Banking and paying in Spain: opening an account with your NIE, and what a basic account may cost

Opening a Spanish bank account is possible, and it needn't be expensive: with your NIE and your passport you can go to almost any bank, and whoever lives legally in Spain has a statutory right to a basic payment account that costs at most € 3 a month. The trap isn't in the opening but in the kind of account you get, and in what you later have to report about your Dutch account.

What do you need to open an account?

Spanish banks are legally obliged to identify everyone they enter into a business relationship with; article 3 of the anti-money-laundering act (Ley 10/2010) expressly forbids opening or maintaining accounts in the name of someone who hasn't been properly identified. In practice that means your passport, and your NIE, the Spanish identification number you can already apply for from the Netherlands. Banks also ask about your situation, because the law obliges them to know their customers.

As long as you only have a NIE, many banks offer a non-resident account, with its own fees and sometimes a periodic declaration of non-residence. With the green registration certificate and your empadronamiento you convert that into an ordinary resident account. Do so as soon as those papers are in; the non-resident account is a bridge, not a destination.

What may a basic account cost?

The Banco de España lays it down: the maximum, single and combined fee for a cuenta de pago básica is € 3 a month, an amount the central bank may adjust every two years. For that you get unlimited opening, use and closure of the account, cash deposits and withdrawals in euro, payments with a debit or prepaid card, and 120 payments a year in euro within the EU (direct debits and transfers). Whoever makes more than 120 payments pays no more for those than the average fees the bank reports to the Banco de España every quarter. For people in a vulnerable situation the account is free.

What	Rule	Source
Maximum cost of a basic account	€ 3 a month, everything included	Banco de España
Payments included	120 a year in euro within the EU	Banco de España
Refusal	in writing and free of charge, within 10 days of the complete file	Banco de España
Guarantee on your balance	€ 100,000 per person per bank	Your Europe
Duty to report a Dutch account (modelo 720)	from a € 50,000 balance, filed 1 January to 31 March	Agencia Tributaria

An ordinary account often costs more than that € 3; the right to the basic account is there for whoever hears a bank say "no".

May a bank refuse you?

Not because you've only just moved there. As a legal resident of an EU country you have the right to a basic payment account, and a bank may not refuse it merely because you don't live in the bank's country. What is a ground for refusal: not complying with the rules against money laundering, or already having a similar account with another bank in Spain.

The Banco de España's advice for whoever runs into a refusal: submit the application in writing with the date and a list of the documents handed in, and have the bank stamp it. If the bank refuses, it has to say so in writing and free of charge within at most 10 days of the complete file, with an explanation of how to appeal.

A screenshot of the app is not an application. Whoever hears "no" verbally and walks away has nothing in hand. The right to a basic account only works if you've put the application on paper and get the refusal back on paper.

Paying between two countries: what the EU regulates

You keep your Dutch account, and that's no problem: the EU forbids IBAN discrimination. A Spanish employer, landlord, energy supplier or tax agency may not refuse a SEPA transfer or direct debit because your account is in another EU country, as long as it accepts those payments from Spanish accounts. Payments in euro between EU countries may moreover not cost more than a domestic payment, and a wrongful direct debit is refunded within 8 weeks.

In practice almost every Spanish counter still wants a Spanish IBAN. So use your Spanish account for rent, energy, phone and salary, and keep the Dutch one for what hangs on the Netherlands: your pension, your tax return and the things you deliberately keep running in the Netherlands.

What you have to report about your Dutch account

Here lies the trap of the second year. Whoever is tax resident in Spain and keeps accounts outside Spain has to report them with modelo 720 once the balance on 31 December or the average balance over the last quarter exceeds € 50,000; accounts on which you are merely an authorised signatory count too. The return runs from 1 January to 31 March over the preceding year, and is informative only: you pay nothing on it, but it is mandatory. How your tax residence is determined is in the article on tax in Spain; take the reporting duty to the tax adviser who does your first Spanish return.

In Vertrekklaar this is phase 5 of 5 of the journey, step 5.1: the same steps, but for your situation — in your order, tickable, and with the deadlines watched. See the whole journey to Spain or go straight to step 5.1 in the open plan.