Answer

What do you need to open a business crypto account?

Updated October 2026. Evergreen page — refreshed in place as facts change.

Formation papers

As filed

Articles of organization or incorporation

Tax ID

EIN

Not needed for a US sole proprietor

Ownership test

25%+

Each owner, direct or indirect (FinCEN)

Control test

1 person

CEO, managing member or similar

CDD rule

Since 2018

In force May 11, 2018 (31 CFR 1010.230)

BOI report

Foreign only

US companies exempt since March 2025

Minimum balance

None

No funding requirement to open

Approval

Same day

Most complete Anytime Capital files

Business crypto account requirements are nearly identical at every legitimate platform, because they come from federal anti-money-laundering and customer due diligence rules, not house preference. The file proves four things — that the company exists, its tax identity, who owns and controls it, and what it does — plus where dollars should go when it sells.

Here is the list item by item, the exact fields our verification form asks for, how beneficial ownership is traced through holding companies, the extras some entity types are asked for, how this differs from the beneficial ownership report companies used to file with FinCEN, and the mismatches that cause most delays.

The document list, item by item

Each item answers one due-diligence question about your company. Get each in its final, filed form, and check that the legal name matches across all of them before you submit:

Why does every legitimate platform ask for the same file?

Because the list comes from the Bank Secrecy Act. Banks and other covered financial institutions follow FinCEN's customer due diligence rule; money services businesses run anti-money-laundering programs with their own customer verification duties; and business crypto platforms, which work with both, have converged on the same standard. In practice it asks four things of the institution: identify and verify the customer, identify and verify the beneficial owners of a business customer, understand the nature and purpose of the relationship so it can build a risk profile, and monitor the account on an ongoing basis against that profile.

Each item in the file maps to one of those duties. Formation documents and the EIN verify the customer; owner IDs cover beneficial ownership; the business profile — what you sell, your expected monthly volume — is the 'nature and purpose' the institution must understand; and the settlement bank account in the same name keeps the money path explainable for monitoring later. That's why a platform asking for noticeably less than this is a warning sign, not a convenience.

What does the Anytime Capital verification form ask for?

The form behind the five items is short. It asks for the business's legal name and entity type, its EIN, an optional website, the business address, its industry, a line on what it sells, and its expected monthly volume. It closes with an attestation, in these words: 'I can act for this business, and these details are true and complete. Anytime Capital may check them and ask for documents.'

Entity types cover sole proprietorships, partnerships, LLCs, corporations, S corporations, nonprofits, publicly listed companies, trusts, private foundations and charities, with 'other' for anything else. A sole proprietor doesn't give an EIN — the owner's own identity stands in for it — and a business formed outside the US has none to give. Expected volume is chosen from five bands, from under $10,000 a month to over $10 million: it calibrates monitoring and is not a threshold you have to meet.

• Legal name, exactly as on the state filing
• Entity type, and the EIN for US entities other than sole proprietors
• Business address and an optional website
• Industry, and a line on what the business sells
• Expected monthly volume, chosen from five bands
• The attestation that you can act for the business

Who counts as a beneficial owner?

The standard comes from FinCEN's customer due diligence rule: each person who owns 25% or more of the company, directly or indirectly, plus one person with significant management control — a CEO, managing member or similar — regardless of ownership. Up to four people can meet the ownership test; exactly one is named for control, and it can be one of the owners.

Indirect ownership is multiplied through each layer. If a holding company owns 60% of your operating company and one person owns half of that holding company, that person owns 30% indirectly and is verified; someone with 40% of the holding company owns 24% indirectly and is not. A clear ownership chart, with percentages at every layer, turns that from correspondence into arithmetic.

What extra documents do some entity types need?

The five items cover most companies. Some structures are commonly asked for one more document that shows who owns or runs them, because their formation papers don't:

Is this the same as the beneficial ownership report filed with FinCEN?

No, and the two are often confused. The Corporate Transparency Act's beneficial ownership information (BOI) report was a filing companies made directly with FinCEN. On March 21, 2025, FinCEN issued an interim final rule exempting companies formed in the United States from that report; it now applies only to foreign companies registered to do business here.

Account-opening due diligence is a separate obligation that sits on the financial institution — under the 2018 customer due diligence rule for banks and other covered institutions, and under anti-money-laundering programs more broadly — and it did not change. Whether or not your company ever filed a BOI report, the platform still identifies your owners at 25% or more and your controlling person before opening the account.

The mismatches that stall applications

Almost every delayed file has a consistency problem rather than a missing document: the entity name spelled differently across the state filing and the bank account, an owner's ID showing a different name than the operating agreement, an EIN letter for a predecessor entity, or ownership percentages that add up to more than 100%. Reviewers must resolve every discrepancy, and each one costs a round-trip.

Before submitting, read your own file like an auditor: same entity name everywhere, including punctuation and suffixes like 'LLC' or 'Inc.'; current, unexpired IDs; ownership percentages that sum sensibly; and a business description that matches your website. Ten minutes of self-review routinely saves days.

• Legal name identical on the articles, EIN letter, bank account and application
• IDs current and legible, with names that match the ownership records
• Ownership chart percentages that add up at every layer
• A registered address and an operating address that are both explained
• A business description consistent with what the website says you sell

What you don't need

No business plan, no financial statements, no minimum balance or funding requirement, no licenses (unless your business is itself a regulated money business), and no crypto experience. A company formed last week is fine; operating history isn't a requirement. KYB verifies who you are, not whether your treasury strategy is wise. Platforms asking for dramatically more than the list above are either serving a different risk tier or padding their process.

That changes only for specific activity. Very large transactions can bring source-of-funds questions, cash transactions carry their own reporting, and a business that is itself a money transmitter or exchange is asked about its licenses. Those are follow-ups for particular cases, not part of the standard file.