Pension

You don't 'have' to no, but in terms of demonstrating regular stable income pensions are about as good as it gets.

Both my private and state pensions and my husbands state pension get paid into a Halifax account in the UK and once a month my husband does a transfer via a currency broker and the money then gets paid into our Bankinter account, this only takes a few hours for the money to arrive here in Spain.

We had no problem when we made our residency application because they asked for copies of Bank statements going back I think it was 3 months but it might have been 6 months, so they could see a regular income, this was in July 2018.

Doing it this way the exchange rate is likely to be better ( no deal Brexit not withstanding)! 

For state pensions in particular on balance I think you're unlikely to do any better than a direct transfer to Spain, the more so if you're transferring monthly. 

For instance for my Nov. state pension (30th) I got 1.118, did you do better? 

Holding out for a better rate is always a gamble and you'd have a better than 50% 'win' rate to say it paid off.

Agree it's a lottery with the exchange rate, I still like the flexibility of when to do the transfer.

I think the amount being transferred also plays a part in what rate we get. Don't hold out much hope this month for anything worthwhile.😔

1.118 exchange rate is better than what I had seen lately and have just set up a direct transfer payment into my Spanish pension account through my private pension provider using Western Union.

I agree with Charlie Farmer, for State pensions it makes sense to have them paid direct to your Spanish bank account (which also has the added benefit of potentially saving residents on their Spanish bank account fees).  The DWP transfers such large sums every month, the exchange rate has always been as good as the rate I get with Transferwise.

Kind regards,

Kim