Opening A Spanish Bank Account Is Harder Than It Sounds!

Sometimes a little rant is needed

I think I did quite well postponing this rant until the problem was solved as it's been a point of stress for weeks now. You thought the private health insurance thing was our biggest hurdle so far here? Well, guess again! Nope, I think the bank has caused me even more stress because, for a week or two, it seemed as if things were going to be made impossible. And I seriously don't know how we would have solved the other steps (registering as self-employed, paying health insurance etc). Never in my life have I experienced such difficulty opening a local bank account. We actually tried to avoid this part and stick to Revolut as I'm so fond of that, but we were told quite early on in the process that we absolutely need a Spanish bank account that is accepted by the national tax agency. Sounds like something doable, doesn't it?

I expected a nice list of bank yay's and nay's

Instead, we found a lot of "best online banks in Spain", "best local banks in Spain", "best banks for self-employed people in Spain" etc. In fact, most of these lists were quite similar and often mentioned the same banks. No such thing as a solid list that turned out to be correct though! We had to find out this by ourselves, causing quite a lot of time and frustration at some point.

As we are fond of Revolut, we tried that one first, this made the most sense and felt familiar so I was really hoping this would work out! With Revolut it was needed to open a business account apparently so that my boyfriend would receive a Spanish IBAN number because this is not possible with the regular accounts, those start with LT instead of ES.

Revolut business account

We went back and forward and decided which plan would be best to take and he registered for the account. While waiting, I already discovered some red flags regarding the signup process because it was mentioned several times that a registration number of the so-called "autonomo" here was needed. This is odd, to say the least, because if you check the supported business entities, the form "autonomo" is listed. To get the autonomo registration, you need a bank account first. This is of course not an issue if you already live here and have one, but we were facing a chicken and egg situation here. Although quite annoyed after all the searching for the bank accounts, we quickly moved on to the next option.

N26 online bank account

One of the often mentioned bank accounts was N26, I think it's a German bank account but apparently, they offer a Spanish IBAN number, so they seemed to be ok for tax purposes. The registration process was quite simple and fast, before he knew it, he had the details of the bank account and we thought this was it. Then we found out that a business account needed to be accepted by the tax office, sigh. We could not open one on the side, nope, you need either a personal bank account OR a business bank account, not both. But closing it would take 24 hours and afterward he could open the business version. He never did though, because, after more online searching, it seemed as if this bank was not accepted by the tax office after all. Another one to wipe off the list. At this point, it became a little more stressful as it felt we were left in the dark as nobody had clear answers.

Incorrect advice

We hired a "gestor" a person that's taking these bureaucrazy things out of your hands so you don't have to deal with employees that have an off day and are therefore not in the mood to use Google translate when language becomes an issue. For the "autonomo" registration a bank account is needed and we asked him for advice when we met him. His response: "Oh well, you have ING online, it's free" but I don't know. Didn't really sound like this was going to be any struggle hearing him. He never mentioned the fact that these banks can be such a pain and often overcharge insane amounts. We read stories about ING that we instantly stepped away from that idea to look further at other options.

When I emailed him two days later to tell him things would probably be postponed until next week as we could not get an appointment at the branch we choose anytime sooner, he said "ok, let me know". I might have had too high expectations of this person, or he may have been overworked and really in need of his holiday that followed that next week, so we found out when we needed his help. Once we found out that our bank of choice was known to be one of the biggest scammers, he told us it's currently one of the best banks here in Spain, which made me wonder why he'd said that.

The search continues

We canceled our appointment the next Monday because with this many red flags by 500 customers, with barely any good reviews, this was not optional for us anymore. Of course, there are often two sides to the story, but I was not going to get ourselves in these situations if I could avoid it. So we moved on to the next option. I will keep the bank of our choice to ourselves because I feel spitting dirt here may cause some issues maybe and we'd like to avoid getting into these shitty situations with them. We went to one of the bigger branches known here in Spain where opening an online account looked free as well as seemed to take just minutes.

Until you try it and find out that you can't do that online being a foreigner (how hard can it be to just mention this before people try?). My boyfriend called them and asked for an appointment with an English-speaking bank employee. Fine, they'd call back the next day. More than a week later, we hadn't heard back, and finally, there was some time again to go to appointments (after some days where the workload was too high to leave during office hours) so we decided to just go to the bank.

Waiting in line

Once it was our turn we were moved to a lady (the only other person there) at a desk who didn't seem too friendly and just continued what she was doing for at least 20 minutes before she even started talking to us. In the meantime, she also started a discussion with another customer who clearly wasn't amused by her answers, and after that her rude treatment. It was not a very welcoming feeling we had there. Once she copied our passports and saw the reference number she started talking very annoyed come back on Monday (it was Thursday) and no matter how my boyfriend offered to use Google translate and her to speak on the mic, she wanted us out, that was clear. Making an appointment was only possible for clients, not new ones. Talking about welcoming new clients, djeez.

Meanwhile we digged a little deeper

As I want to be prepared for these visits and avoid having another stressful situation where we are sent home because of a missing paper or something like it, I want to walk through all options and possible documents asked. My boyfriend said it might be smart to take the private health insurance policy (great idea) as well as print the tax declaration from last year. Meanwhile, we read all these horrible things about them needing things we can't offer them as we are new here, so I was a little worried. I think the stress must have gotten to me because that night I started to have a fever and in the morning there was no way I could walk down, let alone up that hill that morning. Thankfully, my boyfriend decided to go anyway.

Invalid NIE number

When we lived in Spain before, we both got an NIE number we needed that to get health care for example. I got a green card because at the time, I was working for a Spanish employer and he was taking care of our daughter. This meant he got a white A4 paper with NIE number. Of course, I asked the gestor if this was an issue, no, it wasn't. Great, we did not expect any issues as this guy would know, right? When arriving at the bank with the English speaking employee, he told him the NIE was invalid he needed to go to the police station to get a new one. So he went there and the police station told him to go to the "Officina de extranjeria" (immigration office I think it is in English). This office was not here, nope, the big city (read: at least hour travel walking/bus/bus 2x PLUS the waiting there, great!).

Back to the bank

He just went back to the bank and then the guy offered him another option, this was the only one and could be done with a passport. Djeez, why didn't anyone tell us this before, we don't care if it's not done with an NIE number, I mean we'll take care of that later, just give us the easiest option was my thought by then. This bank account came with mandatory house insurance as well as 160 euros costs a year. The card was not included so in the end, it's actually 200 for the account and 200 for the insurance. Fine by me, waste of money but all these useless visits, stress, and hours off from work are adding up and need to stop as, after the bank, the next steps are waiting: self-employment registration and applying for a residence permit.

Good news!

He came home with an account. We read the document and when I saw something that grabbed my attention, I translated it with my phone to be sure I understood this correctly. It said, "a daily balance of 3000 euros must be met or 5. something % interest will be charged". I almost started hyperventilating here because with all the costs we paid to get here as well as to settle here (a still ongoing process) we won't have that balance on our account immediately so already saw huge payments to the bank, money thrown in the bin. Boyfriend went back, a bit upset as this guy didn't mention this to him, I mean that's something you should mention! Turns out that the translation did not correctly translate it (great, if it works!) it said that if you have 3000 euro daily balance the bank GIVES you that percentage!

With the note added: "If it was as you thought it was, most people would not be able to have a bank account in Spain." All the stress about the fine prints was for nothing, but at least, we finally had this valid bank account so we could move on to the next step!

To be continued...

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