New to the area

Hi Maz64 I take it you don’t yet own your home in Spain yet as normally you do need a Spanish Bank Acc most of them are expensive I pay €14 per month to Bankia that’s for having a Account if you have a partner only get 1 card as you will be charged twice I have set up my direct Debits with Starling Bank U.K. when it comes to moving money to Spain ie to purchase house I would recommend Wise you can pay all your direct debits to through them a lot of people are moving away from Spanish banks because of there charges there are a lot of people on here who could advise better than me good luck Marcus.

Hi Marcus,

A bit cheeky, but I think your post would be helpful to this member too, if you wouldn´t mind responding to them as well:

Charges are they correct?

Many thanks and kind regards,

Kim

Like yourselves we have a holiday home, we are with Sabadell get charged 30 euro's a quarter. Most bank charge for non residents, I have heard some people are having problems paying utilities with Wise. but they are great to transfer money over into your Spanish bank.  

Hi the charges with Sabadell are now €40 per quarter

Sorry just checked, and stand corrected it is €40 per quarter,😡

I would refrain from opening a Spanish bank the charges are extortionate, you would be better off opening an account with Wise and setting up all your DD's with them, get a Revolut Card as this is the best rate for currency conversion feed your Wise account from there, I also have a Starling Sterling & Euro account which we used to use to pay DD's but since Brexit nobody is accepting them with the GB IBAN I use the Euro account now for general spend, I haven't as yet come under the cash withdrawl scenario as we have just closed the Sabadell account although we have just been out and spent the sum total of 78 euros in cash in 10 days so I think the 3k we got in cash out of the Sabadell will last a while 😂😂😂

Hi Kimmy if you are a resident do you have to pay bank charges if you are resident 

Hi Rolyat01,

As a resident, it depends on the bank and whether you're prepared to meet their requirements.  The only Spanish bank account I've heard of that doesn't apply charges without conditions is Cajamar's Wefferente account.

I'm with Sabadell and I used to have free banking by paying in a minimum of €700 per month.  However, they changed their conditions to stipulate that the monthly amount had to be from a pension paid direct to the account, so this limited free banking to state pensioners and those who were able to have other pensions paid direct to Spain.  The only way around this for people who aren't pensioners is to buy 2 products from Sabadell, e.g. insurance and/or a savings plan, but bank insurance is generally more expensive than buying direct and the return on investment for their savings plan was pitiful.

So, in summary, it really depends on your circumstances.  I'm prepared to pay €60 per year bank charges because I know that I can offset that cost by buying my insurance elsewhere - I've just saved €95 on annual insurance by switching my buildings/contents insurance to another provider.

Kind regards, 

Kim

Thanks to services such as Wise and Revolut, you really do not need a Spanish bank account.