German Bank Account

colsten

airbusA346 wrote: »

How long ago did you open the account, because I think they changed the requirements a couple of years ago.

I opened my DKB account in April 2017. They did the ID verification via a videocall by a third party. I just had to answer some questions which I already answered in the application, and show my British passport.

Chapuys

Easiest Euro account to open?

Bunq. A dutch bank, all through their app. If you genuinely want to use the card you will have to pay a monthly fee, but the account works fine for deopsits for free.

If you want a traditional bank account, I would go for KBC Ireland's Basic Account. As someone else mentioned, its all done by application. Make sure to go for the basic account as there is no fee and you get the free card.

I have both Bunq and KBC Ireland and am only resident in the UK. A bonus for KBC Ireland is that they speak English and I did ring them once. I guess the Dutch bank will speak English as a non native speaker.

Roger1

airbusA346 wrote: »

How long ago did you open the account, because I think they changed the requirements a couple of years ago.

Within the past two years. I'm away from home at the moment so I can't check precisely.

gingercordial

airbusA346 wrote: »

They've told me they will refund me the VAT.

Are you a VAT-registered business? If so they should zero-rate the purchase anyway (and you reverse charge yourself). Your bank account won't matter.

If you are not a business and cannot supply a valid VAT number I don't think they will refund it to you. They might have got the wrong impression so far, and might have offered to do so thinking you are VAT-registered, but if you can't supply a number I am struggling to believe a German business would get this wrong. Giving them your NI number/UTR won't help either as there is a pan-EU VAT checker website.

There are some businesses who get confused over the EU VAT rules - I ordered something from an Italian company who insisted that "because of Brexit" they wouldn't be charging me VAT even though I am not a business. I actually protested on the grounds that: (1) Brexit hasn't actually happened yet; (2) I don't think when it does that'll mean no VAT for us here; and (3) they were delivering it to my address in France not the UK, but they were having none of it. Well, I tried... But I expect a German company might check the rules more rigorously than an Italian one :rotfl:

.string.

My comment here won't be so relevant for most, but worth sharing I think.

I'm of an age where things like Wills become more meaningful. My wife and i8 go to Spain a lot where we have family and so we need euros. To service that we had a Bank in Holland (for 46 years actually) but this year I closed it. The reason was simple, to avoid having a footprint in that country and any possibility of my wife having to wrestle with inevitable bureaucracy in the event of my death, or solicitors eagerly charging exorbitant amounts for correspondence that could have been avoided. The same with Spain.

Most won't care about that, but some might, hence the comment.

Bravo_Zulu

You can open an account with N26 in Germany as a non-resident- the German N26 one NOT the imminently launching UK - but you will need a German address at which you can recieve your bank cards. DKB refused my application because I was not a resident of the countries previously mentioned however I note that some websites say DKB is a good shout if you're not resident in Germany. I can only assume that they've changed their policies.

pantaiema

Bravo_Zulu wrote: »

You can open an account with N26 in Germany as a non-resident- the German N26 one NOT the imminently launching UK - but you will need a German address at which you can recieve your bank cards. DKB refused my application because I was not a resident of the countries previously mentioned however I note that some websites say DKB is a good shout if you're not resident in Germany. I can only assume that they've changed their policies.

How did you open the N26 account?
Is it via app or post? Could you access their account via Web instead of apps? Thanks

Bravo_Zulu

Sorry for the thread resurrection but I didn't see this until now. Opened via the app and as far as I'm aware you need a smart phone to use the account.

Ballard

I'd be interested to know whether UK citizens can still open bank accounts in the EU. Without going into detail, my employer has a Euro account with a German bank but will need to close it when the transition period is over.

DCFC79

Bravo_Zulu said:

Sorry for the thread resurrection but I didn't see this until now. Opened via the app and as far as I'm aware you need a smart phone to use the account.

Pointless posting it since N26 have left the UK and they announced it back in February.