Opening a business bank account in Monaco
We prepare and steer the file a Monegasque credit institution needs, and we say at the start what the law publishes and what stays the bank's own decision.
- 15 working days from a complete file (Loi n° 1.492, Art. 3)
- Compulsory for as long as the business is active (Art. 13)
- No State fee, and no statutory minimum deposit
- A free written refusal attestation, then the Treasury route (Arts. 4 and 8)
What a Monegasque business account is, and what we do
A compte de dépôt (deposit account) held by a company is not private banking, and it is not optional. Art. 13 of Loi n° 1.492 of 8 July 2020 binds every natural person carrying on a professional, craft, commercial or industrial activity, and every SA, SNC, SCS, SCA and SARL, to hold one with a credit institution established in Monaco and to keep it while the entity is active.
Art. 1 gives the persons of Art. 2 who have no such account a right to open one, and head 4° reaches the legal person being formed in Monaco. We prepare and steer that file, sequence it with the register and the capital, and prepare the second file if a bank says no. The account is one formality inside company formation in Monaco, and the proof of address the bank asks for concerns the person who runs the company, not giving a Monegasque company a lawful registered office.
What is included
The scope, and its boundary, in one block.
Timing inside the formation chain. When the bank is approached, counted from the récépissé (receipt) of the Direction du Développement Économique, the document the ministerial order puts at the head of a company's file.
The statutory layer, assembled. The closed list of Arrêté ministériel n° 2020-664, Art. 1, taken per applicant type: a commercial company, a company still being formed, a sole trader, a civil company, and the founder as an individual.
The bank's own layer, prepared. The due diligence Loi n° 1.362 imposes on the institution, including the beneficial-owner extract it must obtain before entering the relationship. What a given bank asks beyond that is its own practice, and we do not invent it.
Sequencing with the capital and the register. Cash contributions go into an account opened to receive them, and the RCI file carries a bank attestation, so the account is planned alongside registration instead of after it.
The refusal file. The written refusal attestation, a copy of the complete file handed to the bank, and the request to the Direction du Budget et du Trésor to designate a credit institution.
Where we stop. We hold no funds, name no bank, sell no introduction, and promise neither an approval nor a date. Investment and wealth-management advice is a CCAF-licensed activity and is not ours.
Who has a right to an account, and who must hold one
Five heads carry the right; one article carries the obligation.
- A natural person of Monegasque nationality (Loi n° 1.492, Art. 2, 1°).
- A natural or legal person domiciled in Monaco within the meaning of Art. 2 of the Code de droit international privé (Art. 2, 2°).
- A natural person in the course of settling in Monaco, holding the provisional receipt of the residence-card application issued by the Direction de la Sûreté Publique (Art. 2, 3°).
- A legal person being formed in Monaco that can show the required administrative formalities, which in practice is the DDE receipt (Art. 2, 4°).
- The financial agent of a candidate at an election (Art. 2, 5°).
- The right runs only to those persons of Art. 2 who have no deposit account (Art. 1).
- One deposit account for each professional activity, even where the applicant already holds a personal one (Art. 6).
- The obligation binds natural persons in business and the SA, SNC, SCS, SCA and SARL, while the entity is active (Art. 13).
- A non-resident founder holds no personal right under Art. 2; his company being formed in Monaco does.
Where the account sits in the formation chain
Seven steps, and only the periods the texts publish.
- 01
the DDE receipt at the head of the file
- 02
the bank file lodged, 15 working days from a complete file (marked "subject to Loi n° 1.362")
Loi n° 1.362
- 03
the capital account and the RCI attestation
- 04
then the NIS at 5 working days. No cumulative bar
Where the account sits in the formation chain: the DDE receipt, the fifteen working days that run from a complete file, the capital account, the RCI attestation and the NIS. Sources: Loi n° 1.492, Arts. 2 and 3; Arrêté ministériel n° 2020-664, Art. 1; RCI page, updated 21/05/2026. The order around the NIS is our reading
1. The company file comes first. Art. 1, 4° of the ministerial order names the DDE récépissé in place of an RCI extract. That receipt presupposes premises the authorisation can be granted on, which is the subject of a business centre in Monaco and of office space in Monaco, not of this page.
2. Approach a credit institution established in Monaco. The government's own procedure points the applicant to the bankers' association's list of Monegasque banks serving companies. We name none. The regulator counts 12 branches of foreign banks and 12 Monegasque companies at end December 2024.
3. Lodge the statutory layer of the file. The documents of Art. 1, per applicant type, are the floor. Whether the applicant must appear in person is settled by no official source read for this page: the statute, the ministerial order and the government procedure pages say nothing about presence.
