Byblos HorizonE-Commerce Growth and Operations
Getting Paid From Lebanon: What Mercury, Wise and Payoneer Actually Allow
Mohamad Haidar
Founder of Byblos Horizon
Published October 22, 2026 · 11 min read
There are two money problems in Lebanese e-commerce and they are constantly confused with each other. The first is taking payment from a customer. The second is holding the money once you have it. A store can solve the first and still have nowhere for the revenue to go.
We covered the first problem in payment gateways in Lebanon. This is the second one, and it is the one that stops people cold, because the three providers every forum recommends do not all allow what people assume they allow.
We read each provider's own published pages in October 2026 rather than the comparison sites, which is where most of the confident wrong answers come from. Here is what they actually say.
The short answer
| Provider | Lebanon resident | What the provider publishes |
|---|---|---|
| Mercury | Prohibited | Lebanon is named on the published prohibited countries list |
| Wise | Cannot hold a balance | Lebanon is absent from the published list of places you may hold money |
| Payoneer | Unconfirmed | No country list published, and Lebanon is not named in the terms |
Mercury says no, and it is about where you live
Mercury publishes a prohibited countries list and Lebanon is on it, alongside Iraq, Syria, Nigeria, Pakistan, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam and around forty others. This is not a limit on which cards it will issue or which countries it will send to. It is a bar on opening the account at all.
The wording is the part that matters. Mercury states it cannot open accounts for founders who live in, or businesses that operate or do business in, any of the listed countries, and that this is based on country of residence rather than citizenship or nationality. It adds that a citizen of a listed country who currently resides elsewhere may still be eligible, pending review.
So the dividing line for a Lebanese founder is not the passport. It is the address. That is good news for the diaspora and bad news for anyone operating from Beirut, and it is the opposite of what most people assume when they hear a country is restricted.
Why a US company does not fix this
The standard advice when someone hits this wall is to register a US LLC, usually in Delaware or Wyoming, and bank through it. There is a real version of that strategy, but it does not work the way it is usually described, and the reason is in the sentence above.
Mercury's rule covers businesses that operate or do business in a prohibited country, not only founders who live in one. A Delaware LLC whose sole member sits in Beirut and runs the entire operation from Beirut is, on any reasonable reading of that sentence, a business operating in Lebanon. Incorporating abroad changes what you file with the IRS. It does not change where the provider believes you are, and providers verify addresses.
The honest framing is this. A foreign entity is a tool for founders who have genuinely relocated, or who have a real presence and a real resident representative somewhere eligible. It is not a workaround for residence. Presenting it as one is how people end up with a frozen account holding their revenue, which is a far worse position than never having opened it.
We go through what a US entity actually commits you to, including the filing that carries a $25,000 penalty for companies that owe no tax at all, in a separate piece. It is a decision for a qualified accountant in both countries, not for a developer and not for us.
Wise will let you send, not hold
Wise is where the confusion is worst, because two different questions get the same answer in casual conversation. Sending money and holding money are governed by separate lists.
Wise publishes the countries and territories where you are permitted to hold a balance. Lebanon is not among them. No balance means no Wise account details, which in turn means no way to receive a payment into Wise, which is usually the whole reason someone wanted it. When people say Wise works in Lebanon, they are almost always describing sending a transfer out, which sits on a different and broader list.
Two details on that list are worth knowing if you sell across the region or advise people who do. Several countries are permitted for one account type only: Bahrain, Israel and Malaysia allow personal accounts but not business accounts, and Hong Kong is the reverse, business but not personal. And the United Arab Emirates does not appear on the hold list at all, despite Wise holding a UAE central bank licence for remittance and stored value. A UAE address is not the universal answer either.
Payoneer does not say, and that is the finding
Payoneer is the one case where we cannot give you a yes or a no, and we would rather say that than guess. Payoneer publishes no list of supported countries for account registration. The country list on its support site covers a stablecoin wallet product and nothing else.
What it does publish is an acknowledgement and a rule. The acknowledgement, in its own signup guidance, is that it is unable to support direct registrations from select countries and territories, without naming them. The rule, in its current terms, is that you may not use the service while residing, working or conducting business in any country restricted by the US Office of Foreign Assets Control, and that it may discontinue service to residents of other countries at any time without prior notice.
Lebanon is not named anywhere in those terms, and Lebanon is not subject to a comprehensive OFAC embargo in the way Cuba, Iran, North Korea and Syria are. The US programme touching Lebanon targets specific entities and individuals rather than the country as a whole. On the documents, then, Payoneer does not exclude Lebanon, but it has also reserved every right to, and the only authoritative test is the registration form itself.
