Kickstarter from outside the US

You can’t setup Kickstarter from outside the US:
http://www.kickstarter.com/help/faq/creating%20a%20project#AmIEligToStarAKickProj

To be eligible to start a Kickstarter project, you need to satisfy the requirements of Amazon Payments:

Be a permanent US resident and at least 18 years of age with a Social Security Number (or EIN), a US bank account, US address, US state-issued ID (driver’s license), and major US credit or debit card

this is because:

Kickstarter uses Amazon’s Flexible Payments Service, which enables our all-or-nothing funding method. No other credit card processor currently supports our requirements. We’re always talking with other companies and exploring other services, so expect more options in the future.

There are other crowdsourcing sites available outside the US (http://www.pozible.com.au and http://www.indiegogo.com/), but they are smaller and less successful than Kickstarter- Exhibit A your honour:


Does anyone know how to get around this?

Move to the USA or find a partner in the USA willing to handle this end of your project.

It’s primarily for tax reasons. They are dumping you a big chunk of cash and they would get in trouble without being able to provide your tax info to the ol’ IRS.

That is unbelievably myopic. They could just as easily connect with Australian Tax Office, UK Inland revenue or any other taxation office. Companies and people have to do this all the time.

Bad, bad. Kickstarter punted :slight_smile:

They could, but if they’ve signed contracts with Amazon they’ve limited themselves until they either handle the payment on their own and figure all that out, which certainly isn’t trivial when you have thousands of people pledging to different projects. Plus Amazon at least has established street cred.

If I started a “Worldstarter.com” and said “you send me money and then I’m going to give it to someone” there’s not a whole lot of trust or recourse in that situation.

So that’s why none of my projects ever got selected…I guess…never got an explanation.

I do have some family in the States…so let’s try again. See if it get’s selected :smiling_imp:

Grtz & thank you for the info

Just continue to harass them monthly that you are not located in the states and they need to hurry up in making the service available internationally…
I looked into getting a bank account and mailing address but you need to have state ID… so essentially need to be a citizen or have a visa of some sort. Other option is to find a family/friend to set the account up for you.