for non residents with just the house DD's to pay for.

low or zero fees if poss, with online banking

Caixa seem to be getting higher and higher.

Thanks

Just remembor aaal banks nee't tuh myek a profit. it is a trick iv the tryed tuh offor free or laa cost accounts as a hyeuk tuh git yee. the free or laa cost elwis ends.

We each have a favourite. I have tried a few and my preference is Santander for free banking and the ease of transfer between UK and Spain

We have the BBVA online account. See here. It has zero fees, and a very good web site where you can do pretty much everything online and in English. We are non-resident, although it may not work for non-residents anymore. (we signed up about 4 years ago). I think you need to at least be in Spain when signing up for it because they messenger you some paperwork during the sign up process. Wouldn't hurt to try it, I guess.

- Eric S.

Bankia is not too bad - cheaper fees than Sabadell. They took over everything in my area: Caja Murcia, taken over by BMN, taken over by Bankia. No Santander that I know of on Orihuela Costa.

Santander (in Spain) would not entertain an account for a non resident.
BBVA - tried and tried to open an on line account with them on my phone, laptop and even asking them to help in branch to no avail. Wish I knew how you managed to open an account with them Eric S. I even got friends to try and open accounts but the website either crashed or blew us out.
Currently with Sabadell - Expansion Account is free if you transfer €700 a month in and have a couple of dd's going out. I use Transferwise to transfer the money as I have found I get more euro for my pitiful pound.

When we did it 4 years ago, we did it in a branch office. The bank manager did it all for us. Apparently, you can't do that anymore.

- Eric S.

No problem getting a Santander online account (OpenBank) for non-residents around here.

ALL online accounts are free of charges etc. so take a look at a few of them. BBVA is quite often recommended.

That would explain why no one in branch could/would help me last year....anyway at the moment I'm happy with Sabadell.

Thanks all, will check these out.

I have a BBVA account, also had it for about 4 years ago in the local branch. I searched for a thread on banking because, unlike Eric S it seems, I do get charged for the account. I pay around 45 Euros twice a year (so annually almost 100 Euros) for "Settlement of interest-commissions-costs". I'm always well in credit, so the charge must be for account maintenance. I only pay 3 direct debits a month, other than that the account is not used at all. I realise this thread is quite old now, and I'm currently investigating Santander, but does anyone have any up-to-date free banking advice? Cheers.

This is the message I got when trying to open an account with Openbank as a non-resident.

"Thank you for your interest in Openbank

At this moment we only have accounts for residents in Spain but we will soon be able to offer you the account you need.
Please contact us if you would like more information."