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Business bank accounts in Estonia and the EEA
The question that decides a bank application is not how to fill in the forms. It is whether this company, this owner and this business model sit inside the provider's risk appetite before anyone reads a single document. This page is built around that question: four profile bands, and what each one can realistically expect from an Estonian credit institution, from an EEA bank and from a payment institution.
The figures are dated and taken from the providers' own pages. LHV Pank charges EUR 300 to open a business account for an Estonian company with non-resident owners and EUR 30 a month to hold it, and states plainly that if the bank is not prepared to enter into a client agreement, the fee for submitting the application will not be refunded. Non-resident clients cannot be identified digitally, so a visit to an LHV office is part of the process. The company must have a clear connection to Estonia, and LHV does not open accounts for companies registered offshore or owned through an offshore structure.
The choice between a bank and a payment institution is a legal choice, not a convenience one. Under the Guarantee Fund Act an eligible deposit at an Estonian credit institution is guaranteed up to EUR 100,000 per depositor, and compensation must be paid within seven working days of the day deposits are suspended. Money held by a payment institution or an e-money institution is safeguarded rather than guaranteed, and the same Act expressly leaves those institutions outside the scheme as depositors. Both rails are legitimate. They fail differently, and a company holding its entire treasury on one of them should know which.
Which rail your company can realistically use
Four profile bands, as at 12 August 2026. Acceptance policy belongs to the provider and changes without notice, so read this as the shape of the problem rather than as a promise about any single application.
| Profile | Realistic first move | What an Estonian credit institution asks for | The binding constraint |
|---|---|---|---|
| Estonian company, non-resident or e-resident owner, ordinary business | An EEA bank or payment institution that onboards remotely. An account at an Estonian credit institution is a parallel project, not the day-one answer | A clear connection to Estonia and a demonstrated need for an account here, evidenced by something real: a lease, an employment contract, enrolment, a link to an Estonian enterprise. Plus an office visit, because a non-resident cannot be identified digitally | Substance in Estonia. And the fact that the application fee is not refunded if the bank declines, so a speculative application has a price |
| Restricted activity: crypto, gambling, adult, CBD and nutraceuticals, prescription pharmaceuticals, weapons, tobacco, retail alcohol | A provider that underwrites the sector. Wise restricts every activity in this row by published policy, so a refusal there is policy rather than bad luck | A valid licence for the activity, an AML and CFT framework that exists rather than being promised, a business-model memo, and transaction-flow diagrams | The provider set is different from the first day. Applying to the wrong one costs weeks and leaves a refused application behind |
| A licensed financial firm: EMI, payment institution, investment firm, CASP | Two accounts, not one. An operating account for the firm, and a segregated account for client funds | The authorisation itself, the safeguarding arrangement in writing, and evidence that client money is genuinely separated from the firm's own | The safeguarding account, not the operating account, is the one that takes months. Plan the licence and the banking together or the licence arrives with nowhere to put client money |
| A UBO with Russian or Belarusian citizenship, or residence outside the EEA | Settle the documentation before choosing the provider. The order matters here more than anywhere else | An EEA or Swiss residence document for the UBO where one exists, source-of-wealth evidence proportionate to the sums involved, and a corporate chain with no unexplained layer | Sanctions screening and residence evidence. This is a document problem, not a persuasion problem, and no relationship manager can argue around a missing residence permit |
What the named providers actually publish
Read from each provider's own pages on 12 August 2026. Where a provider publishes nothing we could verify, the row says so. We do not repeat other people's estimates of somebody else's price list.
