The Full Package
(It's not at all what you're thinking)
I spent the last couple of months navigating the residency process in Albania. I didn’t expect it to be easy, but I was hopeful that some aspects which seemed straightforward might actually be so—like opening and funding a bank account. I thought: You open it, you transfer money to it, and voila.
Hahahahahahahahaha! Hilarious.
The first time I went to the bank, I had my passport but I didn’t bring our rental contract with us. I didn’t realize I needed it, so I said I’d come back a different day. (It was going to be too time consuming to get home and go back to the bank in the same day.)
Fridays the bank is only open till 1:30pm, so I was cautioned to show up early or don’t bother going. I heeded the warning and simply went back the following week with my passport and rental contract in hand. Success. I opened the account, signing 3,948 sheets of paper (all with name, surname, signature), including US tax forms (they track you everywhere). Then I walked to the counter to deposit some cash into the account. I asked how I could make a wire transfer to fully fund the account and left feeling like I had all the information I needed.
Oh, how naive.
I set the wire transfer from our US account and then focused on other aspects of the residency process. Some days passed and I returned to the bank, as I needed an official printout of the bank statement showing the account was funded. Only guess what: It wasn’t. This part was my fault; I had done the currency conversion incorrectly and didn’t wire enough money. Le sigh; I’d have to set up a new one.
But while I was at the bank, I had several other things to do: Pick up my ATM card, pay our residency voucher, and figure out how to send our landlord rent from the new account. This is where things start to get spicy. First, the voucher. I showed up with the corresponding paper I needed and asked if I could pay the total cost (about 50 Euro). Yes, but I’d have to pay a commission (fee). I looked at the woman and asked: I have to pay a fee on top of a fee? She looked at me, smiled, and said Yes. 🤨 Then a colleague came up behind her, looked at my form and said, actually, I had to pay two commissions because there were two line items on the voucher. I couldn’t tell whether I was being taken advantage of or if that’s actually how things worked. But I needed this part of the process done, so I paid the fees.
Then I asked about how to transfer money to our landlord and the woman looked at my info and said: You need a full package. I stood there scratching my head thinking, what does that mean? So I asked and she repeated herself: You need a full package. There was definitely some lost in translation happening, so she chatted with her colleague and tried to come up with an explanation for me that would make sense. Unfortunately, I was still confused. She called someone else over to try. I said, “I hear what you’re saying, but I don’t know what ‘full package’ means in this context. Can you explain it a different way?”
Turns out, the bank account I had opened was a basic account. It was the equivalent of “read only.” I could basically put money in and take it out and get copies of my statement but that was it. If I wanted to be able to send money to someone else or do anything more complex, I needed a stepped up account, aka a “full package.” Ooooooohhhhhh. Well at least now I understood. Why hadn’t anyone explained the options to begin with? That’s neither here nor there now. But here was the catch: I needed to go request this account change, pay a commission, and then wait 24 hours to get access. Goodness.
To be fair, I hadn’t opened a bank account from scratch anywhere in ages. I’ve had mine since I was at least 18 and C and I have some joint ones that were his going way back, too. So maybe it’s this complex now in general? All I know is that I jumped through the hoops and paid more money to have the privilege of accessing my own money. Fun. The woman told me I’d be able to do everything in the app the next day. Super.
Well, the next day I tried to get into the app and couldn’t access my account. So guess where I had to go? Back to the bank. This time I worked with the woman who had opened my original account and she helped me activate my account online. It was not straightforward and required me to change the phone number I had on file (my US number) to my Albanian number (to receive activation codes), which normally would take 24 hours to update, but she put in an override to make it instant. Thank goodness. I finally got in and then I sat there with her and made sure I could actually transfer the money to our landlord before I left the bank. I could; it worked. Phew.
However, I still had the problem of fully funding the account. Turns out—and I had never realized this—it takes 7 business days for wire transfers to go through to Albania! That’s like 10 calendar days. I needed the account fully funded before we left for our summer travels and guess whose wire transfer wasn’t scheduled to arrive in time? Yup, mine.
The only other option that I knew of to fund the account was to go to the ATM to withdraw cash from our US account and then give it to the bank employee to put in the Albanian account. The problem with this was that I can only take out so much in a day and the limits in Albania are particularly low. I did the math and I didn’t have enough days before we were leaving for summer vacation to get the cash out. On top of that, the fees to get cash out are high, and the value of the Dollar has been dropping, so we’ve been taking a pretty big hit in general.* This whole residency process was getting really painful.
I ended up with a creative workaround involving a kind friend (who I am very grateful for!). And on the second-to-last business day before we flew out, I got the account fully funded, with the printout to prove it.** But my goodness, it took over a month to get to that point. And that was just one of the many things we needed to take care of as part of ensuring we have everything ready to file for residency.
If you are thinking of seeking residency in another country, just know that it’s likely going to be a process, and perhaps a convoluted one. (I don’t say that based on my experience alone but, rather, based on knowledge of the process in several other countries. Interestingly, so far the process in Albania seems “easy” compared to what I’ve seen documented in other countries.) We’re at the point where we think we have everything required to be able to file, and now we have to actually file. I’m sure more adventure awaits, so stay tuned for that.
Have you sought residency outside of your home country (not sponsored by a job)? If so, where and what was the process like? What surprises did you encounter?
*C has a Schwab account that returns ATM fees worldwide, but he was in the US doing his 90 days out (since he isn’t seeking residency). I also found out later, after chasing down the cash, that Schwab transfers go through in a day, so I could’ve asked C to set one up, which would’ve negated the need for me to run around collecting cash, but I didn’t know that until too late. Gaaaaahhhhhh.
**The day I went back to the bank to get my printout, I realized that the transfer had magically come through in time, so all of my running around to get cash out had been for naught, but I couldn’t have known that this was going to happen. There’s sooooo much uncertainty with seeking residency; I’m learning it’s best to allow a lot more time than you expect it to take!