Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Yes, you should definitely get a copy of your DNI/Passport to the bank before April 30th

You’ve probably got a bunch of letters from the bank asking you to bring your documents, which you’ve probably ignored.

Turns out that the law is actually quite severe, and unless you want your account blocked for suspicion of money laundering, you need to make sure your bank has a recent copy of your identification documents.

There’s supposedly some process to unblock it, but do you really want to go through that?

2 comments:

ChrisP said...

Hi, I've been reading your blog for a few years. My husband and kids and I are living in Costa
Rica right now. We're US citizens. We've been hoping to move to Spain and will likely do before the end of 2015. I just got my Spanish passport last week and we are wondering if it's possible to open an account in Spain under just my Spanish passport. Our next hurdle would be transferring our money. Any chance you could point me in the right direction to start answering these questions? I'd appreciate it greatly. Thanks! chrisP

santcugat said...

You don't need a Spanish passport to open a Spanish bank account if you are not a resident.

As a non-resident, you can open an account with a passport# and a foreign address. Later on, you can convert this account into a resident account, although some banks will require you to close and open a new account for that.

Non-resident accounts aren't subject to the same reporting restrictions are resident accounts (for example, you don't need to show you filled out the DD1 form if you do a transfer > 50K)