Offshore Panama Bank Accounts - Open In 1-5 Days

You can obtain a Panama Bank Account in Euros, USD or Pound Sterling without having to come to Panama!

Panama Banks - Panama banks do open bank accounts for foreigners. Panama, besides being the number one retirement haven in the world, is also the world's foremost tax haven. Offshore bank accounts in Panama are the most coveted in the world today. All the banks we use have online banking including the ability to send international wire transfers, check balances, history and other information and they all have English speakers. You can get an ATM Debit card or a secured Visa card that is good worldwide for ATM withdrawals.

We work with several different banks in Panama, which are the largest banks here. There are a few local Panama only banks that we do not use because they are too small having one billion or less in total assets. The corner bank in your hometown is generally bigger than these banks. The banks we use generally have in excess of $25 Billion in assets. We do not discuss names of banks until after a person becomes a paid client, and all the required documents have been provided, please do not ask. Same applies to sending out bank forms, signature cards, etc.

For more details on why not to contact banks directly click here.

Since we are a law firm we have a list of banks that we have a working relationship with where we are able to have accounts opened without the need for the parties to come to Panama. Some of these banks are large multi-national conglomerates with assets in the Multi-Billion Dollar Range and others are small Panama only Banks that offer a more personal touch and banks with everything in between. We can normally have an account opened within 2 -5 working days (between two and five working days) of the receipt of our fee and the required documents, some times faster.

The Process - Making a trip to Panama is not necessary although you are perfectly welcome to come. Some customers wish to come to Panama to meet the bank, etc. Our offices are walking distance to the major banks. We can assist with a driver to meet your flight at the airport with a sign with your name. We can also get corporate rates at a nice centrally located hotel. Very safe, very clean and comfortable but not very luxurious for $55 a night with breakfast included.

If you are coming to Panama which again is optional, we suggest you do the formation of the corporation or foundation before you come and when you are here one of our lawyers can go to the bank with you to meet the bank manager, sign the forms and signature cards and then are free to depart and your account should be functional within the next 2-5 days. We can work with a 50% deposit to from the corporation before you come here, the balance due when you arrive. You could leave an opening deposit check, cash under $10,000 or traveler's checks with the bank at this time; the minimum amount is $1000 for each account ether checking or savings, in Euros or US Dollars. It is suggested to not bring more than $10,000 cash or negotiable instruments with you since this needs to be declared probably in your departure country and again when arriving in Panama.

You can have a checking account or a savings account. You can have USD, Euros, or Pound Sterling accounts. Time locked deposits for higher interest rates are available. The secured Visa card is popular since it is good as a Visa card online or in person and it works as an ATM card in cash machines around the world. The bank will generally require a security deposit, which goes into a special interest bearing account to secure the Visa card. If your Visa card had a $10,000 credit line they would probably request a security deposit of $11,000. At the end of the billing cycle the money to pay your card balance down to zero would be deducted from your regular account. If a need arose you could ask the bank to clear the balance before the end of the billing cycle freeing up your credit for travel. We have seen credit limits as high as $40,000.

Documents Required - A notarized and apostilled copy of the picture page of the Passport, notarized drivers license or other government issued photo ID, letter of reference from a recognized bank, and a letter of reference from an attorney, accountant or company you do business with on their letterhead. Any bank in the modern world using the international wire system will require at least this much documentation from a foreigner opening up a bank account in their jurisdiction.

If you are coming to Panama personally we only need the two reference letters and ask that you bring your passport and drivers license with you, no need to notarize or apostille anything. We can form the corporation or foundation based on a payment only but cannot release it or take it to the bank until we have the ID and reference letters. There is no need for utility bills and no one will ask you for any tax identification numbers from your home country, not us and not the bank.

Stock Trading - The bank account can also be directly tied to a stock trading account with some banks. This allows one to trade online around the world. There is a $20,000 minimum to open such an account. The clearing agent is top drawer. We can also arrange for you to have a separate brokerage account in Panama with minimums as low as $15,000. You could trade online or use a live broker. We only open corporate or foundation stock trading accounts.

Type of Account - Offshore bank accounts in Panama can be opened for a corporation or a foundation. We will assist a person in getting a personal account in Panama ONLY if they have a corporate or foundation account with the bank through our law firm. We will not assist someone in opening just a personal bank account.

