milwaukeeclassic

I was wondering if anyone out there has experience opening a bank account in Spain from the US. We're getting married in San Sebastian in September and I would like to have a Spanish account to make it easier to pay vendors, etc. It would also be nice to have a Euro-denominated account for the purposes of hedging against fluctuations in the exchange rate.

I've seen several suggestions online (like ingdirect.es and banco sabadell), but a lot of the options seem to require a Spanish address to proceed. I would appreciate any advice that folks have to offer.

LupineChemist

I see you have discovered our way of paying for large purchases that avoids credit card fees. I thought not, but it appears it is possible to open an account as a foreigner. I did a google for "cuenta no residente" and found this page:

http://www.bancopopular.es/popular-w...xtranjeros.htm

You can shop around some more, but being able to navigate in Spanish is basically a necessity. (though the form on that page is in English remarkably enough)

Yoshi212

Wouldn't an HSBC Premier account allow you to open an account at an HSBC in Spain (there is one 30 minutes away from San Sebastian) and then electronically transfer dollars into euros?

slawecki

santander is a big stable bank in spain. they have a large presence in usa.

i figured that unless i was spending $30k or more, the pain and hassle was not worth getting an account up and running. you should be able to get lumps of 10+K delivered for under bank rate +1,5% with a commercial money changer with offices in usa.

i would think it difficult for an individual to get under 1% by going through a commercial bank.

i thought i was a big dealer in italian currency. contacted banka italia in nyc. their minimum transaction was around a million euro. (chrysler, ford, and the rest of the fortune 500 companies) i did not inquire as to the rate offered.

if you go through the bank hastle of getting 1% + a $30 transfer fee in an account, are you really much ahead compared to a phone call, and 1.45%?

UAPremExecflyer

You want to open a bank account in Spain just for your wedding?
Is that really practical? Are you going to use it after your wedding?
You do know that all financial institutions in Europe and elsewhere that have US account holders face significant additional reporting requirements? Many banks do not want US citizens with small or any accounts due to the cost of the onerous regulatory requirements.
Also, you want to "hedge against US-Euro fluctuations"?! Really? How many hundreds of thousands or millions of Euros will you need? You are not going to "save" any great amount of money with this strategy unless you are talking significant fund transfers.
I would suggest you are being more than a little unrealistic with this plan.

Yoshi212

I have to disagree that hedging is rather practical. Moving one large sum of money that would pay for a wedding, which can be a large amount of money, all at once makes sense vs a few smaller transfers.
I am an American with international accounts and it causes me no more problems than normal when reported legally.

LupineChemist

Why so hostile? We often make payments via interbank transfers rather than cards and it can be a real pain without a local account.

slawecki

don't mean to be hostile. made 20+ transfers/year. never had need for a for'n bank account. transfers totaled close to 7 figures, usd every year. vendor would fax to me a pro forma invoice. i would fax the invoice to the money changer. they would call with a rate with about a 1% above the bank exchange rate+ $20 handling fee. i would FAX to them a check!!! had a fax agreement with them.

the exchange rate and the fee were less than any bank in italy,spain, or england that i contacted.

i was not big enough to consider opening an account in italy. also, if you have for'n country bank accounts, i think the irs wants reporting on them.

txampa

Anything wrong with paying the vendors with a credit card or a debit card ? I travel to Donosti ( San Sebastian ) often . Also your debit card will be able to withdraw funds in good amounts daily at ATM's ( usually getting the most favorable xchange rate) . Check with the network of your debit card to see which ATm's you can use . BBVA is usually pretty good as well as Kutxa . Spain is the country of the EU with the largest number of ATMs .

Palal

A few other ideas:
Transferwise is only 0.5% commission.
Schwab will let you take out cash for free over there using the Schwab debit card.

466SHH

I would NOT open a foreign bank account just for this purpose. There is a special IRS reporting requirement (due on or before June 30 of each year) if the balance in the account exceeds $10,000 USD on any one day in the year. It is a PITA to file (must be done electronically) and you must also disclose the account on your federal income tax return for the year.

You cannot easily plan around it by staying just under the limit since the highest balance has to be converted from Euros to dollars at the exchange rate in effect on December 31 - a future, and thus unknowable, rate.

The penalties for failing to file the report are draconian. And they are high on the government's radar screen for enforcement.

See http://www.irs.gov/uac/Newsroom/Offs...shore-Accounts

And any foreign financial account is covered by these rules. It does not have to be a bank account.

Whatever you think you are going to save on the credit card fees will be offset by increased professional fees -- and that assumes you remember to make the proper filings, and don't pay any fines for forgetting to report in all the various places you have to report a foreign account.