4. Fifteen working days, counted from a complete file. Art. 3 runs the period "à compter de la réception de l'ensemble des pièces qui lui sont nécessaires", and opens "sous réserve du respect des dispositions de la loi n° 1.362". The clock starts at completeness, not at first contact.
5. The share capital. Cash contributions are released by payments into an account opened for that purpose with a credit institution installed in the Principality, and the payment is proved when registration is applied for. The amounts themselves belong to the entity pages.
6. The RCI file. Registration takes either the attestation that a deposit account has been opened or, for an SARL, the bank's attestation that the legal minimum has been paid up, and the register records the name of the institution holding it.
7. The NIS. IMSEE delivers the attestation within five working days and lists opening a bank account among the NIS's uses. No official page reconciles that with a statutory list which accepts the DDE receipt, so the order given here is our reading, not a published rule.
Three periods are published in this whole chain, and only three: the bank's fifteen working days, the Treasury's fifteen working days, and the two months' notice before a designated bank may close an account. The NIS's five working days is a fourth, in an adjacent formality. None of them is a promise that an account opens.
Not sure when in your formation the bank file should start?
Tell us where the company file stands, and we will say when the bank file starts and what it has to contain.
The documents a bank needs: the statutory list and the bank's own layer
The list is closed and published. Arrêté ministériel n° 2020-664 of 5 October 2020, Art. 1, as consolidated on 2026-09-19, names the documents per applicant type, and Art. 2 names the file for the Treasury. Not one item on it is a deposit.
| Applicant | Documents the order lists | Age limit | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Commercial company, including one being formed | RCI extract or, for a company being formed, the récépissé of the Direction du Développement Économique; identity document and proof of address of the person with power to direct, manage or bind the company; that person's sworn statement that the company holds no deposit account opened in its name in Monaco | RCI extract and proof of address under three months | Art. 1, 4° |
| Natural person settling in Monaco | Identity document; proof of address; the provisional receipt of the residence-card application issued by the Direction de la Sûreté Publique; sworn statement of no personal deposit account in Monaco | Proof of address under three months | Art. 1, 2° |
| Natural person in business (sole trader) | Identity document; proof of address; an official document attesting the professional activity; sworn statement of no deposit account opened in Monaco for professional purposes | Proof of address under three months | Art. 1, 3° |
| Civil company, an SCI for example | Certificate of entry in the Répertoire Spécial des Sociétés Civiles; the procès-verbal of the general meeting appointing the gérant; the gérant's identity document and proof of address; the sworn statement | Certificate under three months | Art. 1, 5° |
| The file for the Treasury after a refusal | A copy of the complete file handed to the credit institution; the attestation de refus d'ouverture de compte; for a natural person, a sworn statement on any over-indebtedness procedure | Sworn statement covers the previous five years | Art. 2 |
What Arrêté ministériel n° 2020-664, Art. 1 lists per applicant, as consolidated on 2026-09-19, with the Treasury file of Art. 2 underneath. None of the four lists contains a deposit, a business plan or a source-of-funds file.
The bank's own layer sits on top of that list and is open-ended. A bank unable to complete the due diligence of Loi n° 1.362 "ne peuvent ni établir, ni maintenir une relation d'affaires, ni exécuter aucune opération" (Art. 7), and before entering the relationship it must obtain an extract of the beneficial-owner register (Art. 4-1).
Because that register names the person who really owns the company, nominee directors in Monaco is a subject we explain and not a service we sell. What else an institution asks for, source of funds, source of wealth, a business plan, is bank practice and is published nowhere official.
If a bank refuses: the route the statute gives you
Four steps, each of them in the text.
- 01
written attestation (free, same 15 working days, with notice of the route)
- 02
the file to the Direction du Budget et du Trésor
- 03
designation within 15 working days
- 04
then the designated bank with the five grounds of Art. 8 and an appeal to the courts branching off. No success rate
Art. 8
- 05
no probability
The refusal route of Loi n° 1.492: the free attestation owed within the same fifteen working days, the file to the Direction du Budget et du Trésor, the designation within fifteen working days, and the five grounds on which a designated institution may still reject, with an appeal to the courts. Sources: Loi n° 1.492, Arts. 4, 5, 8; Arrêté ministériel n° 2020-664, Art. 2
1. The refusal attestation. A refusing bank must provide, free of charge and within the same fifteen working days, a written attestation de refus d'ouverture de compte, and must inform the applicant that he may ask the Treasury to designate a credit institution (Loi n° 1.492, Art. 4).
2. The file to the Treasury. The Direction du Budget et du Trésor receives a copy of the complete file handed to the bank and the refusal attestation. A natural person adds a sworn statement on any over-indebtedness procedure in the previous five years (Arrêté ministériel n° 2020-664, Art. 2).
