Of the various costs that attach to a Spanish property purchase, one is routinely underestimated by non-resident buyers because it is charged not by their sending bank, nor by the specialist payment provider they may have chosen with care, but by the Spanish beneficiary bank on the receiving side. It has a name — the comisión de recepción, or receiving commission — and on a completion payment it can quietly consume more than every other fee on the transaction combined.
This briefing explains what the fee is, why Spanish banks charge it, and the two routes — a negotiated flat fee, or the use of a lawyer's client account — that reliably reduce or remove it. It is intended to be read in tandem with our overview of the Spanish property payment process, at the arras and escritura stages of which this fee typically arises.
What the comisión de recepción is
Most Spanish retail banks apply a percentage-based commission on incoming international transfers credited to a customer account. The published rate at the larger commercial banks — BBVA, Santander, CaixaBank, Sabadell and their peers — is typically in the range of 0.3 to 0.4 per cent of the amount received, subject to a minimum of €30 to €40. Crucially for property buyers, the percentage often applies without an upper cap.
On a €400,000 completion payment this translates to €1,200 to €1,600 deducted at the point the funds arrive in the beneficiary account. On a €10,000 arras deposit the amount is smaller — €30 to €40 in absolute terms — but the effective rate can be worse once the minimum bites. The fee is separate from, and in addition to, the SWIFT correspondent charges some banks levy on non-SEPA transfers, and separate from the FX margin the sending provider or bank applies to the underlying conversion.
Why the fee exists
The commission is a legacy pricing element from an era in which incoming international transfers were operationally expensive for the receiving bank: manual sanctions screening, correspondent-banking reconciliation, and paper-based confirmation to the beneficiary. Most of that cost has since been automated. The fee has largely persisted because it is a discretionary revenue line and because retail customers rarely negotiate it.
For a property buyer opening a new non-resident account, however, the branch context is very different from a retail customer receiving a one-off remittance. The buyer is a new customer opening an account expected to fund a six- or seven-figure transaction, and the branch manager has both the discretion and the commercial incentive to depart from the published tariff. The published rate is, in effect, a ceiling rather than a floor.
Route one — negotiate a flat fee with the branch manager
The most direct route is to raise the fee explicitly with the Spanish branch manager at the point of account opening, before any transfer is sent. Negotiated outcomes we typically see for a new non-resident account funded by a property purchase are a flat fee of €30 to €100 per incoming transfer, irrespective of size, and, less commonly, a full waiver for the specific transfers relating to the property completion.
Three practical points make the negotiation more likely to succeed. First, it must be requested in writing, or at minimum confirmed in writing after a verbal conversation — a general assurance at the counter is not a binding commitment. Second, it must precede the transfer: retrospective refunds of the commission, once deducted, are rare and unreliable. Third, the request is more credible when the buyer can describe the transaction size and timing precisely — a specific €300,000 completion payment expected on a specific date is a materially easier request to approve than an abstract enquiry about the tariff.
Confirmation should specify the flat amount, the currency, and whether it applies to a single incoming transfer or to all transfers within a defined period. Property purchases involve at least two large incoming credits — arras and escritura — and often several smaller ones for taxes and lawyer settlement.
Route two — the lawyer's cuenta de cliente
The second route bypasses the buyer's own Spanish account for the largest transfers by routing funds through the buyer's Spanish lawyer's client account (cuenta de cliente). Established Spanish law firms handling non-resident property transactions typically hold client accounts at banks with pre-negotiated pricing on incoming transfers, and in some cases the firm absorbs the receiving cost as part of its overall service fee.
The onward transfer from the lawyer's client account to the seller is then an internal Spanish transfer between Spanish accounts — a domestic SEPA credit, which is free or near-free at every material Spanish bank. The saving on a €400,000 completion payment, compared with a percentage commission on incoming international funds, is meaningful and repeats on every transfer routed the same way.
The trade-off is that the buyer must be comfortable with funds sitting briefly in a third-party client account, and must confirm — again, in writing — the specific incoming-transfer cost the lawyer's own bank will charge on the credit. The right question to the lawyer is direct: what will the receiving cost be on a transfer of €X from account Y into your client account, and can you provide that in writing before I send the funds?
What does not remove the fee
It is worth being explicit about what the fee is not. Sending via a regulated specialist FX provider — Currencies Direct, Moneycorp, Wise and their peers — reduces the FX spread on the currency conversion, sometimes considerably, but the euro leg of the transfer still lands in a Spanish account, and the beneficiary bank's own commission still applies on that credit. The receiving fee is charged by the Spanish beneficiary bank, not by the sending institution, and no amount of care on the sending side changes that.
Nor does asking the sender to mark charges as "OUR" (all charges borne by the sender) remove the receiving commission. "OUR", "SHA" and "BEN" are correspondent-banking charge codes that govern intermediary fees on the transfer route; the beneficiary bank's own account-level commission is applied under its account terms with the customer, not the payment message.
Buyer checklist
- Before opening a Spanish account, ask the branch — in writing — for the incoming-transfer fee that will apply to the specific property-purchase transfers.
- Negotiate a flat fee at account opening; €30 to €100 per transfer is a realistic target for a property-funded non-resident account.
- Ask the Spanish lawyer, in writing, what the incoming-transfer cost will be on their client account, and compare it against the negotiated own-account fee.
- Confirm in writing whether the negotiated fee applies to a single transfer or to a defined series covering arras, escritura and post-completion payments.
- Do not rely on the sending provider or a specific charge code to remove the receiving-side commission.
A buyer who has settled this question before any large transfer is sent typically saves several times the annual cost of running a Spanish account, on a single completion payment.