Avoid Revolut

Finances
1

Revolut says you should be allowed to open an account as an ARI investor with NIF, but despite weeks of verification attempts and talking with their (entirely useless) support, they refused to verify my account.

This wasn’t immediately obvious and I could have easily sent money to my account after it was “opened” (but locked) and I assume my money would be stuck.

It would be one thing if you got a clear rejection quickly, but they string you along with one thing or another forever.

Avoid at all costs, mostly because the support is so bad. At least the bad support in a normal Portuguese bank account is in-person bad, you can go irritate them until they fix whatever it is. Revolut is all in-app chat and the first line is an LLM, then people that may as well be LLMs that just take longer to reply.

3 Likes
2

I was able to open with Revolut and it was an instant process, no weeks of verification. It may depend on how you designate your tax domicile versus residence, etc. They probably aren’t keen to open accounts for non-residents.

Do you have an address in Portugal?

3

I have an address in portugal, I am an ARI holder with card, not expired. I showed I was a tax resident in the US but not PT, though I do have a NIF.

Again the bigger problem is the support being absolutely useless and reading off their little script that doesn’t cover what I was seeing

2 Likes
4

Well, banks suck these days, especially for US citizens. Service is terrible all around.

5

Banks dont like to deal with US tax resident. Search for FATCA (Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act), that’s the problem.

6

I am well aware of FATCA and the laws around it, thanks