| Provider | What it is | Estonian company, non-resident owner | Published cost | If the provider fails |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| LHV Pank | Estonian credit institution | Case by case. The company must have a clear connection to Estonia and prove a need for an account here. No accounts for companies registered offshore or owned through an offshore structure. An office visit is required, because non-resident clients cannot be identified digitally | EUR 300 to open and EUR 30 a month for an Estonian company with non-resident owners, and for companies registered in the EU or Norway. EUR 600 and EUR 60 a month for companies registered elsewhere. The application fee is not refunded if the bank declines to contract. Private non-resident accounts: EUR 100 to open and EUR 10 a month for residents of EU member states, EUR 200 and EUR 20 a month for residents of other countries | Estonian deposit guarantee, up to EUR 100,000 per depositor |
| Swedbank, SEB, Luminor, Coop Pank | Estonian credit institutions | No non-resident onboarding policy we could confirm on the banks' own pages | Not published in a form we could verify. Figures circulating in comparison articles are secondary, and this page does not repeat them. Ask each bank in writing before budgeting | Estonian deposit guarantee, up to EUR 100,000 per depositor |
| Wise Business | Wise Europe SA, a payment institution authorised by the National Bank of Belgium and passported across the EEA. Not a bank | Yes, remotely, for ordinary business activity. Crypto, gambling, adult content, weapons and military goods, prescription pharmaceuticals and online pharmacies, tobacco, retail alcohol, CBD and nutraceuticals are restricted by its acceptable-use policy, last updated 25 March 2026 | On Wise's own pricing pages, and changed there | No deposit guarantee. Client funds are safeguarded, and the Guarantee Fund Act expressly excludes payment and e-money institutions from the Estonian scheme as depositors |
| Revolut Business | Revolut Bank UAB, a Lithuanian credit institution, company number 304580906, authorisation code LB002119, supervised by the Bank of Lithuania and the European Central Bank | Yes for EEA-registered companies, subject to its own eligibility checks, which are tied to the applicant's country of residence | On Revolut's own pricing pages, and changed there | Lithuanian deposit insurance, up to EUR 100,000 per depositor, for eligible business deposits |
How we run a bank application:
01
Band and perimeter
We place the company in one of the four bands above before naming a single provider, because the band decides the provider set, the evidence pack and the realistic timeline. Where the honest answer is that no provider in the obvious set will take this profile as it stands, we say so first rather than after two refusals.
02
Provider shortlist against published policy
We read each candidate's acceptable-use policy, eligibility criteria and price list, not its marketing, and we order the shortlist so the best-fit provider is not spent on an early, weaker version of the file.
03
The evidence pack
Corporate chain to a natural person, UBO file, source of funds and source of wealth, a specific description of what the business sells and to whom, transaction-flow diagrams where the money movement is not obvious, and, where the bank requires it, evidence of a genuine connection to Estonia. Every name and date consistent across every document.
04
Filing and the compliance dialogue
We file, then handle the questions. Most applications are decided in the second round rather than the first, and a fast, complete, internally consistent answer to a compliance officer's follow-up is worth more than anything in the original submission.
05
The second rail
One account is a single point of failure for the whole company. Once the primary account is live we open a second on a different provider and, where it matters, in a different member state, so that a freeze or an unexplained closure is an inconvenience rather than the end of trading.
There is no right to a business bank account in the European Union. The right to a payment account with basic features under Directive 2014/92/EU runs to consumers legally resident in the Union, and a company is not a consumer. Where that right does apply, the credit institution must inform the applicant immediately, in writing and free of charge, of the specific reason for a refusal. A company is owed no equivalent, which is why so many corporate refusals arrive with no reason attached at all.
That is not the end of the argument. The European Banking Authority's guidelines on managing money-laundering and terrorist-financing risk when providing access to financial services, EBA/GL/2023/04, published on 31 March 2023 and applying since 22 August 2023, state that de-risking entire categories of customers without due consideration of individual customers' risk profiles can be unwarranted and a sign of ineffective risk management. Institutions are expected to document a decision to refuse a business relationship, and that decision must be proportionate and consistent with the principle of non-discrimination. A refusal that is really a category rule applied without reading your file is a refusal worth testing.
What we will not do is promise an outcome. No adviser sits on a bank's compliance committee, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something. What we do control is the quality of the file, the match between the profile and the provider, and the order in which applications are made. In this market those three decide most of the cases that look borderline.
Services we provide in business banking:
- Profile assessment against each provider's published policy, before any application is filed
- Provider shortlists across Estonian credit institutions, EEA banks and payment institutions
- The KYB and KYC evidence pack: corporate chain, UBO file, source of funds and source of wealth
- Business-model memos and transaction-flow diagrams for models a compliance officer will question
- Evidence of a genuine connection to Estonia where the bank requires one
- Corporate accounts for Estonian companies with non-resident and e-resident owners
- Operating and segregated client-funds accounts for licensed financial firms
- Accounts for restricted and higher-risk activities, with the provider set that matches them
- Personal accounts and debit cards for founders and their families
- A second banking rail, so that one closure does not stop the business
- Remediation after a refusal, and challenges to a freeze or an unexplained closure
Frequently asked questions
We are ready to take on non-standard projects
Averium opens and defends bank accounts for Estonian companies whose owners, sectors or structures make the routine route unavailable, and will tell you in the first conversation which band you are in.
Get in touch
with us
Tell us about your problem and our team will reply within one business day.