This is a simple process and we decided to bank with a local bank who was recommended to us by our lawyer as they have English speaking staff. We opened the bank account after we obtained our Fiscal numbers and the cash card was posted to the UK. We wanted to have a bank account open and ready in case we viewed the house of our dreams so we could easily pay the deposit without delays. We then visited the branch to change our address once we had purchased our house.

We took the following documents:

Passport

Fiscal numbers

Proof of address

100 euros to open account (you can an open account with less, we just opened with 100 euros)

There is a yearly fee for having the cash card (not a credit card) which is around 15 euros per year. Everything else is similar to UK – cash points ATM and online banking etc.