We always suggest the offshore bank account in Panama be opened using a Panama corporate or foundation structure. This way when wires are sent or received it cannot be seen that you are the person(s) behind the corporation. When you use an anonymous Panama Bearer Share Company or a Panama Private Interest Foundation the ownership of the company or foundation is not recorded in any registry or public record database so no snooping entity can determine who is actually receiving the funds, and this makes for very private personal banking. The Government of Panama does not even know who owns the corporation or foundation. When you send or receive wires using one of these corporations or foundations it is like the old anonymous Swiss numbered bank accounts except you are using the name of a corporation or foundation instead of a number.

Recently there was a scandal in the media where it came out that the USA was monitoring SWIFT wire transactions for some years. Monitoring a wire transaction to an anonymous corporation is fairly meaningless since nothing is known about the ownership of the corporation. If the sending entity was also an anonymous corporation that would be a good working definition of a dead-end both ways. We always advise against personal offshore bank accounts in Panama or anywhere else for these reasons in addition to the fact that a corporate or foundation bank account greatly enhances asset protection.

Bank Account Signatory Verification – You or your designated signatory(s) will be the only person(s) with access to your offshore Panama bank account. What we do is have the bank opened up as a zero balance account; no money is in the account. Before you load the account with any funds we will show you how to securely contact the bank by phone and verify that no one else can sign on the account or otherwise access the bank account. After the account is funded, online banking information will then be emailed to you directly and you reset the password securely online immediately upon receipt. Visa card will be sent by courier directly to you.

Nominees Changing Bank Signatories – This never happens in Panama, our nominees are well known to the law firm. Requests to add, change, delete or close an account at the bank will require the written approval of the existing signatory or the bank could be sued for bank fraud. If the nominees went to the bank and requested a change in signatures they would be required to fill out bank forms, show ID and would then be told we will get back to you. The existing signatories would be contacted and you would say "What" and the nominees would be turned over to the technical police and face jail. Banks in Panama are used to nominees so this is not something you need worry about. Additionally the nominees do not know the account number, which would make any bank dealings impossible and raise red flags big time.

Number of Panama Bank Accounts - You can open up more than one Panama offshore bank account in different banks using different corporations or same corporation or a corporation and a foundation. Sending funds from one corporation or foundation to another for payroll, purchases or other reasons can easily be accomplished using the ACH system in Panama which 30 large banks use. This is not a wire transfer and the data is covered by Panama Bank Secrecy laws and only entities covered by these laws have the data. It takes one to two days for the ACH transfer to be completed and the cost is about $1.00 per transaction.

Panama Bank Secrecy - Panama has very strict banking secrecy laws better than any jurisdiction we know of. Panama has no tax treaty with any other country. Panama has no civil judgment collection treaties with any countries. Panama has no child support, spousal support or alimony collection treaties with any other country. This is not the case with tax havens like Switzerland, Belize etc. who do get into tax treaties with numerous countries.

Tax treaties are the legal basis for government fishing expeditions. Fishing expeditions do not happen in Panama. If a bank employee or officer violates the bank secrecy laws they can go to prison, get fined and of course you can sue the daylights out of the offending bank. The bank secrecy laws are statutory in Panama.

A question that frequently comes up is if a Panama Bank that is operating under the name of a chain of large international banks is able to maintain true Panama Bank Secrecy. Let us say the Bank is called Bank Two (no such bank in Panama) and Bank Two operates in Europe and North America with 68 banks in different countries. The Bank Two banks in other countries cannot go into their computers and see account holder information about Panama Bank Accounts. This would violate Panama Bank Secrecy, expose the bank officers to criminal prosecution and enable you to sue the bank and its responsible parties for millions of dollars of damages. In spite of this some people prefer a bank that operates only inside of Panama and we can accommodate this sort of request but these banks are pathetically small and we do not advise this. The same bank secrecy applies to all banks in Panama.

Did you know for instance that the so called bank secrecy laws of Belize are not actually written in their law books? Panama is the best jurisdiction for asset protection. Panama Bank Accounts are the most desired bank accounts in the world today. The banks are solid, the US Dollar is the national currency of Panama (we can also get Euro accounts and Pound Sterling accounts), the government is a stable democracy and the corporate privacy, bank secrecy and attorney privacy is the best there is anywhere.

Click here for a complete list of countries with tax treaties with the U.S.

