Moving from UK back to Ireland - banking question

MatthewPB

I'm an Irish citizen, been in UK for 5 years, moving home permanently next month. In Ireland I'm going to be working in a freelance capacity for UK companies.

I wonder if anybody has any experience of moving home from the UK and retaining their UK current account -- without switching the account to a friend's address in the UK?

Any experience or advice very welcome.

Thank you
Matthew

dobsdave

I moved back from NI two years ago, and because it was a BOI account, had no problem switching the address to my Irish one.

MatthewPB

Thanks Dobsdave -- I should have made clear I'm moving from England, my bank doesn't have branches in Ireland. Also, I would like to keep my UK account alive so that I can get paid into it from UK companies.

dobsdave

You can open a sterling account with your Irish address also.

BuffyBot

Shouldn't be an issue. I had my UK bank send all my correspondence etc to my Irish addresses before.

BazzaDP

Yeah mostly companies are fine with an Irish address. Kept my Barclays account and just changed address.

A few companies don't allow you to change address online as defaulted to UK or demand a post code but phone call normally sorts them out too.

And then a smaller few companies (Orange and DVLA from memory) demand a UK address and won't budge.

The post office redirect is good to set up to make sure you don't miss anything for up to a year. Though it is expensive and you do need a lot of identification and proof of address to set it up. And they won't let you correct your address afterwards even to fix a small typo. But even with all that is use it again.

pow wow

I kept (and still have) my Co-operative Bank account 9 years after moving back home. There was no hassle changing my address to an Irish one (despite their T&Cs stating you have to be ordinarily resident in the UK to maintain an account). My chequebooks and visa cards come out no hassle and on time.