What is a crypto merchant account, and what does it take to get one?

A crypto merchant account is your business's account with a crypto payment processor. It is a third thing, not your wallet or your exchange account under a new name. Through it, the processor issues invoices to your customers, sees each payment arrive and credits it to your balance.

To get one, you sign up. A processor that checks its merchants then verifies your company (this is KYB verification) and reviews the project you want to take payments for, which in practice means your website.

Not every processor runs these checks, but in the EU every crypto-asset service provider has been required to since 30 December 2024. How long that takes depends on the processor and on how complete your papers are. Some processors let you test everything while you wait, so the review does not have to stall your work.

A processor that skips these checks can sound like the faster road. Some hosted gateways do let you start without documents, yet one that holds a balance for you can still ask for them later, once a payment is flagged and the money is already on your balance. Before you choose that road, read what accepting crypto through a gateway without KYC really means.

Is a merchant account just my wallet or exchange account under another name?

No. You now have three accounts with similar names, and each does a different job:

• A wallet is an address you control. Anyone can send coins to it, and nobody checks you to open one. But a wallet does not know what a payment is for: if two customers each send 50 USDT, it shows two transfers and cannot tell you which order each one paid.
• An exchange account is for buying, selling and holding. The exchange verified you before opening it, and a company can have one too. It is not built for taking money from customers: there are no invoices, no checkout and no link between a payment and an order.
• A merchant account is for getting paid. It lives at a crypto payment processor, and its whole job is the path from "the customer clicks Pay" to "the order is marked paid". A processor that checks its merchants does so before it lets real payments through that path.

There is also a setup with no merchant account at all: you run the payment software on your own server, and it watches your own wallet. There is no processor to open an account with, and the software and its upkeep are yours. That trade-off is its own decision, laid out in self-hosting a crypto payment gateway versus plugging into a hosted one.

What crypto merchant services include

"Merchant services" is what processors call everything a merchant account switches on. The set varies from one processor to another, but it is built around the same pieces:

• Invoices and payment links. The processor creates a bill for an exact amount in bitcoin, USDT or another cryptocurrency, with an address and a deadline. You send the link to a customer or show the invoice on your site.
• A checkout. A payment page or widget where the customer picks a coin, sees the amount and pays from any wallet.
• Matching payments to orders. The processor watches the blockchain, sees the transfer arrive and marks that exact invoice as paid.
• Notifications. You or your site get a message when a payment is confirmed, so an order can go out without anyone watching a wallet.
• A balance and withdrawals. Merchant payments collect on your balance at the processor, and you withdraw them to your own wallet.

Once you know what the account switches on, the next questions are price and setup: what a crypto payment gateway costs and how to connect it to a site.

How to get a crypto merchant account

Not every processor verifies its merchants. At one that does, the details differ, but the path runs in this order:

1. Pick a processor. Coins, networks, fees and the way you get money out vary between processors, so this choice comes first.
2. Sign up. You create an account with an email and password, the same as any online service.
3. Pass KYB verification. The processor checks that your company exists and who owns and runs it.
4. Pass the project review. Someone at the processor looks at what you sell and where you sell it.
5. Go live. After approval, real invoices work and real customer payments reach your balance.

Steps 3 and 4 are where people get stuck, so the rest of this page is about them.

What the processor requires before it approves you

Every requirement a processor sets comes down to three things:

• A company that checks out. It is registered, it is what it says it is, and its papers match the form you filled in.
• People who check out. The owners and directors are identified, and none of them turns up on a sanctions list.
• A project that checks out. What you sell is clear from your site, and it is something the processor is willing to handle.

Each processor writes its own detailed list on top of this. Whether a sole trader without a registered company can apply is one of the points where lists differ, so it is worth asking before you start the form.

Requirements are one half of choosing where to apply. The other half is what each processor will actually cost you, which is what ten crypto payment processors compared by total cost sets side by side.

Why processors check merchants at all

A processor that holds and moves crypto for clients answers for who those clients are. It checks them for two reasons:

• The law requires it. In the EU, since 30 December 2024, every crypto-asset service provider, a category that covers firms holding or transferring crypto for clients, falls under the anti-money-laundering directive (Directive (EU) 2015/849). That directive requires them to identify each customer and, for a company, the people who ultimately own or control it.
• The processor has its own rules. Each processor keeps a list of businesses it will not serve, and the review is where it finds out whether yours is one of them.

KYC vs KYB: what is the difference?

KYC, short for know your customer, checks a person: that you are who you say you are, usually with a photo of your passport and a selfie. It is what an exchange did before it opened your personal account; the details are in why an exchange asks for your ID and how KYC in crypto works.

KYB, short for know your business, checks a company in the same spirit: that it really exists, and who stands behind it.

KYB contains KYC inside it. The owners and directors that KYB turns up are then identified one by one, as people. Say two founders run an online shop registered as a limited company: KYB checks the company against the registry, and then each founder goes through their own identity check.

What the KYB verification process involves

Processors run the check in their own order and with their own tools. What it has to cover is the same:

1. You describe the company. Legal name, registration number, country, address, what the business does and roughly how much you expect to take in payments.
2. The processor confirms the company exists. It compares your details with your country's public company registry or with the registry extract you upload.
3. You name the owners and directors. In the EU, under Directive (EU) 2015/849 as of September 2026, a person holding more than 25% of a company is an indication that they are its beneficial owner, the person who really owns it. Each beneficial owner and director is identified as a person.
4. The names are screened. The company and its people are checked against sanctions lists and lists of politically exposed persons, meaning public officials and those close to them.
5. The processor decides. The answer is approval, a request for more documents, or a refusal. A request for more papers pauses the step it concerns until you send them.

