This guest post about opening a non-resident Spanish bank account was written by Tara Batista, who along with her husband, Chris, share their international finance and investing knowledge via their YouTube channel She Saves, He Invests, They Travel . The recommendations throughout this article are theirs, and the editors at SpainGuru have added affiliate links where relevant. By using these links you can support the work we do at SpainGuru, at no cost to you.
Opening a foreign bank account can be an intimidating experience if you have never done it before. You might have heard rumors that foreigners are not permitted to open bank accounts, or that doing so will raise the proverbial eyebrows of financial institutions in your home country, or that fees and paperwork will be next to impossible to navigate. To ease some of these concerns, we want to share with you our experience as American tourists, opening a bank account in Spain, two years before my husband Chris and I became Spanish residents. None of the aforementioned concerns came to pass. In fact, as it turns out, there are many different options for foreigners to open bank accounts in Spain and the process is not very difficult.
Here I share our story opening a non-resident Spanish bank account while visiting Spain as tourists, and then two years later converting that account to a resident account with lower fees.
How to open a bank account in Spain as a non-resident
In the summer of 2018, over dinner with our Spanish friends, we explained that we would one day like to emigrate to Spain. A friend who used to work in the banking sector suggested that we start by opening a Spanish bank account. He told us that getting money into an account would be difficult because of tighter international money laundering laws. He offered to arrange a meeting with the director of Renta4, a boutique investment bank. We attended the meeting. The director just showed us the European stock and bond markets. The ROI was low, between 5-7%, most of which was eaten up by the private bank’s exorbitantly high fees (1.5% to 2%.) When we considered higher capital gains taxes compared to the U.S. and the fact that we would need to invest about 30K euros for 3-5 years, we decided to try a commercial bank.
After the meeting, while walking around Madrid, on a whim, without any identification, and as tourists, we entered a Santander branch in the city center. Initially, Santander said we couldn’t open an account. But, we mentioned that we wanted a mortgage to buy Spanish property, and possibly to invest. We explained that the investment bank was happy to open an account for us, but the main thing we wanted was for our money to be liquid. We showed them the investment bank director’s business card, brochures, and notes. Once the Santander employees saw the investment bank information, they walked us to the back to meet their colleague who sat us down and explained the whole process, including how to secure mortgages as foreigners. The total interest rate at the time was: (European Central Bank (Euribor) + Santander (margin)) – only 1.89 percent! However, a mortgage required foreigners to put 50 percent down. We felt like a mortgage with interest rates that low was basically free money.
Can you open a Spanish bank account with only a passport?
Yes! We were tourists at the time (we moved to Spain two years later), so we did not have NIE numbers (NIE stands for Número de Identidad de Extranjero or Foreigner’s Identity Number). Nevertheless, the Santander employee still helped us open a checking account, deposit cash via the ATM, and set up online banking, even though we didn’t even have our passports on us when we visited the branch. She told us to scan and e-mail our passports to her as soon as we got back to our hostel. We emailed the scans, but we had to keep calling her over the next few days to ensure she received them, because, as we found out later, our emails went to her junk folder.
We opened that account with just 200 euros cash and without our passports on us initially. I’m convinced we were able to do so because of who we knew (the man who set us up with the Director of the Investment Bank), because we spoke Spanish (although poorly, we made an effort), and because we were friendly. I remember really bonding with the Santander employee, really chatting with her and getting to know her and talking about my life, desire to be fluent in Spanish and to live in Spain one day. I remember Chris saying he prefers online banks and apps. I remember saying that I preferred to enter the banks and talk with the employees and develop personal relationships.
Costs of maintaining our non-resident Spanish bank account
Santander initially charged 10 euros per month (later increased to 12 euros) to maintain the account. So we knew we needed to get more money into the account soon, so the fees didn’t eat up all the existing money and then maybe the account would get closed! We kept getting these scary notices in the mail warning that Santander had to investigate and clear us to ensure we weren’t laundering money. In fact, the 10 euros a month didn’t start to be deducted for several months because Santander was going through the process of ensuring that we were legitimate and legal account holders. I remember saying, “It didn’t work, this account is not active yet because they are not charging the monthly maintenance fees.” But after a few months, the fee started being removed and at any rate, we were always able to put money in the account. These two things reassured us that the account was active and approved. Keep in mind, all of the notices are written in Spanish legalese. I used to hand write out translations to practice my Spanish and keep myself from being alarmed that something was wrong with the account.
