Moving out of Switzerland to an EU country

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Hi everyone,
Soon we will be moving back to the NL after 4 years in Switzerland. We have some cash in our UBS accounts, and the question is, how to minimise it getting taxed when we move it back. This is technically income that has already been taxed in Switzerland (just from our salaries) but probably the tax guys will want a share of it when we go back. Should I just invest it in degiro or such?
thanks

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Why do you think that? It’s just cash nothing special, nobody will tax it. If anything shares is more complicated since NL probably has capital gain (so you’d want to reset the cost basis shortly before).

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Some jurisdictions may tax based on remittance of the funds. Netherlands though? I’d be more than just astonished.

Actually… they don’t seem to.

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Thanks for you responses guys. Checked this with some tax authorities and indeed it would not be taxed (but it will if it remains as a savings in the NL, so best to invest it in any case). The other thing, I have been asking UBS both by phone and in person, what doe they charge in transfer fee when moving money from CHF to Euros and cant seem to get a straight answer. Transferwise for example charges 4% of the amount. Would this be the cheapest option? Or maybe just park the bulk of it in Swiss Degiro or something similar instead of taking it with us?

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5

Are you sure about that? Wise usually charges less than 0.5%, in my experience. The higher the amount, the better the rate.

The UBS exchange rate is terrible for small amounts (1.7%, if I remember correctly). It’s probably better for (very) large amounts but likely still worse than Wise.

The best rate you’d likely get with Interactive Brokers or Revolut Premium.

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Sorry, my bad, I meant 0.4%. So yes, thats in line with what I experienced as well.

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You should convert via interactive brokers

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Am doing exactly that. Now the question is, IB only allows one free withdrawal per month correct? Is there a limit on the amount ? And subsequently the fees are around 0.12%?

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SEPA EUR withdrawal costs 1 EUR.

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Never heard of any.

Rules do change, but AFAIR it was a fixed fee.

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Great idea, I can confirm that Degiro (Swiss) more or less forces you to close the account. Because, you need a Swiss bank (a ‘real’ bank) account to deposit and withdraw funds. So indeed, if you move out of the country, and don’t want to/cant keep your bank account open, you kind of have to close with Degiro Swiss. You cant just change the country of residence (which is what I tried to do), but have to reopen a new one when you move.
For UBS, which is the bank we use, also account needs to be closed if you leave the country or soon after. If not there is a heavy price to keep it open. Don’t know how much that is, but that is what the teller at the branch I visited told me

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yes, finally am doing just that :slight_smile: Should have just started with the obvious option instead of losing time!

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You can open an account at Yuh or Flowbank beforehand, which you can keep if you move abroad. I know several people from EU who opened accounts with those two banks.

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It’s OK, it is called exploring. The next person with the same question will get an answer faster.

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Talking about brokers: you can open a EU Degiro or Flatex account while being a resident of Switzerland. They both need a EUR reference account, which can be also a free Yuh account. If you move afterwards to EU, you just change your reference account and that’s it.

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really, how do you open a degiro EU account? Dont they force you to pick a local site, or i missed something?

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You go to Degiro.de / .nl /.fr / .ie and you open an account.

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Wasn’t a case 1 year or so ago.

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Ah, I get what you mean now, sorry! I do already have a degiro EU (dutch account).
My issue was, I wanted to transfer Swiss funds to the Netherlands via Degiro. And so what I was trying to do was UBS in CHF->Degiro Swiss->Dutch bank in euros. That you cant. This is what degiro told me:
You may only deposit and withdraw funds in the base currency of your DEGIRO account which is CHF for our Swiss accounts. If this is not an option for you, you may open an account on our Dutch website as Dutch DEGIRO accounts have EUR as base currency. Unfortunately, it is not possible to connect a neobank account like Revolut for deposits and withdrawals

so am going with IB

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and the other advantage for me having a Swiss degiro account was that it can be in english. The Dutch site is not (and no I am not Dutch :slight_smile: