Opening a Bank Account in Germany as a Resident, non Resident or Student | Ryzentejas.com

Hi and welcome to Finance & Banking Explained. So today we’ll be looking at opening a bank account in Germany’s a non-resident a resident or an international student.So to open a bank account in germany

you need the following for Bank account in Germany

1) an application form of the bank that you’re applying to this can be online or this could be at the bank of your choice.

2) you need a valid eu passport or a german residency paper this will allow you to stay in the country or stay in the eu for thatmatter

3) is proof of address orregistration you will get this when you register in germany forliving in a particular city you will have to go to the city registrationoffice to get this and for the income statement

now this isnot required but if you want a credit card attached to your accountor if you want a overdraft capability then you will need to prove how much youare making what your employment status is whetherit’s fixed contract or part-time they also want to know that if you’reself-employed how much have you been earning for the pastthree years now if you have all of these documents ready to go this will make thewhole process a lot easier if you don’t if you are missing one of thesedocuments or some of these documents you can stillopen a german bank account however it will become a little bit moredifficult and i will also explain this for all the differentsituations

so let’s dive right in first up opening an account as a resident sowhen you move to germany for either short term or long termyou can become a resident of germany now you still get to keep your nationalityhowever you might lose some privileges in your home countrylike part of your pension so for the years that you live in germany you willnot be building your pension in the host country or your home countrywhen you move back that will give you a slight gap but to keep things simplewe’ll just be focusing here on when you have decided to become aresident in germany so to open a bank account as a residentyou can do this either online or at the bank branch doing this online is thefastest and your account will be ready in minutesit will however take two to four business days before you will receiveyour debit card and it’s best to apply for your bankaccount first and maybe your credit card later if you want tobecause this will just speed up the whole processif you still really do want a credit card

i have a couple of videos on how toget a credit card from different german banks i will link these downbelow now opening a bank account online requires you to complete four stepsone is to choose your bank account type and whether or not you want a creditcard or an overdraft capability two is to enter your personalinformation and what’s important here is your tax identification numbernot to be confused with your tax number your tax identification number isattached to you and as is permanent it will follow youthroughout germany whereas your tax number is justapplied to your business so if you’re a freelancer or you have a businessthen depending on where you live in germany you will get a tax number

so ifyou move the business and yourself to another part of germanyyou will get a new tax number but your tax id number will always stay the sameand you get this tax id number when you first register to live in germany withthe city registration office and if you don’t have it if you lost ityou can just apply again and they will send one over to your address step threeis to agree with all the policies and lawsthat apply to the german banking sector this involves acknowledging that youunderstand the account balance guarantee which means that the german governmentwill guarantee your account balance up to a hundred thousand euros in theevent that the bank would become insolvent

the second part of that is the money laundering where the bank will checkyour activities your withdrawals and your transfers to see if anyunusual activity takes place and they will report this to the irs if neededand the third policy is about the credit rating system wherethey will collect your credit card data your overdraw data if you pay your billson time things like that just to collect all the information to determine whatyour credit rating would be and if you later want toapply for a mortgage this will definitely be factored in so make surethat you pay your bills on time and that you always pay your creditstatement at the end of the month now the fourth step is to identifyyourself which can be done with video verificationor with post ident when you do it with video verification you can get your bankaccount ready on the same day it will only take a few minutes and withpost ident you will have to download the verification formtake this to the local post office have them sign itand verify that you are in fact who you say you areand then send it to the bank who will then accept you asa bank account holder now this will take two to three days to completeso if you want speed definitely go with the video verification

now after you’ve completed all of these steps you can activate your accountand you only have to wait for your debit card before you canstart making withdrawals and make transfersthe next option is to open an account as a non-residentso if you are not a resident in germany this means you do not have a taxidentification number and this makes it impossible to gothrough the regular registration process if you are staying in germany for morethan three months you are obligated to register at the city registration officeso i would definitely suggest doing this if you are planning to stay in germanyfor a longer period of time now if you’re just a frequent visitor togermany and you want a german iban account to make paymentsbetween german clients or maybe german businesses orgerman friends and this definitely makes it a loteasier by having a german iban then you have basically only the optionto go with mobile or online banks

now the benefits of these banks are thatthey don’t require you to live in a specific countryyou can live wherever you want just as long as you live within the euand the reason why your address is so important in the overall eu bankingsystem is that it gives the government the opportunity to determine where youshould pay your taxes and also how much taxes you should payso for that reason the eu really wants to know where do you liveeven if it’s not in the country where your bank account is at now if you wanta german i ban without living in germany the n26 bank is a very good option thebank will require you to put your residencyinformation and your tax information of the countrythat you actually live in one of the extra benefits that n26 hasis that it can also give you a spanish eye ban or italian iban

so youcan basically do the exact same thing for a bank account in those specificcountries third and final option is to open a bankaccount in germany as a student and when opening a bank account ingermany as a student you have the benefit that most banks will not chargeyou for this almost all the german banks have a freecurrent account option for students and this normally applies to anyone whois enrolled within a college or university and between theages of 18 and 30 years now with most banks you can also get anoverdraft option if you would like some extra paymentroom this will require a minimum deposit every month on your account to make surethat you can pay the overdraft amount

now to open a bankaccount as a student in germany i would assume that you are actually living ingermany which would mean that you are registeredwith the city registrations office and this gives you the taxidentification number to make the process a lot easierif you are not already registered with the city then you can make anappointment online to find the nearest registration officeand then go there in person to register with your local city where you will beliving if you have this all taken care of allyou need is your valid eu passport or your german residency papersand your enrollment papers from the university or the college and then youcan go to any bank that you would like and just register online to get yourstudent account now if you want to know which banks are the best i have a videoon the top german banks so check that one out tosee which bank you would like to go with and that’s it for opening a bank accountin germany take care