How to transfer money into your Spanish bank account
The other good news is that moving money into the Spanish account turned out to be really easy. In fact, there’s so many ways to do it! Besides physically depositing cash at an ATM in Spain, here are the other ways we moved money into our Spanish account:
Chris has an app called Uphold on his phone. He experimented transferring a part of his cryptocurrency to euros then moving the euros into our Santander account. It worked! The fee for doing so was just a sliver of a margin on top of the exchange rate, just a fraction of a cent per dollar equivalent. Now obviously, Chris had already taken steps beforehand to set up the Uphold account. The process of linking the US bank account to Uphold and funding Uphold from that account took 2-3 days to settle, and obviously, Chris was purchasing crypto, slowly over several years so everything we needed to try this method already existed and was ready. But the process of transferring the crypto to euros was instant. However, the app warned that transferring the euros to Santander would take 3-7 business days, but the 500 euros landed in our Santander account later that week. So we had just figured out at least two different ways to fund the account (cash at the ATM and crypto).
Of course, transferring crypto to euros was completely unnecessary. If your U.S. and foreign bank accounts are both linked to Uphold, then you can just directly transfer money from one account to the other. Uphold doesn’t charge a fee, it just adds a margin on top of the exchange rate. As an example, the charged exchange rate for one transaction of $100 was 1.23468 vs. the actual exchange rate of 1.2297, making the difference only .00498 [about ½ of 1 cent per $1 or 50 cents per $100].
A fourth way is using Wise. Wise instantly transferred the dollars from my American bank account into my Spanish bank account. In 5 seconds. Wise told me how long it took for the money to arrive and sent me a confirmation e-mail saying the money was already in my Spanish bank account. I checked Santander immediately afterwards and yes, the money was there. So, Wise is much faster than UpHold. Wise charged a $4.57 flat fee for a $100 transfer. The fee increases the more money you transfer. Wise says they give you the exact rate you see on Google, but in my experience, seems to tack a tiny margin on top of the exchange rate. The actual exchange rate that day was 0.814519 but Wise exchanged at 0.8148. That’s a difference of 3 cents for every $100, so quite negligible, and could be due to a difference in timing of when they referenced the exchange rate.
Check out our article on alternatives to a traditional Spanish bank account, which also outlines different options for transferring money into a euro account to spend in Spain. Also see our resources page for more financial services relevant to Spanish expats.
Getting debit cards for our Spanish bank account
Santander would not send our debit cards to our U.S. address for some reason. They had no problem sending all those updates and scary notices to our U.S. address, but not our debit cards. I was surprised to learn that we would not be getting a checkbook with our account (no one in Spain pays for anything by checks apparently) and that we would have to physically go to the original branch where we opened up the bank account in 2018. I learned this the hard way when, after I emigrated to Madrid in 2020, I went into a random Santander branch and asked how I could get a debit card with my account. The Santander employees asked me for ID and explained that my American driver’s license was only good for driving in Spain, not to use as a valid form of ID. (Note from the SpainGuru editors: Once your stay in Spain exceeds 6 months, you need to obtain a Spanish driver’s license.) Luckily, I had my passport on me and they accepted the passport as a form of ID. I did not need to tell them my account number or show them my account paperwork. They looked up the branch where I opened up my account and gave me directions to get there. They were extraordinarily nice and patient with me. [A really important side note: Pick a bank close to where you want to live in a foreign country because you might be stuck with that specific branch for all sorts of transactions. Even to update your phone number. We just got lucky that I picked an apartment next to the branch where we originally opened the account. I had no idea that I would have to use that branch so much and I also had no idea how close it was to the apartment I rented!]
Limited opening hours at Spanish banks
When I went to the appropriate Santander branch, I found out that the banks closed at 2 pm in Spain. The 3rd time I went to Santander was a charm. I went to the correct branch and went before 2 pm. I had my passport, pulled up my account information on my phone, had my Spanish phone number, and my NIE printed. And I was friendly! I showed off my suede journal to the employee because she seemed to notice and like it. The Santander lady updated all of my information and asked a colleague to help her with my case. Since I did not have a TIE (Tarjeta de Identidad de Extranjero or Foreigner’s Identity Card) the Santander employees hesitated to give me a debit card. Initially they told me I would have to come back once I had the TIE. I explained that the processing of the TIE is taking months because padrón appointments were filling up, fingerprinting appointments at the police station were almost impossible to get nowadays, and the machine to make the cards broke, so the Madrid government was backed up by about 4-6 weeks in producing the cards. I explained that I couldn’t remain in the country for 4 months without being able to easily access my funds via a no fee debit card. They sympathized with me, went to the back to see if they could find my debit card and, low and behold, like a miracle, they found it! It had been sitting back there for 2 years!
