ExclusivePropertyRonda.com - Banking in Spain

There are two types of bank accounts for foreigners:

Resident bank account:

You can open an account in euros or in a foreign currency (depending on what the bank offers).

Nonresident bank account:

If you don’t have an NIE card and you come from another country, you are considered nonresident. Based on the regulations of the Bank of Spain, nonresidents can hold bank accounts in euros or in foreign currency. As identification, you must have a valid passport or the ID number of your country of origin. You also have to justify your nonresident status when you open the account (or within 15 days). This is because for a nonresident account, the bank does not withhold a percentage of the interest earned. Generally every six months, the bank does a check to confirm your nonresident status. If you acquire resident status any time after opening the account, you must notify the bank and give them your NIE. The fees for a resident account are cheaper than for a nonresident account.

The regulations are clear, but be aware that when you go to a local bank to open your account, the employee probably won’t speak English, and won’t have experience in this type of account, or may offer you an account that does not earn interest. Furthermore, they may charge you extra fees -eg. setup costs - for this type of account; they may also tell you about “setup fees” that never happen anyway.

Paying the utilities and rent is typically done by granting the ability to debit your bank account. Checks are rarely used. A landlord may ask for the rent in cash—that’s so they don’t have to declare the rent on their income tax form. Undeclared money is called dinero negro or dinero en B—fairly common in Spain.

Banks charge high fees in Spain, and mutual funds/money markets are not very developed, so it may be better to keep most of your money back in your country. As an example of fees, La Caixa charges the following for transfers into and out of the account.

• 0,25% to/from a national non-La Caixa account.
• 0,25% to/from an international account, same currency, less than 12.500€
• 0,5% to/from an international account otherwise

There may also be yearly fees, fees for each debit card, even fees for the stamps they put on correspondence with you. Shop around, these fees may be negotiable. See a full list of links to Spanish banks.

Some banks will offer you a bank book, called a libreta.This is fine for balancing your accounts and keeping track of your current accounts, but much more convenient is the debit cards using the Visa transaction infrastructure. Try to get both if you can.

In general, the Spanish banking system is modern. It was recently pointed out that because the systems work so well, it facilitates the continued success of the black market. Almost all banks offer online banking, transfers between banks happen fast, and relative anonymity is relatively assured for now.

USA: There are Citibanks in Spain, but it doesn’t make your international banking any easier: the same charges apply as if it were a different bank. With some Spanish banks, you can open both dollar accounts and euro accounts, and transfer between them.

If you’re under 26 you can qualify for a foreigner’s account with Caixa Catalunya that includes a Visa debit card and all transaction fees are free (in general, not including other banks’ fees). They seem to have nice people, but you’ll probably have to speak Spanish.

Some online banking systems, such as La Caixa, are very good.

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