[DanFromCali]

What is required for a US based company to open an NZ bank account? My company is engaging in some contractual work over there as a US company but will have expenses in NZ - and i dont want to pay to transfer from NZ->US->NZ...

How about for myself as an individual American citizen?

Anyone know?

[dbonnett]

I can't speak to the company side, but I would expect it would need to be registered as a business first and get an IRD number (and possibly register for GST?)

On the personal side, we opened an account with Kiwibank remotely - see http://www.kiwibank.co.nz/products/migrant_banking.stm for more info on how to do it. Basically you have to send them the form, along with some proof of identity, via scanned docs in our case. It takes a few days but then we could transfer money over via XE.com. If you want to earn interest, you should get an IRD number - http://www.ird.govt.nz/forms-guides/title/forms-i/ir595-form-individualirdapp.html?id=righttabs - so that you can have taxes withheld at a lower rate. We did this from outside NZ as well with no problems.

The one thing we couldn't do from outside the country is get our EFTPOS cards since that takes activating the account in person - we were travelling around so we just had the cards delivered to the main branch in Christchurch and picked them up when we hit there (after activating our account in Wellington). In fact, our statements still show Christchurch Post Restante as our address :laugh

In general, the banks seem to be used to dealing with migrants' needs and they make it much easier than I had expected. I know how Kiwibank does it, but from what others have said, all of the big ones work the same.

[James 1077]

Not sure about the company but individuals is easy. Decide which bank you want to bank with, what sort of account and then get in touch with them.

Couple of forms later and the account is opened while you are still overseas; normally with internet banking so that you can start to use it.

With Westpac when we arrived we simply turned up at any branch with our passports and they gave us our bank cards then and there.

[CJ22]

If you turn up with a written job offer in hand, they'll give you a credit card too.

[Alan]

On the company side they may want to ensure that they are not establishing a taxable presence as this could mean they are subject to many ten of thousands of dollars of tax. Quite a specialised subject and one which most companies hire consultants to deal with to prevent exposure.