3. The designation. The Treasury designates a credit institution providing deposit and payment account services within fifteen working days of receiving the required documents (Art. 4, first paragraph). Nothing in the text lets the applicant choose which institution is named.
4. What the designated bank owes. A designated institution is obliged to open the account except in the circumstances of Art. 8, and may reject the request only on one of five listed grounds, among them a criminal conviction of the classes the article names. The rejection may be challenged before the competent courts.
The honest limit: the statute gives a right to a procedure, not to a relationship with a chosen bank, and the Art. 7 situation of Loi n° 1.362 is itself one of the five grounds. Where the route ends in a designation, Art. 5 attaches twelve basic services to the account, from keeping it and a monthly statement to two bank cheques a month, at tariffs no higher, for equivalent services, than the ones the institution applies to its other clients.
Is there a minimum deposit? What is published, and what the market reports
No official text sets a minimum deposit for a bank account in Monaco. The statutory document list contains no deposit at all, and the only official sentence about an amount sits on the residence-card procedure: "la somme jugée suffisante dépend de l'établissement bancaire de Monaco qui fournira une attestation", the attestation being less than one month old. The card itself, and what its file requires, belong to residency in Monaco.
| The claim | Who publishes it, and when | What the official text says |
|---|---|---|
| "Minimum deposits start at 500,000 EUR for residents"; "2,000,000 EUR or more for non-residents" | [market: wise.com, measured 2026-09-19] | No official text sets a minimum; Arrêté ministériel n° 2020-664, Art. 1 lists no deposit |
| "between €500,000 and €1,000,000" for new residents; "typically ranges from €500,000 to €3,000,000" for non-residents | [market: monacorg.mc, measured 2026-09-19] | The same list; the sufficient sum "dépend de l'établissement bancaire de Monaco" |
| "all banks require a 500,000 euro initial deposit", stated as of July 2017 | [market: alpenpartners.com, measured 2026-09-19] | The same list; no State figure exists, for any account |
| "at least 250 000 euros, or even a million (depending on the bank)" | [market: SERP snippets of 2026-09-19, pages not fetched; institutions not named] | The amount is the bank's, and it is attested by the bank, not fixed by the State |
Four market observations on a minimum deposit, each with its publisher and the date it was measured, set against the one sentence the State publishes about an amount. The figures describe what intermediaries report, not a rule.
Problems we solve
Five places where this file goes wrong, and what the texts say instead.
No one can guarantee an account. Art. 3 is expressly subject to Loi n° 1.362, and an institution that cannot complete its due diligence may neither establish nor maintain a business relationship (Art. 7). A badge promising approval is speaking for someone else's decision.
The clock starts at a complete file. Fifteen working days run from the receipt of every document the bank needs, which is why published estimates for the same procedure stretch from one to two weeks to two to five months [market: wise.com, alpenpartners.com and monacorg.mc measured 2026-09-19; healyconsultants.com and hawksford.com from the market layer of 2026-09-08].
A refusal is not the end of the road. The attestation that opens the Treasury route is free and owed inside the same fifteen working days, the designation has a fifteen-working-day period of its own, and a designated institution may reject only on the five grounds of Art. 8.
The grey list, stated soberly. Monaco has been under FATF increased monitoring since June 2024; the statement of 19 June 2026 records an action plan substantially completed and an on-site assessment warranted, and the FATF calls for no enhanced due diligence on listed jurisdictions. Monaco also sits on the EU anti-money-laundering list in force since 5 August 2025: Company in Monaco: Monaco and the FATF Grey List
An account does not come with a bought company. Art. 13 attaches to the entity's own activity, and a change of beneficial owner restarts the bank's due diligence, so the buyer plans a bank file too: what changes hands when you take over an existing Monegasque company
Ready to prepare the bank file?
Send the form, the activity and the stage the company file has reached, and we will map the bank file against the statutory list.
Why work with us
Julien Rossi, tax, licensing and compliance lead, thirteen years, the last seven on Monaco, in French, English and German.
From our practice: answering the anti-money-laundering questions a Monegasque institution asks before it opens an account, assembling the statutory list against the ministerial order, sequencing the file with the DDE receipt and the RCI filing, and preparing the refusal file when one is needed.
Prepared by Julien Rossi · Reviewed by Camille Perrin · Updated {{BUILD_DATE}}
Start the file
Tell us where the company file stands and we will map the bank file, the statutory list first.
Start your Monaco file
Tell us the activity, where it will be carried on and who will run it. One of us reads it and comes back with the questions the authorisation file will ask. Our fees are on request.
The authorisation is personal and non-transferable, and it names the activity and the premises. Nothing on this site is sold ready to trade.
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