One of the women helped me activate my debit card by using the ATM. She said to go get a café con leche with the money. I asked her if she wanted a café but she said another day! Once my husband arrived in the country, I walked him the short half a kilometer distance to our bank branch to pick up his debit card. It was before 2 pm, but the bank was closed due to the holidays. It wasn’t Christmas, Christmas Eve, New Years eve, New Years, or 3 Kings day, but rather an obscure local holiday perhaps? There are a lot of bank holidays. Check before you go.
Converting a non-resident Spanish bank account to a resident account
While we were at it, we took the opportunity to change our non-resident account to a resident account. Since the time I opened the non-resident account in 2018, the monthly maintenance fee had increased from 10 to 12 euros per month (considering the customer service, the cost was well worth it!)
The fee was removed once our account transitioned from a non-resident to a resident account. To qualify for the resident account we needed to show copies of our TIEs (Tarjeta de Identidad Extranjera – this is an ID card issued by Spain that shows your NIE, the foreigner identity number, and your residency status). Santander took copies of our TIEs and other backup paperwork that they probably didn’t need (including our padrón certificates) and submitted the paperwork to their headquarters. While the account was transitioning, I remember being about to use my debit card and transfer money out of the account, but could not transfer money in. That feature was frozen, which the employees of my local branch explained was routine. After about 1.5 weeks, the feature was unfrozen and I was able to transfer money once again into the Santander account. Recently, Santander launched a free account for people ages 18-31 years old.
Key takeaways from our experience opening a Spanish bank account
We were able to open a Santander personal checking account initially without a nomina, TIE, NIE, visa, or proof of economic activity. There are multiple easy ways to get money into your Spanish bank account. We are able to pick up our debit cards without the TIE. Debit cards are not mailed to the U.S. and can be stored for years at your local branch! Although non-resident account fees were high, they disappeared once we obtained residency status. We only could transact business at the original branch where we opened the account, but could use any Santander ATM free of charge.
My advice for those wanting to open a foreign bank account in Spain:
- Don’t assume you won’t be able to open up a foreign bank account even as a tourist, especially if you tell the bank you want to invest or buy property. From my experience, I was able to open a non-resident account with only a passport, but needed a NIE to change it to a resident account without a monthly maintenance fee.
- Who you know matters in Spain
- Chat everyone up. Ask them about their lives, travel, languages. Tell them about you. Tell them stories. Laugh with them.
- Everyone’s experience is different. I know people who love N26 or Revolut and hate Santander.
- Always bring your passport, check bank hours beforehand, be careful picking a branch to open your account. You might have to transact most of your business in that location. So don’t pick a location way out in the suburbs, or not well accessed by public transit.
- In the age of mobile money, there are tons of ways to transfer money into your account. Research them and pick the one that offers you the best exchange rate.
Video: How to open a Spanish bank account
Check out my video sharing more about my personal story of opening a bank account in Spain.
About the authors
She Saves, He Invests, They Travel
Tara and Chris are a married American couple and active members in the F.I.R.E. movement. FIRE stands for Financial Independence Retire Early. Tara used to be a behavioral scientist and professor. She began her career developing programs for youth-serving nonprofits. After twenty years working in evidenced-based evaluation and program design, she took a one year sabbatical in Madrid, Spain and retired at the age of 38. Chris Batista owns sports event management companies. They both co-own a real estate company. Chris loves his work so much that he will likely never retire, but has instead managed to work less and less each year. Together they are searching for a Spanish speaking country to live in for most or part of the year. Their next step is to explore Chile’s visa options. Tara secured two student visas allowing her to study in Madrid, Spain in 2004 and for her master’s in Oxford, England in 2008 and 2009. Her experience securing visas and living in Europe three times has inspired her to start a travel, immigration, and relocation boutique firm.
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