Santander España Reviews 

This is one of the few banks opening accounts for Ukrainians. The people are always nice in the bank branches, however the innovativeness and speed of Services could be better

This bank is outdated. They promise a lot for foreigners to open up an account with great offers, but when it comes to approval of your foreign tax sheets, everything get rejected. It is all valid, but they say no. Whatever it is a robot or not in spanish language there is NO ONE to help or to ask. Comepletely waste of time. And afterwardes they spam you. In summary: a pain, not working and just collecting data

They promise so much to get you to sign up for an account then give you....nada. There are much better options out there. Don't do what I did and fall for the marketing tricks!

This has been the worst banking experience I have ever had. If I didn’t have a mortgage with this bank, I would withdrall all my money and close my account immediately.

Documented issues:

- Personal bank advisor does not respond to calls or emails.

- Phone appointments booked via the app are ignored.

- In-branch service is consistently rude, incompetent, and inaccurate — most information given on simple procedures is wrong.

- Cards repeatedly sent to the wrong address despite confirming the correct one each time.

- Active card is regularly declined for “security reasons.” Even after calling and being told it’s resolved, the next transaction is declined again.

- Any phone interaction requires navigating multiple departments and operators for over an hour, often ending in disconnection or receiving false information.

- Home insurance through the bank failed to pay valid claims, despite clear supporting evidence.

This is a systemic failure across all services — banking, card management, customer support, and insurance. If you have a choice, avoid this bank entirely!

Horrible place

The women who “work” there at San Eugenio branch are absolutely useless waste of air. I have never been treated so rudely by someone at a bank or anywhere really. This woman desk 1 dark long hair who is the worst of all - she doesn't solve anything, she doesn't let you finish the sentence, she is super rude and doesn't feel like working...but nothing... She doesn’t want to help me at all said someone else will call me soon but it’s never happened!
Another two who supposed to call customers to the desk they were just chatting to each other’s for at least half an hour and the customers were just waiting and waiting…
Fact they don’t give a sh..t about a customers at all.
Absolutely disgusting behaviour and service!
I will go to open a bank account in another bank not Santander for sure as this place is a bloody joke!
I would give 0 star but no option so I would put a formal complaint to the head office

I would definitely not recommend santander. They opened the account but gave me incorrect information about their fees that cost me a lot of money. They then don't take accountability and change managers. Their app, website and communcation ways are very very poor. Many common benefits and feature other banks offer are not available with santander. And everything has hidden fees here. Stay away!

I open a bank account with them in Spain on a shop, 5 days later received a email saying that there’s documentation missing and if I don’t give them the documents in one month the account will be blocked , try to upload the information that already give in the shop but doesn’t accept, so I go back to the same shop and they guarantee me that they fixed it , I received a email saying my documents were uploaded, then 5 days later I get the same email saying my account will be blocked and in the same day as before, so next time I’m going to the shop is to close it , bunch of incompetents

My client should have received Euros 445,000,000 into his Santander account on 28th May. We complained on 3rd and 4th June and no response so far. The sending bank can prove where it is, sitting in Santander but trying to find a competent individual to deal with this and have the courtesy of calling my client is impossible.
This is a business account and look at how they behave.
There are no contacts you can go to and the attitude is appalling.

I opened an account without any issues, received my card, and rushed to deposit cash into the account. Not a single ATM accepted the money — they all gave an error. There were no warnings or error messages in the app, no emails, no texts. I booked an appointment at a branch to deposit the money. The cashier, without any explanation, said she couldn’t accept the deposit and couldn’t help me in any way.

I went to another branch and found the branch manager. A lovely woman explained that while the account was technically open, the bank had immediately blocked it because I’m a resident of Spain but hold a Russian passport. To unblock the account, I’d need to provide a pile of documents with official translations (50 euros per page). I could only deposit a small amount of cash — otherwise, the account would be blocked again until I submitted another stack of documents. I could transfer only minimal amounts (maximum 2,000 euros per month) or risk another block.

I walked out of the bank, cut up the card, threw it away, and closed the account. Never again!