Violating Panama Bank Secrecy - Getting into your bank records in Panama would require a court order from a Panama Court which is a seldom seen event, very rare and is usually reserved for simply awful large scale bad guys engaged in one of these five areas of criminal activity: child pornography, narcotics trafficking; real terrorism, serious real large money laundering (think millions of dollars) and fiduciary fraud like having a false bank or selling gold mines that do not exist. In the most unlikely event such a thing did happen in Panama here is how it would take place.

Panama will not cooperate with any and every country, they are selective but there is no list of countries per se. The country requesting the information would first need to have a criminal case on file in the national criminal courts of their country against the persons in question that hold the bank accounts and they would have to have specific bank accounts in their request not a fishing expedition. Requests can only be made by a national government, not a city, county, state, territory, parish etc. The request must be based on an existing open criminal case in their national courts. Through diplomatic channels they would make a formal written request for the information with numerous details provided. They would have to show why they need Panama to supply this information and that it is not obtainable any other way and is also necessary for them to make their case and that the information contained in the bank records would be what they need to make their case and why this is so.

Panama has the right to ask questions, get clarification and even refuse the request. These requests can go back and forth and years can go by before the information is provided or a formal denial of the information is made. Based on the request as a legal option available to them Panama could seize the bank records not turning them over to the requesting government and conduct their own investigation first if they felt Panama law was violated and thus deny the request until their investigation was completed which could take years. Of course various statues of limitation could expire before this information request process was completed.

Panama does not get interested in Fiscal Offenses especially those pertaining to taxation. The offense needs to be a crime in Panama for the bank secrecy to be violated, not just a crime in some other jurisdiction. Panama Bank records being turned over to another government for civil offenses (bankruptcy, family court, divorce, civil judgments etc.) is something not seen in Panama. Panama is in no treaty with any nation that allows for civil judgments to be collected in Panama. Remember if Panama were not private and protective there wouldn't be 150 large international banks in Panama many with their own 40 story modern skyscrapers and 400,000 corporations and 25,000 foundations domiciled in Panama.

Each corporation pays an annual tax of $300, which brings the total revenue from corporations to $120,000,000. In addition to this revenue there is additional revenue in the form of fees to nominee directors, resident agents, associated bank accounts, etc. The net revenue from the Panama Canal is only about $335,000,000. This is for a country of 2.9 million people. Today roughly 20% of the Panama work force is employed by the banks. Most people do not know this but Panama is a neutral country and now holds a seat on the UN Security Council. Welcome to Switzerland's replacement, which is going to be around for many years to come.

Collecting Civil Judgments – If you are worried about a judgment from a civil court being levied against your Panama bank account, relax. If the civil offense in question occurred outside of Panama and the order was not from a Panama court it would most likely get kicked out of Panama court if the other party was even determined enough to try and collect the judgment in Panama. The court in Panama would probably rule that they have no venue or authority over the matter since it was a not a dispute about events that occurred in Panama and thus dismiss the case. The other side would post money for court costs and incur high attorney fees after being told their prospects for success were either extremely slim or none. This is something rarely seen in Panama.

In Panama your personal assets and debts are not the same as those of a Panama corporation or a Panama foundation so levying a civil judgment against your corporation or foundation is a somewhat difficult matter with again an unlikely chance of success combined with court waits of years and high legal fees. Remember ownership of Panama Corporations and Foundations is anonymous so how would a financial enemy even know the corporation or foundation was yours and even if they could prove this (how they could prove this is an interesting question unless you told them it was yours) there are still massive legal hurdles to overcome to show you made a fraudulent conveyance to avoid creditors. There is a three-year window concerning fraudulent conveyance and the court wait could easily be five years, which is another not insignificant hurdle to overcome. What if you do not own the Panama Corporation, a Panama Foundation owns it and a Panama Foundation really has no owner, or we could insert another entity to control the foundation, etc. etc. etc. Panama is not a litigious society and aggressive civil collection practices from other countries are seriously discouraged and generally prove to be a waste of time and a lot of money for the party bringing the action.

Panama Taxes - Panama has no taxation for offshore income so unless you operate a brick and mortar business in Panama. Your income will be offshore derived and not taxable at all even if you have a Panama Corporation, Panama bank account, office address in Panama, phone in Panama, web site located in Panama, etc. If all your income is offshore derived you do not even need to file a Panama tax return. Panama also has no capital gains if you like stock trading and this of course means your bank interest is not taxed either. Panama has no probate, no inheritance, and no estate taxes.

Feel free to ask us questions by email, hush messenger or telephone.