Treat that as unconfirmed, not as approval. If Payoneer is load-bearing in your plan, confirm it with Payoneer in writing before you build anything on top of it, and do not rely on a listing site that claims to know. The same discipline applies to every provider here.
The pattern underneath all three
Read together, the three providers are applying the same logic with different amounts of candour. Residence is the gate. Not citizenship, not where the company is registered, and not where the website is hosted. Each of them asks where the human being lives and where the business is actually run, and each of them reserves the right to change its mind without telling you first.
That has three practical consequences for anyone selling out of Lebanon.
Settle the money question before the store. Building a Shopify store is the easy half and it can be done from anywhere. Receiving the revenue cannot. We have seen the order reversed often enough to say it plainly: find out where the money is allowed to land before you spend on a build or on traffic.
Do not depend on one provider. Every one of these terms of service permits withdrawal of service without notice, and that is not a theoretical clause. A single point of failure between you and your revenue is a business risk, not an admin detail.
Price the local route properly before dismissing it. A locally authorised gateway with a Lebanese bank behind it looks expensive next to a 1% fintech rate, right up to the moment the fintech closes the account. The gateways that are actually available locally are worth costing out on that basis rather than on headline fees.
What we are not telling you
We are a marketing and e-commerce studio. We are not accountants, lawyers or licensed advisers in Lebanon, the United States, the United Kingdom or anywhere else, and nothing above is tax, legal or financial advice. What we can do is read what providers publish and report it accurately, which on this subject turns out to be rarer than it should be.
The questions of whether to incorporate abroad, where you are tax resident, and what you owe to whom are for a qualified professional in each country involved. If someone offers you a confident answer to those for a flat fee on the internet, that is the moment to be careful.
Questions people are asking
Can someone living in Lebanon open a Mercury account?
No. Lebanon is named on Mercury's published prohibited countries list, and Mercury applies that list to where the founder lives and where the business operates, not to citizenship. A Lebanese citizen who lives in France, the UAE or anywhere not on the list may still be eligible, subject to review.
Does registering a US LLC solve the banking problem?
Not on its own, and this is the most expensive misunderstanding in the whole area. Mercury's rule covers businesses that operate or do business in a prohibited country, not just founders who live in one. A Delaware LLC run day to day from Beirut is a business operating in Lebanon. The company registration changes what you file with the IRS, not where the provider thinks you are.
Can I hold money in a Wise account if I live in Lebanon?
No. Wise publishes the list of countries and territories where you are allowed to hold a balance, and Lebanon is not on it. That means no Wise balance and no Wise account details to receive payments into. Sending money from Lebanon is a separate question with a separate list, so people who say Wise works in Lebanon are often describing sending, not holding.
Is Payoneer available in Lebanon?
Payoneer does not publish a country list, so nobody can answer this honestly from documents alone. What its terms do say is that you may not use the service while residing or doing business in a country restricted by the US Office of Foreign Assets Control, and Lebanon is not under a comprehensive OFAC embargo the way Cuba, Iran, North Korea and Syria are. Lebanon is not named anywhere in those terms. Payoneer also states plainly that it cannot support direct registrations from some countries without saying which, and it reserves the right to withdraw service from any country without notice. Treat it as unconfirmed rather than as a yes.
What does this mean for selling to the diaspora?
It means the money question has to be settled before the store, not after. You can build a Shopify store from anywhere, but you cannot receive card revenue into an account you are not allowed to open. Founders who get this wrong find out at the point when they already have paying customers and nowhere for the money to land.
Where do these answers come from?
Each provider's own published pages, read in October 2026, and linked at the end of this article. We did not take them from comparison sites or listing directories, which is where most of the wrong answers on this subject come from. Any of it can change without notice, so check the date and confirm before you act.
Sources
- Mercury, Prohibited countries, for Lebanon's inclusion, the residence rather than citizenship basis, and the note that citizens residing elsewhere may still be eligible.
- Wise, Where do I need to live to hold money with Wise?, for the full list of permitted countries and territories, the per-account-type restrictions, and the absence of both Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates.
- Payoneer, Signing Up to Payoneer FAQ, for the statement that direct registrations cannot be supported from select unnamed countries.
- Payoneer Terms and Conditions, September 2026, for the OFAC-based restriction and the reserved right to discontinue service to other countries without notice. Lebanon does not appear in the document.
- Wise, How is Wise regulated in each country and region?, for the UAE central bank licence referred to above.
Every provider page above was read in October 2026. All three reserve the right to change country availability without notice, and at least one of them states so explicitly, so confirm current terms directly with the provider before making any decision. Nothing here is tax, legal, accounting or financial advice.