Non-Resident Bank Accounts in Spain: Personal and Corporate

Already working with our team on a property purchase or a visa case? Check with them first. Buyers and visa applicants inside a purchase or visa engagement typically get bank-account assistance included at no extra charge. The rest of this page covers opening the account on your own, for readers whose free assistance does not stretch far enough and for readers outside such an engagement. See property lawyers in Spain or immigration lawyers in Spain to check the bundle first.

Opening a Personal Account Remotely or Without a NIE

Yes, some banks let you start before you land in Spain, and yes, some let you open without a NIE, but the two questions have different answers depending on the bank.

Remote opening. Santander’s Cuenta Online para No Residentes con pasaporte opens fully online with a passport and a video identity check. Eligibility runs to 27 listed countries, including the UK, France and Germany. The United States is not on that list. CaixaBank runs its own online onboarding for non-residents of 15 listed Western European countries, identifying the applicant by video and signing the contract by SMS. That account’s full functionality typically depends on adding a NIE or proof of residence afterwards. Sabadell and BBVA let you begin online but, in most cases, still need a branch visit to sign the final contract. “Remote” means something different at each bank.

Without a NIE. The answer is set bank by bank. Santander’s passport-only account does not ask for a NIE at all; the only stated conditions are a valid passport, an address outside Spain and an age over 18. Sabadell’s Key Account also opens with a passport and a certificado de no residente in place of a NIE, though it carries a maintenance fee where Santander’s version does not. BBVA and CaixaBank generally still want either a NIE or the resguardo, the receipt from a filed NIE application. Both may also ask for a certificado de no residente, obtained from a police station or immigration office, before the account activates fully.

Corporate Accounts for Foreign-Owned Spanish Companies

Yes, a foreign-owned company can open a corporate bank account in Spain, but the file is heavier than a personal one: banks review the SL’s ultimate beneficial owners and the parent company’s own documents before they release a business IBAN.

UBO declaration. Every Spanish bank runs corporate accounts through the anti-money-laundering rules in Ley 10/2010, supervised by SEPBLAC. Those rules require identifying any ultimate beneficial owner, or UBO: the natural person who holds, directly or indirectly, more than 25% of the company’s capital or voting rights, or who otherwise controls it. The bank asks for a formal UBO declaration, the Informe de Titularidad Real, alongside the SL’s Registro Mercantil extract. A UBO chain that runs through more than one foreign holding company usually means a longer review.

Foreign company documents. A foreign-owned SL also needs its own company NIF, requested from the Agencia Tributaria on Modelo 036. Constitution documents signed outside Spain need an apostille and a certified Spanish translation before the bank or the Registro Mercantil will accept them. Banks reviewing a branch or permanent establishment ask for the same file from the parent company itself: its own incorporation documents, its UBOs and, often, its latest financial statements.

Companies that have not yet incorporated the Spanish SL need that step first: see company formation in Spain. Already incorporated and assembling the KYC file? Request a consultation.

Tax Reporting After the Account Opens

Modelo 720 applies once you are a Spanish tax resident, and it does not cover the Spanish account this page describes. It covers assets held outside Spain in three categories: bank accounts, securities, and property. Any one category that exceeds 50,000 euros on 31 December triggers the filing, under the eighteenth additional provision of the Ley General Tributaria (Ley 58/2003) and the Agencia Tributaria’s Orden HAP/72/2013. A UK or US account you keep open after moving to Spain is what the form asks about, filed online between 1 January and 31 March. A later year needs a fresh filing once a category’s value rises by more than 20,000 euros from what was last declared.

Separately, the Spanish account itself gets reported the other way. Real Decreto 1021/2015 transposes the OECD’s Common Reporting Standard into Spanish law. Under it, Spanish banks identify every account holder’s tax residency and report account details to the Agencia Tributaria, which exchanges that data automatically with the holder’s home tax authority. US-connected holders sit under a parallel FATCA agreement between Spain and the United States, signed on 14 May 2013. Spanish banks flag US Persons and report them through the same Agencia Tributaria channel, not directly to the IRS. Neither obligation is something the account holder files; it runs through the bank.

For a Spanish-resident client with accounts still open abroad, tax advisors in Spain handle the Modelo 720 filing. American account holders should also read US expat taxes in Spain for the FATCA side specifically.

Document lists, NIE-exemption policies and the sourced figures on this page are current as of 20 August 2026, and are reviewed every six months against SEPBLAC, Agencia Tributaria and named banks’ own published policies.