# Transferring 35,000 euros to Spain from the UK?



## zonby (Jul 1, 2021)

I know I need to declare bank accounts or assets worth more than 50,000 euros. But my only UK account has around 30,000GBP (I also don't have any other assets), and I want to transfer this to Spain.

Do I need to declare anything before or later? And will the Spanish government ask any questions about it? What should I expect?



In case it is relevant: I am resident in Madrid community for more than a year, am currently not working and also planning to register a freelance business in the coming months.


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## kaipa (Aug 3, 2013)

Less than 50.000 does not need to be declared on 720 form. You can transfer it no problem and do not need to do anything. Obviously any interest you earned off it could be taxable if added to other income but again that depends if you had been over 183 days in Spain in your first year and I doubt much interest was earned.


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## Roland_O (Oct 17, 2016)

Anything over 10k will trigger questions when it arrives in your Spanish bank account. They will ask you where the money has come from. They might freeze the transfer until they like your answers.

The questions will vary from bank to bank in my experience . It doesn’t seem to help to warn them. Often such transfers sail through. So just go for it, happy in the knowledge that you are not a criminal, so they will eventually be happy. 


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

Roland_O said:


> Anything over 10k will trigger questions when it arrives in your Spanish bank account. They will ask you where the money has come from. They might freeze the transfer until they like your answers.
> 
> The questions will vary from bank to bank in my experience . It doesn’t seem to help to warn them. Often such transfers sail through. So just go for it, happy in the knowledge that you are not a criminal, so they will eventually be happy.
> 
> ...


If you want to avoid this possibility, do several transfers of less than 10k using a peer-to-peer system like CurrencyFair or TransferWise. The charges are minimal, the interest rates are excellent and all you have to do is select an option from a drop-down list indicating the origin of the money (pension, salary, house sale etc).


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## Joey Testa (Jan 5, 2021)

Alcalaina said:


> If you want to avoid this possibility, do several transfers of less than 10k using a peer-to-peer system like CurrencyFair or TransferWise. The charges are minimal, the interest rates are excellent and all you have to do is select an option from a drop-down list indicating the origin of the money (pension, salary, house sale etc).


wouldn´t doing several transfers look more suspicious?


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## Barriej (Jul 23, 2012)

Joey Testa said:


> wouldn´t doing several transfers look more suspicious?


Nope, when I transferred the money for the flat purchase in 2019 XE split the transfers because a larger one off would have been looked at and the receiving bank may apply charges for a large deposit.

Amounts up to 10,000 (choose currency) are usually not even checked as they are at or just below the checks needed to see where the money came from.


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## MataMata (Nov 30, 2008)

Roland_O said:


> It doesn’t seem to help to warn them.


I informed my bank (Caxia) about the imminent transfer of around 170k from the sale of my property in France and it arrived in my A/C without hiccup or quarantining.

I was asked to pop in and show the sale documents from the French notaire but it was no more than a formality.


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## zonby (Jul 1, 2021)

When you say they ask where the money came from, what exactly does this mean? They want to see the history of my UK bank account? 

The reason is some of the money was actually a gift from a family member, but as I was already a resident here I am worried they will want me to pay gift tax. I actually wouldn't even mind paying the tax, as it's discounted 99% in my area, but the lawyer wanted to take 200 euros just to make the paperwork to receive that discount... It was actually my gestor who told me not to worry about it and just send it and see what happens. 

But if they did check it, and if they did say I need to pay the gift tax, does anyone know if I would still be able to get the 99% discount from the tax from the Madrid community? 

The total amount (and my total savings right now in all accounts) is well under 50k. And the gift amount is not even half of that. But if they refuse me to receive the 99% because it happened in the UK I could end up losing 10%...


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## Overandout (Nov 10, 2012)

If the money (or part of it) was gifted to you when being a Spanish resident, you would have been liable to declare the gift and pay the tax due obviously.
But the reason for tracing the source is often misunderstood to be to detect tax evasion, but that is not the legal basis for the banks' obligation to trace, it is actually to detect laundered money, which, unless it was gifted to you by a drug cartel or prostitute smuggler, you probably don't have much to worry about.

