Account maintenance fee
For maintaining the account, banks apply a fee that tends to include basic transactions such as, for example: cash deposits and withdrawals or use of cheques, debits and deposits of the regular settlements of the account itself and the delivery of cheque books or passbooks, as well as the custody of money, the maintenance of the records necessary for the operation of the deposit or the right to order debits and credits to the account.
You can consult the fee currently applied by banks on the Banco de España's comparison tool.
What requirements must be met in order
to charge this fee?
- Fees charged by banks are unrestricted, except in cases where they are limited by law. In the case of the account maintenance fee, there is no limitation, so each institution can set the fee it chooses.
There is one exception and that is the "basic payment account". In these accounts, the maximum amount to be charged is expressly limited in Ministerial Order ECE/228/2019 of 28 February to €3 per month, and it is free of charge for certain groups. - In order for the entity to be able to charge the maintenance fee, they must inform you previously of the terms and conditions and you must expressly or tacitly accept them.