About

I'm the author behind frontierviking.substack.com — a Substack about investing in frontier and emerging markets, as well as odd countries not even classified as frontier or emerging. A question that keeps coming up is: how do I invest in country X? This site is an attempt to answer that question from the perspective of a retail or private investor who is neither a citizen nor a resident of the country in question.

The key questions

For each country, I'm trying to answer:

• Is it even possible to open an account for a non-national, non-resident person?
• Do I have to visit the country in person?
• What's the account-opening process?
• What are the costs, and are there minimum deposit amounts?
• What about counterparty risk and capital controls — can I transfer funds back?
• Can I trade online, or do I have to phone in orders?
• How is the user experience?

On that last point: I'm seeing a trend where the most "far out" places have the nicest and most attentive brokers.

Where the data comes from

The data is from my personal experience of having over 20 broker accounts and having attempted to open many more around the world, as well as from the experiences of friends and other investors — and, hopefully, updates from readers of this site.

I've noticed you don't really learn how things work until you actually attempt to open an account. A broker may publicly state that foreigners can open accounts, but when it comes down to it there's some hurdle that makes it very difficult — or the other way round: it doesn't seem possible, but if you contact the right broker, it actually is.

I also use AI agents in building this, and treat the site partly as an experiment in AI-assisted research. Where I have lived experience or direct correspondence with a broker, the entry says so (marked Verified, or Reader-reported for a trusted first-hand account). But many entries — especially for markets I haven't personally opened an account in — are researched with AI from public sources, broker materials, and filings, and are marked Researched so you can tell the difference. The verification status tells you how much of an entry rests on first-hand experience versus desk research; treat Researched entries as a starting point to confirm directly.

None of this stands still. Brokers change onboarding rules, open and close markets, get acquired, or quietly stop serving foreigners — what's true today may not hold in six months. A perfect, finished reference isn't possible; the goal is the most accurate, up-to-date picture I can keep. Reader submissions are central to that — if you've opened (or failed to open) an account somewhere, found that a broker's access changed, or spotted something out of date, please report it. Every correction makes the next reader's answer a little better. See Methodology for how reports feed the verification status.

When local access isn't realistic

For cases where it really is impossible to open a local brokerage account — or it's simply too much hassle — I also check whether there are stocks from that country listed abroad, or foreign-listed stocks with significant activities in the country in question. Those appear in the "Listed abroad" panel on each country page.

A note on institutions

Large institutions don't really face this problem. Specialist brokers exist to give funds and asset managers execution and custody across dozens of frontier and emerging markets through one relationship — firms like Auerbach Grayson (a US broker plugged into local brokers in ~125 countries) and Tellimer / Exotix, alongside the institutional "Frontier" desks at houses such as EFG Hermes. But those are institutional services — serious minimums, negotiated commissions, no retail app.

This directory is the other side of that: it's for the retail and private investor who has to solve access on their own, one broker at a time. Where an institutional route is the only realistic answer, I'll say so — but the focus here is what an individual can actually open and fund.

See also Methodology and Disclosures.