UK pension transfer cost

Hi,

My wife and I have both UK Pensions and two private pensions paid in Euros directly into our Sabadell account here in Spain which has eliminated all bank charges. 

Another small private Pension I have is paid into Wise Online Bank (pension company wont pay into a foreign account) which is transferred automatically by Wise each month into our Sabadell account. 

UK Pensions are transferred at the best Interbank rates which, in my opinion, cannot be bettered by Online transfer companies. 

Steve 

Your state pension will be sent to a Spanish bank with no charges. The NHS charges about 1.50 or 2 quid to send it to a foreign bank.

Both pensions are paid by World bank and you will get the best exchange rate on the day. As they are pensions the Spanish bank don't make a charge for receiving them.

You will pay tax on both pensions in Spain so you would need to inform HMRC by a Spain Individual form (FD9) to avoid being taxed in UK as well.

Many thanks for replying.  Seen many negative comments over Spanish bank charges ,  seems pensions will help by being a minimum income  offsetting charges, similar to Uk banks

Any recommendations on banks which offer a good service to expats who have no Spanish language skills at this time. Reading through previous posts it does seem to differ from branch to branch. We would be looking around Pilar de horodada, la Zenia areas

When "planning to move over soon" I assume you mean permanently. You will be hit with quite hefty bank charges as a non resident but most banks waive these charges if you meet certain conditions as a resident. For example, I'm with Caixa and get no charges at all if I have a minimum pension of 300 euro paid in monthly, have at least 3 direct debits each year (easy with electric, water, council tax etc) and use a credit card at least 3 times per quarter (again easy as we pay for virtually everything by card which is taken out at the end of each month).

Other banks require a higher pension of 700 euro a month, take out home insurance with them or invest in the bank so it is always worth asking what their conditions are first.

I have banked with Sabadell for around 12 years and always been satisfied with the services. It's very rare that I need to go into the bank as their bank app is excellent and so easy to use. I haven't actually been inside the branch for around 4 years. Sabadell isn't everybody's favourite but I've read many posts on several sites about other Spanish banks so much that there is no difference between them. Perhaps pick a bank that is easy for you to visit if necessary. 

Steve 

Hi 

Firstly, I'm not in receipt of a state pension, so I can't be certain - BUT...

If you sign up with Wise (easily done online) you can have BOTH a GBP account and a EUR account. You will then have the choice of which account to have your pension(s) paid into. In my case, my UK personal pension is paid into my Wise GBP account, and I choose when/if to convert to euros in my Wise EUR account and the conversion rate will be very close, if not identical to World Bank.

Wise charge no monthly fees - in fact they currently pay interest at around 3%!

There are just 2 obvious downsides to Wise - they are not a bank, so your first £80000 is not guaranteed by the government/taxpayer, and you cannot use it to pay Spanish income tax.

Cheers

Steve

Many thank to you all.   A lot of things to sort out and it helps having advice from people who have been through it all.  Still lots of questions but I will save for another day 👍👍

Hi I assume that you are resident? 

Planning to be ,  lucky wife has Irish passport it makes things a little easier.  However having said that we would still qualify under NLV. Conditions eg 4 x Iprem