Offshore Banking Licence

An offshore banking licence authorises you to operate a bank. It does not give you an account at one. Those are two different products and this page covers only the first. If you want to hold money at a bank outside your country of residence, read opening an offshore bank account instead.

The distinction matters because search engines cannot draw it. Google’s own AI summary for “how to start a bank” splits into two answers and closes by asking the reader which one they meant. Every related question Google attaches to this query is a depositor question.

US federal law defines the term precisely. An offshore banking license is “a license to conduct banking activities which, as a condition of the license, prohibits the licensed entity from conducting banking activities with the citizens of, or with the local currency of, the country which issued the license” (31 U.S.C. §5318(i)(4)(A)). The restriction is the defining feature, not a side effect. You are licensed to bank everywhere except where you are licensed.

That statute matters again later. The same section that defines the licence also singles it out for extra scrutiny when your bank asks a US institution for a correspondent account.

Most people who reach this page do not. Taking deposits from the public and lending against them on your own balance sheet requires your own licence. Almost everything else does not.

You need your own banking licence if:

• You will accept deposits and lend or invest them on your own balance sheet.
• You need to hold client money as a bank rather than as a safeguarded e-money float.
• Your regulator requires it for the specific activity you have described.

You do not need one if:

• You want to issue accounts, cards or payment services. That is an electronic money institution or a payment institution. See EMI and payment institution authorisation.
• You want to launch a branded banking product quickly. That is a sponsor bank relationship, sold as Banking-as-a-Service or white label banking.
• You want to custody or exchange crypto assets. See virtual asset service provider licensing.
• You want to broker securities or run a fund. See investment and brokerage licensing.
• You are running an iGaming operation. See gaming licensing.

We do not sell Banking-as-a-Service and we take no commission for routing you there. The UK Financial Conduct Authority publishes the full list of authorisation routes, and the one you need is usually cheaper and faster than the one you asked about.

Disqualifying you here costs us a lead and saves you a year of the wrong application.

Government and regulator fees only. These are not our prices, and our fee is a separate column.

“Not published” means the regulator does not publish that figure. We have left the cell empty rather than infer it from the fees around it. Our own fee comes from our published pricing and is quoted per engagement.

The government fee is one of four cost components. The others are minimum capital, local substance, which means the office, the resident directors and the staff each regulator requires, and advisory cost. The application fee is usually the smallest of the four by an order of magnitude.

Regulatory capital is not a fee. It is money that must exist, be paid up in full, and stay in the bank. You do not spend it and you do not get it back at the end of the process.

Two figures circulating in this market are wrong. A capital range of “$500,000 to over $3,000,000” is widely repeated and is currently served by Google’s own AI summary for this query; it traces to a page about offshore brokerage accounts, not banking licences. Separately, one page ranking in the top five for this term states Belize Class B capital as US$500,000. The Central Bank of Belize publishes US$1,000,000.

The cheap rung has a catch, and the catch is the reason it is cheap.

A Belize Class B holder is limited to transacting only such international banking business as is specified in its licence. SVG goes further: its Class B licence is restricted to business with non-resident persons specifically named in an undertaking accompanying the application.

That is not a discount bank. It is a captive vehicle for a named group, and it cannot take on a customer who was not named when you applied.

One fact from the regulator’s own register reframes the whole vertical. Belize currently licenses three international banks, Belize Bank International, Caye International Bank, and Heritage International Bank and Trust. All three hold Class A licences. The Central Bank states that there are presently no Class B international banks licensed in Belize.

The cheapest rung in the best known jurisdiction has no holders.

A licence is permission to operate. It is not access to the dollar system, and the two are routinely confused.

US law prohibits a covered financial institution from establishing, maintaining, administering or managing a correspondent account in the United States for a foreign bank that does not have a physical presence in any country (31 U.S.C. §5318(j)(1)). The statute defines physical presence as a fixed address, full-time employees, and records available for inspection. A mailbox does not qualify.

The same section applies enhanced due diligence specifically where a foreign bank operates under an offshore banking licence (§5318(i)(2)(A)-(B)). The statutory definition quoted at the top of this page exists inside the provision that singles your bank out for extra scrutiny.

This is why the physical-presence requirements are not box-ticking. SVG requires an office, at least two local employees with one at senior management level, and at least two FSA-approved directors with one resident. Belize requires a business office in the jurisdiction. Those obligations are what a correspondent’s compliance team will test.

Plan the correspondent relationship before you apply, not after. A licence obtained without one is a licence that cannot clear a payment.

The total application fee to seek permission to accept deposits in the United Kingdom is £56,300. It covers both the Prudential Regulation Authority and the Financial Conduct Authority in a single invoice payable to the FCA, and it rose from £55,740 with effect from 2 July 2026.

A figure of £27,870, described as covering both regulators, is currently circulating and is cited by Google’s UK AI summary for this query. It is roughly half the correct total and the page it came from no longer resolves. The FCA’s own fee page assigns banks and insurance companies to Category 7, a £28,150 fee, which is exactly half of the £56,300 combined total above.

Two things about the UK route are rarely published anywhere.

The first is mobilisation. Through the Bank of England’s New Bank Start-up Unit, a new bank can be authorised with restrictions while it finishes building out. During that period its total deposit-taking is capped at £50,000 and the stage should last no longer than twelve months. You exit it through a Variation of Permission.

The second is that you cannot call yourself a bank until you are authorised. The Threshold Conditions a firm must meet are set out in Schedule 6 to the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000.

The UK costs more in application fees than every offshore application fee in the table above combined. It may still be the right answer. A UK authorisation comes with correspondent access that does not need arranging and with FSCS protection of £120,000 per person per banking licence, which no offshore licence in this table carries.

US chartering is a different process again, run by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency or a state banking department, and it is outside our scope.

Where your licence is issued determines who will bank you. Both lists below move on a fixed calendar, and the status here was checked on 2026-08-07.

Source: the EU Council list, 17 February 2026 revision and the FATF list of jurisdictions under increased monitoring.

The two EU annexes are not the same thing and flattening them misleads. Annex I is the list of non-cooperative jurisdictions. Vanuatu appears on it because it facilitates offshore structures aimed at attracting profits without real economic substance and has not resolved the issue. Annex II is a watch list of jurisdictions that have given commitments; Belize is there pending an in-depth review by the Global Forum, with no deadline attached to it.

FATF states that its increased-monitoring listing does not itself call for enhanced due diligence. Correspondent banks often apply it anyway, which is a commercial reality rather than a legal one.

SVG and Montserrat appear on neither annex and neither is on the FATF list. SVG also carries the lowest entry requirement in the table, at US$600,000 once its separate deposit is counted, so the cheapest rung here is also the one with no list status to explain to a correspondent bank.

The next EU revision is due in October 2026.