Opening a bank account

Once you arrive and have registered at the local Gemeente (town hall), you will be issued with a BSN number; once you have that, take that and your passport to the bank of your choice; you'll be able to open a bank account.

You can get cash on a credit card; you can get pre-loaded cards, so you can put your cash in a special account, then spend it as you need; that's what we do at the moment as we are currently living outside Holland.

Hi there,

You can try contacting ABN Amro.  They are one of the leading banks here in Holland and they open international accounts for foreigners outside of Holland.  You get a savings and a current account together with a debit card.  You can electronically transfer money before you leave for Holland etc. You can then "convert" this account to a local one upon arrival in Holland and getting your BSN.

Hope this helps.

Grant is spot on regarding this; this link tells you more about it.

Thank you! This is helpful information.

For your BSN, you can give your current adress in USA for the four first months in Netherlands.

Do you have any experience re HMRC and tax returns?.Does ABN report to HMRC?

Assuming you live and pay tax in Holland, then you'll have no liability to UK income tax and ABN in Holland do not talk directly to HMRC.  However, if you are resident outside Holland, they do report to the Dutch tax authorities, who do (in the case of UK residents with money in a Dutch bank), exchange information with HMRC.

The days when we could have a savings account squirrelled away across the border in a bank in Germany are long gone.

many thanks

Also, watch out for the different fiscal years; UK runs for 12 months from 6 April, where as the Dutch runs from 1 Jan; the Dutch assess liability (even if you didn't live there at the time).  My daughter just went through that nightmare, while there is a double-taxation agreement between UK/NL, it only applies to income tax, not the Dutch social taxes, so you could end up having to pay Dutch tax on previous UK income !!!

Cynic wrote:

Assuming you live and pay tax in Holland, then you'll have no liability to UK income tax and ABN in Holland do not talk directly to HMRC.  However, if you are resident outside Holland, they do report to the Dutch tax authorities, who do (in the case of UK residents with money in a Dutch bank), exchange information with HMRC.

The days when we could have a savings account squirrelled away across the border in a bank in Germany are long gone.

Not only for the UK but also for Americans.
Small correction: if you live outside the Netherlands but still have a bank account in the Netherlands.

I received several posts from my bank if I would've to pass on some information about myself to verify if I am an American or not  .
I refused. It's not only ABN or my bank but every bank who have foreign customers or Dutch who live abroad.

Primadonna wrote:

.... I received several posts from my bank if I would've to pass on some information about myself to verify if I am an American or not  .
I refused. It's not only ABN or my bank but every bank who have foreign customers or Dutch who live abroad.

Could be fishing for State taxes; I work for a US multi, a few guys have moved from the US to UK, then got hammered for that.

It was indeed for the states. As I am banking almost my whole life at the same bank,  I seriously wondering if they don't know me by now. The way they written in their letter seems almost a fret to me: if you don't do it, we report you to the "belastingkantoor " and they send your name to the states for investigation.

Well, good luck then !!!