Opening a Bank Account in Hamburg
If you plan on living in Hamburg then your first task should be to open a bank account in Hamburg.
Having a German bank account is probably the most important task that you need to take care of when moving to Hamburg.
You might be wondering why this is such an important task. Well let us tell you something how life in Germany is like.
If you want to rent an appartment here in Hamburg every landlord will ask you for your German bank account details.
If you want to sign up for a German phone contract, well you guessed right, you need to have a German bank account.
The same goes for your employer to send you your monthly salary or if you want to sign up for a internet provider in Hamburg. We could continue this list, but we are sure that you get our point.
Opening a German Bank Account from abroad
What only few people know is that you can already open a German bank account from abroad with some banks.
All you need to do is sign up with e.g. DKB – Deutsche Kredit Bank – or any other bank that offers this service.
Can you imagine the advantage of arriving in Hamburg and being already signed up with a German bank?
Overview best band account in Hamburg
| DKB* | Comdirect | |
|---|---|---|
| English sign up process | No | No |
| Sign up from abroad | Yes | No |
| Bank account fees | 0€ | 0€ |
| Free cash withdrawal Germany | Yes, unlimited For Aktivkunden with more than 700€ monthly income | Yes with Girocard |
| Free cash withdrawal worldwide | Yes, unlimited | Yes, ATM with Visa sign |
| Credit card included | Yes 0€/month Visa | Yes 0€/month Visa |
| Overdraft fees | 6,74% interest p.a. | 6,5% - 11,0% interest p.a. |
| Additional services | DKB Live Free tickets for football, icehockey & much more | Sign up bonus of up to 150€ (certain conditions apply) |
DKB – Deutsche Kreditbank*
We and all of our friends are signed up with DKB – Deutsche Kredit Bank.
The reason is simple, there is just no better German Bank than DKB. The following points illustrate just how useful a DKB bank account will be for you.
- Free cash withdrawals from any ATM worldwide – Awesome for all travelers
- Free of charge Visa credit card – Very handy if you don’t like to carry cash
- Awesome banking interface – Easy & simple to use
- Ability to sign up with DKB from abroad – Very neat for all new Hamburgeraners
No matter if you are traveling a lot or even just stay around Hamburg, being able to withdraw cash for free from any ATM is just awesome.
In Germany you can usually only withdraw cash for free at an ATM of your own bank. If you withdraw cash from any other ATM you pay a heavy fee of around 5€. As DKB is a strictly online-bank there are no branches in Hamburg nor in other German cities.
But with this awesome feature of free cash withdrawals and a very fast and helpful customer service it is absolutely no problem that there are no local branches.
With any DKB Cash you will get a free of charge Visa credit card and an EC-card. The DKB Visa card is very handy for the reasons mentioned before.
If you are grocery shopping or paying gas at the local gas station you might find out that some places don’t accept credit cards. This is very the EC-card comes in very handy.
Basically the EC-card is just a replacement for cash, but you can’t pay anything if you don’t have sufficient funds on your bank account.
When signing up with DKB you should keep in mind that DKB is a strictly online bank. This means in case of any troubles you need to call a service center (very fast and friendly) instead of going to a local branch.
If you feel comfortable with online banking then this is no disadvantage over classic banks.
And last but not least you are able to sign up with DKB from abroad*.
Why this is very important we have mentioned already above.
Just follow the link if you want to open a bank account with DKB. The signup page is in German but with the help of Google translate this is all very easy to understand.
Comdirect
Comdirect is our second recommendation to open your bank account in Hamburg.
For some reasons you might want to have a backup bank account in case you lose your other cards or you want some money on the side.
But also in some rare cases we heard back that DKB declined people to open a bank account, especially if you are a student and don’t have a stable income.
In this case Comdirect would be your best choice as they offer similar services as DKB but are less restrictive to sign up with them.
- Free Visa card and free of charge ATM cash withdrawals worldwide
- Easy to use online banking interface
- Less restrictive to accept new clients
If you want to sign up with Comdirect
Hopefully in future DKB and Comdirect will offer signup pages in English as well.
Now that you hopefully have opened your bank account in Hamburg you might want to find out about the best internet providers in Hamburg or the best mobile phone contracts.
With our help also these tasks will be a piece of cake and you will save a lot of money and hassle.
Once you have successfully opened your Bank account in Hamburg it is time to consider which phone provider you should opt for or which internet provider offers the best deals for you.
*Since I love to keep my website as up-to-date as possible for you awesome readers, my content may contain affiliate links. All the links in this post marked with ‘*’ are such affiliate links. Even though I might receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you, all opinions on my website remain my own.