Of course the tax issue is a nice secondary effect of the anti-money laundering legislation, and if they do pick up on that you are unlikely to be able to simply pay the tax which was due, you will be fined and penalised for not declaring the gifted income. You can try to avoid that however by waiting until the evasion prescribes which is 4 years after the end of the tax year declaration period in which it should have been declared.


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## zonby (Jul 1, 2021)

Overandout said:


> If the money (or part of it) was gifted to you when being a Spanish resident, you would have been liable to declare the gift and pay the tax due obviously.
> But the reason for tracing the source is often misunderstood to be to detect tax evasion, but that is not the legal basis for the banks' obligation to trace, it is actually to detect laundered money, which, unless it was gifted to you by a drug cartel or prostitute smuggler, you probably don't have much to worry about.
> 
> Of course the tax issue is a nice secondary effect of the anti-money laundering legislation, and if they do pick up on that you are unlikely to be able to simply pay the tax which was due, you will be fined and penalised for not declaring the gifted income. You can try to avoid that however by waiting until the evasion prescribes which is 4 years after the end of the tax year declaration period in which it should have been declared.


Well I read that in Madrid community, if money gifted by a family member is used to buy a house or business (as is my case) there is actually no gift tax to be paid. Even if it wasn't used for such purpose, the tax is discounted 99% here so it would be around 25 euros which I'd have no problem with. The problem is the notary to formalize it would cost 10x that  

But do you think that if the money was transferred by the bank without being stopped or locked would I be asked any questions in the future? I'm inclined not to take any risks, but my gestor himself literally told me to do it so am a bit conflicted.


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

zonby said:


> Well I read that in Madrid community, if money gifted by a family member is used to buy a house or business (as is my case) there is actually no gift tax to be paid. Even if it wasn't used for such purpose, the tax is discounted 99% here so it would be around 25 euros which I'd have no problem with. The problem is the notary to formalize it would cost 10x that
> 
> But do you think that if the money was transferred by the bank without being stopped or locked would I be asked any questions in the future? I'm inclined not to take any risks, but my gestor himself literally told me to do it so am a bit conflicted.


Inheritance/gift tax policy varies between regions.

Over the past ten years I have transferred money from a UK savings account in batches of GBP 10,000 (using CurrencyFair) and there has never been any comeback from my Spanish bank or the tax office. Take your gestor's advice and just do it.


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## Overandout (Nov 10, 2012)

The level of tax due is not the issue, it s the failure to declare it wich would be normally subject to penalty. The back tax owed (which may indeed be nothing or very little) is normally irrelevant compared to the fines for non-declaration.

Maybe your gestor researched and discovered that you didn't need to even declare it. I think that would be unusual but the gesror will know a lot more than some random guy on an expat forum! 

I am not sure what you mean by the questions being asked in the future, but the tax man can only ask questions during 4 years after the tax year in which the transfer happened, but for money laundering questions that limit does not apply.


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## zonby (Jul 1, 2021)

Overandout said:


> The level of tax due is not the issue, it s the failure to declare it wich would be normally subject to penalty. The back tax owed (which may indeed be nothing or very little) is normally irrelevant compared to the fines for non-declaration.
> 
> Maybe your gestor researched and discovered that you didn't need to even declare it. I think that would be unusual but the gesror will know a lot more than some random guy on an expat forum!
> 
> I am not sure what you mean by the questions being asked in the future, but the tax man can only ask questions during 4 years after the tax year in which the transfer happened, but for money laundering questions that limit does not apply.


Well I think the gestor knows it is not allowed, but he just thinks it is unlikely that I would be caught... Or he just doesn't care much as it's not him who would have to pay the fine :/

I was optimistically hoping that as tax fines are usually a multiple of the amount due, if the amount due was 0 it wouldn't have been a problem, but of course I know that was unlikely hehe. Although on the other hand I wonder how the fines are calculated, as technically people could be fined for not declaring a 100 euro gift as there is technically no limit...

What I meant by being asked questions in the future, is if all the transfers went through to Spain fine, would there be much chance of being called up months later to show the foreign bank history of where the money came from. If the only risk is that the money is stopped/flagged on the way in, I would still have time to declare it. But if they ask me months later... It would be too late.

I guess this is extremely unlikely, but am trying to weigh my odds before I make a decision.


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