If you live overseas then you probably want to do thing like save up for retirement, or a house. While you can have a US bank account, it means taking a loss to change the money first to then from dollars.<p>You also have to be very careful with your direct deposit. If it goes into your local account (because it&#x27;s expensive and more complicated to wire the money to a US account) and make $5K&#x2F;month then you have to be absolutely sure that your local bank account doesn&#x27;t have $5K in it. And be sure to watch the exchange rates!<p>If you sell a house, you can&#x27;t put the profits into a local account but must figure out some way to have everything sent to the US. Which may not be easy.<p>In some countries, like Sweden where I live, the government can fill out your taxes for you, because they know how much you make - except for foreign accounts. If you have, say, $100K in a US account, drawing interest, then you have to declare it appropriately.<p>So no, it&#x27;s not easier for the millions of Americans who live overseas to keep the bulk of their money in a US bank account.