Opening a bank account for private activities is fairly easy and doable, although you do need a local phone number to easily use it remotely and make your regular transfers.
Business is a different story. If you do reside permanently in the islands and want to engage in a more tangible business activity, such as opening a store or restaurant and also already have a private account with a bank, it’s quite manageable if you have also set up a business under local law.
” Opening a bank account for private activities is fairly easy and doable. Business is a different story.”
But with the increasingly stringent money laundering laws within the EU, assume that opening a business account if you are not a permanent resident of the islands, or for activities that are not physical in nature such as IT, can be considered suspicious by default, even if there is no reason to do so. If you manage to open an account at all.
And if you do succeed at all, at least assume that you will be structurally subjected to intense scrutiny by banks to mind-bogglingly impertinent questions, and that is still an if. Do not assume that with a clean conscience and no criminal record whatsoever you will actually pass that question in practice.
