Reclaim Bank Maintenance Fees in Spain 2026

Spanish banks can charge up to 240 € a year just to keep an account open. If the bank billed you despite meeting the published waiver conditions, or changed the fee without the required two-month notice, you may have grounds to reclaim the charge. Almost nobody checks.

A maintenance fee ("comisión de mantenimiento") is what a bank charges for the privilege of holding your current account. Spanish law does not let them invent it out of thin air. Under the transparency rules in Orden EHA/2899/2011, a commission can only be charged for a service that the bank has actually provided and that you have actually requested or accepted.

That single sentence is the crack in the wall. Banks charge maintenance fees automatically, on lightly used accounts, after a customer has met waiver conditions, or at a rate changed without proper notice. The strong claims are the ones you can prove from the contract, the fee notice, and your account activity.

The catch is that the bank will not usually volunteer a refund. You have to file. Here is how, from the first written complaint to the Banco de España report that puts pressure on the bank but does not bind it.

When the fee is actually reclaimable

Not every charge can be reversed. If you signed a contract, used the account, and never met the waiver terms, the fee is legal and you are stuck with it. The reclaimable cases are specific, and they are more common than the bank would like.

You have a strong claim when any of these is true:

The bank raised your maintenance fee without giving you two months' notice. Under Real Decreto-ley 19/2018 on payment services, changes to a payment-account framework contract generally have to be proposed at least two months before they take effect, and you can reject them and cancel before the change applies. No notice means you have a strong basis to challenge the charge.

You met the waiver conditions and they charged you anyway. Most Spanish accounts drop the fee if you direct-deposit a salary or hit a minimum of direct-debit receipts. If your nómina landed on time and they still billed you, that is a billing error, not a fee.

They charged for a service already covered by another fee. A separate "comisión de administración" is not automatically illegal: Banco de España treats it as a per-entry fee for account use, while maintenance covers the basic operation of keeping the account open. Challenge it when the service was not agreed, was not actually provided, or the account exists only because the bank required it for another product under the limited cases Banco de España recognises.

The account was inactive, but that alone is not enough. Banco de España says a bank may still charge contracted maintenance fees on an unused account; the stronger complaint is when the bank fails to warn you about the costs of keeping it open, stops sending required statements, or creates an overdraft solely by charging commissions.

Before you write a single letter, run a free fee analysis and pull every maintenance charge your bank hit you with in the last 90 days. You cannot reclaim what you cannot see on paper.

Step one: build the case they cannot dismiss

The bank will look for any excuse to reject you. Take the excuses away first.

Pull your account statements covering every maintenance charge you want back. Screenshot or download the exact line items, with dates and amounts. Then find your account contract and the commission information the bank was applying at the time, which Spanish banks must make available to customers, in branches, on their websites, and through the Banco de España format.

If your claim is that you met the waiver, you need proof the condition was satisfied on the relevant dates. That means the incoming salary transfer, the direct-debit receipts, the card transactions. Line them up next to the dates the fee was charged.

If your claim is a fee increase without notice, dig up the older statements showing the lower rate and the newer ones showing the jump. The absence of any advance notification email or letter is itself part of your evidence.

Step two: complain to the bank first, in writing

You cannot skip this. The Banco de España will not even look at your case until you have formally complained to the bank and given them a chance to respond.

Send your complaint to the bank's customer service department (Servicio de Atención al Cliente, or SAC), not to your branch manager over coffee. Do it in writing, keep a copy, and get an acknowledgment with a reference number. State the charges, the dates, the exact reason they were improper, and the refund you want.

The bank has a deadline. Banco de España guidance gives the entity 15 business days for complaints about payment services such as current accounts, cards, transfers and direct debits; one month for other consumer complaints; and two months for non-consumer complaints. If the bank misses the deadline, rejects your complaint, or only accepts it partly, you can escalate to the Banco de España.

Step three: escalate to the Banco de España

This is the part banks expect many customers never to reach. The Banco de España handles complaints against supervised entities free of charge and issues a non-binding report; filing costs you nothing.

You submit online through the Banco de España electronic office, attaching your evidence and the proof that you already complained to the bank and either got refused or heard nothing within the deadline. No lawyer, no fee, no in-person visit.

What you actually get back

The refund is the fees themselves. On a single account that could be 60 € for one quarter, or 240 € for a full year, and more if the improper charging ran across several years. Commissions have long been a recurring complaint topic at the Banco de España, which tells you one thing for sure: customers notice these charges and challenge them.

The banks that stack these fees are the same ones covered in our breakdown of the seven commissions Spanish banks charge, and the mechanics of the BBVA charge specifically are picked apart in what your BBVA Cuenta Eleccion really costs. Read both if you want to know exactly which line items to challenge.

Your bank counts on you never asking for your money back. Ask.

Sources:
- Banco de España — Servicio de Reclamaciones
- BOE — Orden EHA/2899/2011 de transparencia y protección del cliente de servicios bancarios
- BOE — Real Decreto-ley 19/2018 de servicios de pago
- BOE — Orden ECC/2502/2012 sobre presentacion de reclamaciones ante los servicios de reclamaciones