How To Transfer Money To Spain On The Cheap?

Spain is long and well established as one of Europe's premier expat destinations and has consistently attracted UK nationals for decades now. The nation offers great weather, delicious cuisine, a laid-back lifestyle and importantly, the cost of living is still relatively cheap.

While the controversial Brexit has somewhat slowed the tide, many retirees still dream of making a new life in Spain.

An important part of the moving to Spain process is transferring money from the UK and other countries outside the EU to Spanish bank accounts.

In this post, we are going to examine the practicalities of sending money to Spain and how an expat can save a few pounds, dollars or euros when transferring money to a Spanish bank account.

Hopefully, this article will help you learn how to identify the cheapest way to transfer money to Spain.

Who Needs To Transfer Money to Spain?

Expats or property investors moving to or investing in Spain will all need to find a way of transferring money to a Spanish bank account at some stage.

For example, an expat who sells their house in London will need to move the £250k over to a Spanish bank account before they can buy that dream retirement condo one of the famous Costas.

Likewise, somebody who wishes to retire to Spain will be advised to move their pension over into a Spanish bank account as soon as possible - otherwise they will incur fees every time they withdraw cash or pay a bill.

Transferring Money To a Spanish Bank Account

Simply relying on the banks to handle large currency transfers may prove very costly indeed. This is because banks basically charge their customers hefty fees every time they make an international transfer.

The first kind of fee is the transaction fee which can range from £2.50 up to a percentage of the amount being transferred - this fee is usually transparent at least.

However, the real substantial cost of sending money to Spain via the banks is hidden away in the foreign currency “mark-up” that the bank will apply; basically, the bank will convert the pounds to euros at 2% - 3% below the market rate and will keep the difference for themselves.

While eagle-eyed customers will “spot the difference” others will simply trust their bank and may not even quite realise how much they are being charged for the transaction.

Sending Money to Spain From The EU

Of course, for EU residents living in the Eurozone, this is not an issue as Euro-to-Euro bank transfers are treated pretty much as domestic transactions - an account holder in Paris can send money to a bank in Madrid seamlessly. But of course, even prior to Brexit the UK was never in the Euro.

Alternative Ways Of Making A Currency Transfer to Spain

The good news is that using the banks when transferring money to a Spanish bank account is no longer the only option available. Instead, there is a whole raft of international payment specialists whose primary modus operandi is to handle foreign currency transfers and remittances cheaper than the banks.

This guidance by MoneyTransferComparison offers a quick overview of how much each provider charges.

There are even some money transfer services that have offices in Spain. Currencies Direct has multiple locations and others include Wise, Smart Currency Exchange, Moneycorp, and Key Currency.

A lot of money transfer providers focus heavily on Spain to UK fiscal corridor and the region is well served by companies basically competing to offer the lowest fees and most competitive mark-ups.

How To Transfer Large Amounts to Spain

If any of you do need to make a large currency transfer to Spain now or in the near future, then the best advice we can offer is to sign up and open an account with a number of the aforementioned service providers and simply compare the rates.

All of them offer free, zero-commitment accounts and all of them are relatively fast and easy to register with. Of course, creating 4 or 5 new accounts may feel like a whole lot of repetitive entering of personal information, the savings that can be made do justify the time and effort.

Using a money transfer provider can easily prove 50% or more cheaper than using the banks to handle the exact same transaction.

And when large amounts are being transferred, the difference can amount to a very considerable sum.

Additionally, while the banks’ foreign transfer helplines are efficient, they don’t offer much in the way of advice or hand-holding whereas money transfer specialists do.