a bank for your personal use. It is for your business only.

The "European" Problem & Your Wise Workaround

The bad thing about Mercury is dealing with foreign currencies like Euros or Sterling.

It will cost you around 1% to send these currencies & up to 2-3% to receive. So if you earn Euros and have Euro-denominated expenses (via SEPA), Mercury is expensive and inefficient. Do not use it for this.

The Workaround:

Since you (as a Paraguayan resident) are officially not allowed to have a Wise account for the most part, you should use this flow:

1. Ask your European clients to use their Wise account.
2. Have them send the payment from their Wise account directly to your Mercury account.
3. Wise can send the money via ACH (which makes it basically fee-free for you to receive in Mercury).

A Note on Wealth & The Dollar

Another downside for you is the lack of multi-currency support. The dollar has been quite weak for the last few years, and it’s probably going to get weaker as they go into the printing press and make dollars out of thin air (just a little political side note there).

Mercury forces you to keep your wealth in dollars. If the dollar goes down every month, it’s not nice for you to see. You shouldn't keep too much money sitting there. You should generally always invest it.

Your Money Flow

Here is how you can move the money out to make it useful:

1. Transfer from Mercury to your personal account at Charles Schwab International. (Read more about it here)
2. Invest it from there, or take it out via ATM.
3. Alternative: Transfer to your UglyCash, where you can spend the money easily. (Use Coupon MARTINVIKING for an immediate +1% APY boost!)

Build a Banking Stack That Actually Works

As you can see, Mercury is powerful for your U.S. LLC, but it has gaps, especially for personal spending and European currencies. Knowing exactly which tool to use (Mercury for business, Wise for receiving, UglyCash for spending) is the key to financial freedom here.

Fast-Track Your Financial Setup. Don't waste weeks trying to figure out the banking system alone. If you want to speed up the process and ensure your money is safe and accessible from day one, we can help.