Documents required for KYB verification

Each paper on the list proves one of the checks above, which makes the set easier to gather once you know what each one is for. The exact documents list is set by the processor and depends on your country:

• Proof the company exists. A certificate of incorporation or a recent extract from the company registry.
• How the company is set up. Articles of association or whatever your country calls the founding document.
• Who owns it. A shareholder register or an ownership chart. If another company sits between you and the people at the top, its papers are needed too.
• Who the people are. A passport or ID card for each director and beneficial owner.
• Where the company is. A document showing the registered or business address.
• A licence, if your business needs one. For activity that requires a licence where you operate, such as online gambling, a copy of it.

Before you upload, check that names and numbers match across every paper and the form. A company name spelled one way in the registry extract and another way in the form gets you a follow-up question and a longer wait.

All of these papers assume there is a company to describe. If you sell in your own name and have no registry extract to upload, the check moves to you as a person, and some processors and card gateways sign up sole traders on that basis. Who does, and what they check in place of company documents, is laid out in getting a payment gateway when you have no registered company.

The project review: what the processor looks for on your website

Besides the company, the processor looks at what you will be paid for. That usually means your website, and the reviewer reads it the way a careful customer would:

• What you sell is clear. Products or services are described, not just a page with a logo and a contact form.
• Prices are visible. A customer can see what things cost before paying.
• You can be reached. The company name and contact details are somewhere on the site.
• The rules are written down. Terms of service, refunds and, if you ship goods, delivery.

The site does not have to be finished to a designer's standard. It has to let a stranger understand what the business is and what a customer gets for their money.

If your business is in a category that card acquirers call high risk, such as travel, dating or licensed gambling, this review is where the question comes up with a crypto processor as well. What that status means and how crypto changes it is explained in what a high risk merchant account is and what crypto changes about it.

How long approval takes

There is no single number across the industry, because the wait depends on a few things you can predict:

• How much is automated. A registry lookup or an ID check can run in minutes; a person reading your website takes longer.
• How complete your papers are. Every missing document means another round of back and forth.
• How simple the ownership is. One owner is quick; a chain of holding companies in different countries means papers for every link.
• What you sell. A business in a sensitive category gets a closer look.

At CryptumPay, the path from sign-up to money on your balance has three steps:

1. Create an account. The API and payment links are ready for testing straight away, and you can already create a real invoice.
2. Get verified. Verification runs automatically and ends with a short review of the project by the CryptumPay team, usually within one business day.
3. Get payments credited. CryptumPay accepts a payment even before the review is done. The money is credited to your balance only after the review; until then, the payment waits as accepted but not yet credited.

The CryptumPay project review needs a website that shows what you do or sell. The site does not have to be connected: if you take payments only by link, you add no widget and no API integration, but the site still has to be there for the review.

What you can do while the review is going on

A pending review does not have to be dead time. A few things can move forward in parallel:

• Test the whole payment flow. Create test invoices and see what your customer will see. Ask your processor whether it offers testing before approval; at CryptumPay it is open from sign-up.
• Set up the project. At CryptumPay this means taking the Project ID from the console and adding your domain to the project, because the widget only works on authorised domains. One account can hold several projects, each with its own balance, so a second site does not need a second account.
• Decide whether you need site integration at all. If you sell one order at a time in chat or by email, a link per order may be enough, as in accepting USDT through payment links and QR invoices without full integration.
• Fill the gaps on your website. Prices, contacts, terms and refund rules are the part of the review fully in your hands, and fixing them now avoids a second round.

What it comes down to

A crypto merchant account is a separate account at a processor, built for one job: getting paid by customers. Your wallet and your exchange account stay what they were. Before the processor opens it, it checks your company, the people behind it and the project, so three things are worth doing:

• Gather the papers first. The registry extract, founding document, ownership chart and owners' IDs, in one folder, before you open the form.
• Make your site speak for itself. What you sell, what it costs, how to reach you and what the rules are.
• Use the wait. Test the payment flow and set up the project while the review runs.

Questions people ask next

Is there a merchant category code for cryptocurrency?

Merchant category codes belong to card networks, and a crypto payment through a processor never passes through them, so a crypto merchant account has no such code. Where cards and crypto do meet, when someone buys cryptocurrency with a card, Visa's rules treat it as quasi-cash, next to foreign currency and money orders. A non-bank business selling crypto for Visa card payments uses code 6051.

What is a crypto merchant ID?

It is the identifier a processor gives your account or project. Your site or your API calls send it along, so the processor knows whose invoice it is creating and whose balance a payment lands on. At CryptumPay this identifier is the Project ID, taken from the console, and each project has its own balance.

Does KYB verification on Binance give me a merchant account?

No. Binance's verification for companies opens a corporate account on the exchange, for trading and holding crypto as a business. Accepting payments from customers is a separate service with its own sign-up and review, wherever you get it. The work is not wasted, though: the same registry extract and owners' IDs will be asked for again.

How do KYC, KYB and AML fit together?

AML, anti-money laundering, is the goal and the body of rules; KYC and KYB are the tools that serve it. KYC identifies people, KYB identifies companies and the people behind them. In the EU, as of September 2026, the AML directive makes this identification a duty for crypto-asset service providers, which is why a processor cannot skip it.

What is the difference between KYC and KYT?

KYC checks who the customer is, once at the start and again when something changes. KYT, know your transaction, checks the money itself as it moves: each incoming transfer is screened for links to addresses tied to sanctions, hacks or scams. For a merchant, this means a payment from a flagged address can be held for a closer look even after your account is approved.

This article is general information, not legal advice.