Moving your stores to a new US LLC without losing card processing
Moving Shopify stores or a subscription brand onto a new US LLC? Keep card processing live, carry your history over, and move subscribers without a lost rebill.
You have been running your stores through a company abroad, and you are moving some or all of them onto a new US LLC. Forming the LLC is the easy part. The part that goes wrong is processing: a new entity with no history, a checkout that suddenly needs a new account behind it, and a subscription base whose cards live with your old processor.
This is how to move without a frozen payout or a lost rebill.
The short answer: open a merchant account in the new LLC’s name before any volume moves, underwrite it on the processing history your current company already has, move one store at a time with the old and new accounts running side by side, and have stored cards migrated between processors so subscribers never re-enter them.
Why a new US LLC starts from zero
To a processor, your new LLC is a stranger. It has no processing history, no chargeback record, and no track record of refunds or deliveries. The history you built belongs to your old company.
That is why new LLCs so often get approved quickly on a flat-rate platform and then held or frozen weeks later. Signup review is light. The real review happens when volume arrives, and a new entity with sudden volume and an owner abroad is exactly the pattern that triggers it.
A dedicated merchant account is underwritten properly before you process, not after. Once it is approved, it already knows what to expect from you.
Your history is the asset. Bring it with you.
Underwriting evaluates the business and the people behind it, not only the entity on the paperwork. The statements from your current processors are the strongest evidence you have that this is a real business with a clean record.
Pull three to six months of statements for every store you plan to move. Underwriting is looking for:
- Monthly volume and average order size, and whether they are steady
- Chargeback count and ratio
- Refund rate
- How long the store has been trading
A clean record under the old company carries real weight for the new one. A store with no statements to show is a harder file, whatever the entity. Our guide to reading a merchant statement shows where each of those numbers sits on the page.
Shopify stores: what changes and what does not
Your store stays on Shopify. What changes is the payment provider behind checkout.
When a store moves off Shopify Payments to its own merchant account, Shopify adds a transaction fee for using a third-party provider, scaled by your plan. Plan for it. At real volume, a rate built for your business and an account that will not freeze in the middle of a launch are worth more than that fee, but you should see the numbers side by side before you move.
Two things to confirm before cutover:
- That the gateway behind your new account is supported on Shopify for your product category
- That refunds and order history from the old provider stay accessible after the switch
Subscription brands: the part most people miss
Subscriptions get the closest look from underwriting, and they are the hardest thing to move.
Underwriting looks at how you bill. Clear billing descriptors, a visible way to cancel, reminders before annual renewals, and honest trial terms all lower chargebacks, and underwriting knows it. Free trials that roll into paid plans without a clear reminder are one of the biggest red flags in the category.
Your subscribers’ cards live with your current processor. If you move to a new merchant account without moving the stored cards, every subscriber has to enter a card again, and a real share of them will not. Before you commit to a cutover date, ask your current processor for a PCI-compliant export of stored cards and confirm the new side can import it. Some platforms make this straightforward. Some make it hard. Find out first.
Failed renewals need a plan. Card updater services and sensible retry timing keep renewals from failing on expired or replaced cards. Set them up on the new account before the first renewal runs through it.
Why two accounts beat one
If all of your volume runs through one account, one review can stop all of your revenue. A second account on a separate processor means a hold on one side does not become an outage.
It also gives you somewhere to route orders when one side declines more than it should. Brands that have lived through a freeze usually already run a backup. Set the new LLC up that way from the start. If a freeze has already happened, our recovery playbook for foreign-owned LLCs covers the first 90 days.
The cutover, store by store
Do not move everything at once. The general mechanics are in our guide to switching processors; for a move onto a new entity, the order matters even more.
- Move the lowest-risk store first, usually the one with the cleanest statements and the simplest billing
- Run the old and new accounts side by side, sending a small share of orders through the new account first
- Watch the first payouts land cleanly in the new US bank account before you move more volume
- Move the next store only once the first is stable
- Keep the old account open until the last refunds and chargebacks from its orders have cleared
Subscription brands move last, after the stored cards have been migrated and tested.
What to have ready
For the new US LLC:
- Articles of Organization and the EIN confirmation letter
- US business bank account details
- Passport or ID for every owner of 25 percent or more
- Processing statements from your current company, three to six months per store
- Live, easy-to-find website policies: refunds, terms, privacy, shipping, contact
- For subscriptions: billing terms, trial terms, and how customers cancel
Where Epitychia fits
We set up and support merchant accounts in your US LLC’s name, built for e-commerce and subscription billing. We carry the file through underwriting, plan the store-by-store cutover, work through the stored-card migration for subscription brands, and can keep a second account in place so your volume never depends on a single processor. Everything runs through us, from the first statement review to the day your last store goes live. See our cross-border practice, or book a strategy call and bring your most recent statements.
Frequently asked questions
Can my new US LLC use my old company’s processing history?
Yes, as evidence. Underwriting evaluates the business and its owners, so statements from your current company support the new LLC’s application even though the entity is new.
Do I need a US citizen or resident to sign?
Not necessarily. We work with foreign-owned US LLCs without a US signer. Expect underwriting to look closely at ownership documents and at the processing history you bring.
Will my subscribers have to enter their cards again?
Not if the stored cards are migrated between processors. That has to be arranged before cutover, and it is the first thing to confirm.
Do I have to leave Shopify?
No. The store stays on Shopify. Only the payment provider behind checkout changes.
How long does it take?
It depends on the file. A complete file with clean statements moves fastest. Subscription brands take longer because of the card migration, so start those early.
