Getting money to student in the Netherlands

[Anonymous]

My son is going to a university in Groningen, in the Netherlands, and will need a bank account with some cash in it.

I need to send money to him, but not to anyone else.

He might start with a Bunq account.

I know there are services like Wise to help people transfer money to Europe. Obviously, Wise is a terrible search term, and I’m
not clear whether something like Wise is necessary to get money into one particular account.

- Has anyone here sent money from a Wells Fargo checking account to a kid in Europe? If so, how did you do it?

- Has anyone here funded Bunq with U.S. cash? If so, how did you get money into the account?

- Has anyone here used Wise, Revolut, etc.? If so, what did you think?

[Anonymous]

Why not just access his US bank account via atm? We travel to the Netherlands regularly and have never done anything but that. The only thing I can think of is if he needs a local account to get a local mobile but I’d suggest just doing a pay per go one there. He’ll love it btw!

[Anonymous]

xoom by paypal

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why not just access his US bank account via atm? We travel to the Netherlands regularly and have never done anything but that. The only thing I can think of is if he needs a local account to get a local mobile but I’d suggest just doing a pay per go one there. He’ll love it btw!

This, and a regular visa or master card.

[Anonymous]

Is he going as an exchange student or for his degree? If he's just going for a semester, agree with him using his US bank account.

If he'll be there for the long haul, he needs a letter of introduction from his school, the address where he'll be living and his passport to open a Dutch bank account. Once he has his account, all you need to do is make a wire transfer from your account to his. I do this through online banking for my DC who is an undergraduate at a UK school.

[Anonymous]

PayPal

[Anonymous]

Half of Europe uses Wise, and they just went public. I have been using it now for years. I press "send", log into my EU bank account and the money is there. This was about 2 years after I had been using it though. Couldn't believe it was there within minutes if not seconds.
Not always that fast, but pretty darn good. Their customer service is also awesome.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why not just access his US bank account via atm?

He’s going there for the full bachelor’s, not just a semester, and I think we need Dutch accounts to pay the rent and tuition. But maybe it will turn out that we can get by with using U.S.accounts, after all. That would certainly be simpler.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:xoom by paypal

Thanks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why not just access his US bank account via atm? We travel to the Netherlands regularly and have never done anything but that. The only thing I can think of is if he needs a local account to get a local mobile but I’d suggest just doing a pay per go one there. He’ll love it btw!

This, and a regular visa or master card.

Thanks. One wrinkle is that people in the Netherland supposedly need a card that connects with the Maestro network, which is a special form of the MasterCard network.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is he going as an exchange student or for his degree? If he's just going for a semester, agree with him using his US bank account.

If he'll be there for the long haul, he needs a letter of introduction from his school, the address where he'll be living and his passport to open a Dutch bank account. Once he has his account, all you need to do is make a wire transfer from your account to his. I do this through online banking for my DC who is an undergraduate at a UK school.

Thanks. Can you do the wire transfer straight from a U.S. bank account to a Dutch account? If so, that sounds like the best approach.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Half of Europe uses Wise, and they just went public. I have been using it now for years. I press "send", log into my EU bank account and the money is there. This was about 2 years after I had been using it though. Couldn't believe it was there within minutes if not seconds.
Not always that fast, but pretty darn good. Their customer service is also awesome.

Have you ever considered just wiring money to the EU account? If so, what made you pick Wise? (I’ve only wired money once in my life and don’t really remember how that worked.)

[Anonymous]

PayPal or Zelle

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is he going as an exchange student or for his degree? If he's just going for a semester, agree with him using his US bank account.

If he'll be there for the long haul, he needs a letter of introduction from his school, the address where he'll be living and his passport to open a Dutch bank account. Once he has his account, all you need to do is make a wire transfer from your account to his. I do this through online banking for my DC who is an undergraduate at a UK school.

Thanks. Can you do the wire transfer straight from a U.S. bank account to a Dutch account? If so, that sounds like the best approach.

Yes, very easy to do.

[Anonymous]

There are IRS reporting obligations for US citizens with foreign banks accounts over a certain amount.