Unfortunately I have account in Santander bank Spain. Without any notification they freezer my account. When I visited branch, they asked me for residence from last country(which is expired long time back). Then they were like it will be activated in two days. Now its been more than 7 days, and they stopped picking my call. I don't have experience with other banks in Spain, but I would say Santander's customer service is really bad. Never faced such issue with clear documentation ever in my life before.

Nightmare! Had to pay cash into a disabled friends Santander local branch. Waited 30 minutes in their automated queuing system, only to be told they could not accept cash "As the machine was broken". Directed to a branch in Torrevieja, where the parking was dreadful, and another wait of 45 minutes before, at last, I arrived at a teller, who wanted everything from me, bar a pint of blood ( she was, however polite). I'll stick with my online bank!

Below any criticism. Bank employees have major problems with copying data from official documents - it is probably illiteracy. Setting up a fully functional account borders on a miracle, and the money lies in the account without any possibility of movement. This bank is one big fraud and Maspalomas branch. Maspalomas Branch It brings together a group of completely uneducated people who mislead the client - leading to real financial losses. If you run a business - stay away from this bank

I have tried to do everything and anything in my power to get in contact with the bank, and still haven’t gotten a singular call back or even an email back!

I am an international student who is being denied access to the bank, because of my “IP” and It’s actually so incredibly frustrating. I have never in my life experienced anything like this, especially when you reconsider the fact that I don’t even live in a conflict or “enemy” country or anything. In fact, I live in an European state, and carry an European passport, so why am I struggling this badly to make an ONLINE ACCOUNT? What is this?

This is genuinely my last resort, I’m praying they’ll reach out to me because of this review somehow or that someone could possibly give me some tips on how to deal with this.

I just wanted to change my mobile number in my personal setting because I signed a new mobil phone contract. It wasn´t possible because they only offer 9 numbers, but every German number has 11 numbers.. Of course, Spain has 45 Mio inhabitants, Germany 85 Millions, maybe that´s why. There´s no help chat like in my German bank to help you out and you cannot reach the telephone help from outside the country; you pay each and every month 6,50€ just to have an account there. Our credit card expired during April 2024 and now it expires during April 2034, but only virtual, not physical. During our last holidays in 2025, we wanted to get some money from the Santander cashier and the card got soaked in. We should have to wait for around 2 weeks to get a new card, the clerk said. Santander doesn`t send new cards to foreign countries; our German bank send us letters and new cards on the Canarian Islands.

Today my daughter, 19 years old, went to a branch in barcelona to open an account. She is Italian born in Ghana, student in a university in barcelona (second year). She wanted to deposit 5500 Euros but Immediately she was was put in suspicious situations because of her place of birth and because of the big amount of money (lol) she wanted to deposit. After the preliminary the "bank enployee" decided to close the account because of suspicious situation. I wish to see this employee to give him some lesson of life. By the way Santander will never see anyone of my family dealing with them. (I am a big exporter and some of my clients are paying me through this bank). Banco Santander shame on you.

No customer service. Ive emailed and tried to call our POC around 20 times, never got a reply, pick up or call back. Banche we are with is Fuengirola.

I need to have a traditional bank like Santander just because it's the only way to pay taxes, otherwise, I'd close the account and use only a bank like Revolut, which I use for everything.

We are in 2024 but it looks like Santander is stuck in 1990. There are still lots of services provided from a physical branch only. On top of this, only from the branch where you opened your account. I travel very often, so you can imagine how useless this is.

I then tried several times to book a phone appointment via the app. Naturally, nobody called me back.

If you want the worst bank experience ever, welcome to Santander. The account is constantly being blocked. Customer service would tell you that it is normal and you should not expect anything better from them.
The app hasn't been working for me for 2 years and NOONE has been able to fix it after around 30 bank visits. super super bad. Please stay away

A bank that doesn't accept a cheque (about 80 euros value) because it is too "difficult and expensive" for them?? Staff is only interested in selling insurances, very rude and with poor English. Me and my family are closing accounts there and switching to a normal bank.