How to Get Startup Credits Without a US Entity
August 3, 2026 · 4 min read
You do not need a Delaware C-Corp to get startup credits. That belief costs founders outside the US more than any actual eligibility rule, because it stops people applying to programs they would have won.
The real picture is narrower and more specific. A minority of programs set a country allowlist. A much larger group requires something else entirely, and that something is what actually stops most non-US founders.
What genuinely blocks you, ranked
After checking eligibility rules across our whole credit catalog, the blockers come in this order.
- No registered company at all. Nearly every program needs an entity to contract with and pay out to. This is the most common blocker and the one entirely within your control.
- Partner referral. The headline tiers, the ones quoted at $100,000 and above, usually route through an accelerator, incubator or VC introduction. This has nothing to do with your country.
- A payment method that passes verification. Several providers ask for a card their processor accepts. This is a real and underdiscussed hurdle in parts of Africa and South Asia.
- Country allowlist. Genuinely restrictive, and genuinely a minority.
Notice that three of the four are not about where you are incorporated.
The programs that are open regardless of country
The self-serve tiers of the major clouds do not restrict by country:
| Program | Published amount | What it actually needs |
|---|---|---|
| AWS Activate | $200,000 at the top tier | Registered company. The large tier needs a partner referral |
| Google for Startups Cloud | $350,000 at the AI tier | Registered company. Larger tiers expect affiliation |
| Microsoft for Startups Founders Hub | $150,000 | The most accessible of the three without an introduction |
| NVIDIA Inception | $100,000 | Free to join, no funding requirement |
These four alone are worth applying to from anywhere, and they stack: nothing in any of their terms requires exclusivity.
What "requires a US entity" usually means in practice
When a program does restrict by country, it is almost never arbitrary. The usual reasons:
- Tax and payments. The provider can only issue credits against an entity in a jurisdiction they are set up to invoice.
- The programme is government-backed. National innovation schemes exist to support companies in that country. That is the point of them, and it is not unfair.
- A partner's own footprint. Some tiers are administered by a regional partner who only covers certain markets.
None of that changes your options, but it does tell you which restrictions are worth trying to work around and which are not. A government scheme for domestic companies will not bend. A provider whose payment processor cannot handle your bank might.
Should you incorporate in the US to unlock more?
Usually not, and this is the question we get asked most.
Incorporating a Delaware C-Corp costs money to set up and more to keep compliant: registered agent fees, franchise tax, a US accountant who understands your situation. Doing it purely to chase credits is close to always a losing trade before you have revenue or US customers.
There are two cases where it does make sense, and credits are a side effect rather than the reason:
- You are raising from US investors who expect a C-Corp, in which case you were going to do it anyway.
- Your customers are US enterprises who will not buy from a foreign entity.
If either is already true, you will pick up the wider credit access on the way. If neither is, the programs above are open to you as you are.
The order to do this in
- Incorporate locally. Whatever the standard vehicle is in your country: a private limited, an LLC, a free-zone company. This unlocks the largest number of programs for the least money.
- Take the self-serve tiers immediately. No referral, no funding history, and enough to run an early product for a year.
- Sort out a payment method that verifies. A corporate card, or a business account with a provider your bank does not fight.
- Then chase affiliation. Any recognised accelerator or incubator, local or remote, is what moves you from the self-serve tier to the partner tier. That jump is usually larger than the difference between providers.
Check what you actually qualify for
Reading eligibility terms one at a time is the part nobody finishes. Our eligibility check runs your country, stage and funding against the real rules for every program we track and tells you the count, in about a minute and without an account.
If you want the country-specific version, we maintain pages for Pakistan, India, the UAE and Nigeria that name which programs are closed to you and what they are open to instead.