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retiring in hungary

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jokedvu
  6/10/2022 12:07 EST

I have dual citizenship , ( US and Hungarian ) and i receive SS in the State,, Would like to live in Hungary ,and thinking to get my SS benefit to direct deposit to Hungary, but I'm not sure how it's work. Maybe someone can help me to get some advice about this ? Thanks...

borschelrh
  6/11/2022 01:46 EST

Hi, we retired to Hungary and get both my military pension and our SS pensions. The military was easier although it takes 90 days to make any changes, and direct deposits to a dollar account here in Hungary to our local account at K&H bank (any Hungarian bank can do it). However, SSA wouldn't do a direct deposit to an overseas account. Also, you cannot create an online account from overseas and must do all dealings with the SSA office over the phone to Baltimore. We have checking and savings accounts at a US-based Credit Union ( just what we ended up with when Bank of America closed all of our accounts suddenly and with only 72 hours' notice. Being retired military I opened our credit union accounts at the US base in Italy over the phone and we were able to transfer all our funds to them immediately. It was weird as we had Platinum accounts and had sitting in our checking account over $350k in cash, perfect history, etc. BofA refused to state the reasons so it was a real debacle.

We actually live mostly off our funds from the Credit Union and mostly use the Hungarian account to pay off the monthly credit card bills etc. Remember you cannot have more than $10k in aggregate at any time in overseas accounts without filing the exact days that occurs to the FINCEN at the FBI. So, in reality, it is best to keep all your money in US accounts and use something to transfer money as needed. We use TransferWise to do this. Our Credit Union doesn't have interbank transfers per see and they must be arranged using secure messaging it takes a long time plus they must get permission to make transfers from the US government and it is expensive. TransferWise bypasses this issue somehow and is much less expensive. It is also immediate. Be aware that overseas banks frequently refuse to have any US citizens for customers as it mandates they do detailed reporting to both the USA IRS and FBI. As it is, we have to go in person once a year to the bank to sign a declaration we understand our privacy is not covered because of these rules and that all banking is reported to the US government. The US is very aggressive to overseas retirees and you must be very careful to do all required and somewhat onerous reports annually. The fine can be 50% of all your assets including property plus surrendering your passport for non-compliance. Back in the day, every embassy had one SSA person in residence but that is no longer the case. There is now one single person at the US Consulate in Krakow, Poland who is overwhelmed thus why you must do all SSA dealings over the phone in Baltimore assuming someone answers the phone (meaning long hours on hold and/or many days to get through to anyone. The Krakow lady never answers the phone and is inundated with work as she handles all US citizens in Europe. I did speak with her once probably by accident. The embassy is no help at all and has the same problems. When I called she was 18 months behind on applications for benefits. We ended up flying to the US and filed our retirements in Northern Virginia. I had to renew my driver's license anyway (required an eye exam in person). However, this was during the time when the US government was shut down. We were lucky as the woman in the office who was under orders to not help anyone (amazingly true despite us having an appointment) was also retired military and took pity on us given our situation. We were alone in the office at the time and she was the only one there. My point is dealing with the US government while living overseas is at best difficult and at the worst dangerous. Also, be aware that Hungary is under economic and diplomatic attack from the US for causing difficulties with sanctions against Russia and has always been seen as an ally of Russia by the US. Those of us Americans who choose to live here are under a higher level of suspicion and scrutiny.

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jokedvu
  6/11/2022 13:06 EST

Hello and thanks a lot for the great info !!

BudapestLiving
  6/14/2022 07:44 EST

Wow, I have had none of those difficulties and have lived here for over 6 years.

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