Money Advice for expat in Poland: better using English bank card for transactions or Polish bank account?

Hi everyone, just looking for some advice.

I am very soon moving to Poland from the UK with my Polish wife and 2 children. Im British. We have our own online business which we will continue to run in Poland.

Currently all of our bank accounts are based in the UK. All our business income therefore goes to our UK bank account. We will be closing our UK business and opening it again in Poland once we arrive.

We will be opening a Polish bank account once we arrive but I'm unsure how to deal with our money. Should we begin life in Poland by just using our English bank card for transactions in shops etc. Or should we leave all of our savings in a UK bank account and transfer an "amount" every month to our Polish Bank to cover us for the upcoming month then use our Polish bank account. Or should we close all of our UK bank accounts and transfer every last penny to a polish bank account......

I'm unsure how to deal with this part. Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks

Yes, but be careful about charges for overseas use. Have a look on moneysavingexpert; they compare cards for using abroad. Basically MasterCard is always better than Visa and the best card to use by far is the Halifax MasterCard.


This is usually better. If you have a Polish account that receives GBP (most do) already, Transfer it, withdraw the cash as you need it and change at a Kantor if the rate is much better than the bank. If you don't have a Polish bank account yet, use a MasterCard or even better, bring plenty of cash and change it here.

It's generally a good idea to keep your UK bank account, especially if you have any income or payments to make over there.