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Thanks everybody!

@Hannahmazing

Hi Hannah

we are dual citizens of Ireland and Canada, and we opened remotely using Santander Bank. Almancil. The manager there was very easy to deal with and very helpful. It was all set up from Canada but I then popped into the branch while I was there in August to meet him and he took me step by step through the app so I can do everything online.

best of luck

Gra

Well both millennium and novo bank have denied me an account,  here in Lisbon.

Millennium said that one month ago a new requirement came into place that requires any new account to have an official residence in Portugal.

And novo bank said that they could at first, and then a manager came and said that they could not because now they can only open foreign bank accounts for people with large amounts of money who want to invest.

Anybody have any other bank suggestions for  me (an American with NIF) while I'm here in Lisbon? Would appreciate it!

I also went to BIG, but they also said they only do investment accounts with large amounts of money

(This is for the D7 visa,  to be clear)

I guess I'll try Santander next!

Hi why don’t you try crédito agrícola it’s a bank owned by the people not the state you have to pay a small fee once a year, I am with them have had no problems

@Hannahmazing,

You can also try this bank BniEuropa. It has no branches, only online. Request to be contacted.

Then, when you are resident in Portugal, you can always change bank...

UPDATE: I was able to open an account with Santander, in person.

2 things that various banks asked for, which I didn't know they would:

• SSN card (social security number) - the actual card, not just the number
• Work contract / proof of income (ie rental contract, etc). I thought I would just have to show funds, not an actual contract

Anyways, Santander did not require an official Portuguese residence (just a current one - ie my airbnb). They DID require some sort of "work contract" or official document proving my income. They were very friendly and appreciated my attempts to converse in Portuguese. 150e to open the account. I also have to pay 10e/month for insurance, which is a requirement for the account. Expensive!

From my experience I get the feeling that the requirements vary from bank to bank, and even person to person, depending on the day.

Another things that was surprising was that she had never heard of the D7 visa. She wanted to know "why" do you want to open the account? There had to be a justifiable reason. When I told her because of the D7 visa, she had no idea what I was talking about, so she googled it.

Oh, and Santander did not need any of the documents notarized, as asked about in my other post. Also, none of the other banks asked for any "notarized" documents. They just asked for other things I didn't have with me (an actual SSN card, an official Portuguese residence)