You might be aware of the fact that you cannot get a German student visa if you do not demonstrate the availability of sufficient funds. And the blocked account is one of the ways of doing that.
If you are thinking of using this option for the proof of funds, you might have asked yourself: Is there any chance to avoid the fees related to the blocked account issue? If that is the case, then you are at the right place!
It is our goal to inform you honestly and accurately, therefore, we need to add disclaimers:
You should use this text as a general guide, but it cannot be a legal consultation. The visa regulations are made and executed by the Federal Foreign Office (Auswärtiges Amt), Federal Ministry of the Interior (BMI), and the local Foreigners’ Offices (Ausländerbehörde). Please be aware: Some rules and procedures can vary from embassy/consulate to embassy/consulate (even within one country), and from Ausländerbehörde to Ausländerbehörde in Germany. That is why we highly recommend you also consult the German representation abroad near you, and the local Foreigners’ Office in Germany (which Ausländerbehörde is responsible for you depends on your residence in Germany) for information that applies to your case.
We do our best to provide you with the most up-to-date information possible. However, for the most up to date information on all sorts of facts and regulations relating to the blocked account providers, you should always check their homepages.
We partner with the following blocked account providers: Fintiba, Care Concept. The relevant links 💰 in this article are so-called affiliate links (you can easily recognize them by the 💰 symbol following). We receive a small commission when someone clicks on the link and makes a purchase. However, this does not result in any additional costs for the customer.
- This article was last updated on 22 February 2024. We cannot guarantee that the discounts are still active, or that other service providers are not running promotions of which we are unaware.
More info about the blocked account
Go to Fintiba 💰💰 = We receive a small commission for Fintiba products sold through this link. However, this does not result in any additional costs for the customer.
Does a Free German Blocked Account exist?
First of all, let us start with the following emphasis: having a German Blocked Account is usually not free. In other words, international students who need a blocked account for their German student visa application need to budget a certain amount of money for that purpose. While the blocked amount is fixed, fees and buffer amounts do vary from provider to provider.
As of February 2024, the amount of money that students need to put on their blocked accounts with the aim of proving their finances equals €992 per month, which is €11 904 per year. This is something students cannot avoid (as long as they do not provide the proof of finances through alternative ways). However, what they often can avoid is, for example, paying for opening or maintaining the blocked account. Thus, although there is usually no such thing as a free blocked account in Germany, it is frequently possible to avoid at least one of the basic fees (either a set-up fee or a monthly fee) associated with the blocked account.
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You can also visit the Fintiba website to open your blocked account: 
How to avoid the Blocked Account fees?
So, as we have seen, it is often possible to either open a blocked account for free or maintain it for free. In general, it is not possible to avoid all fees for a blocked account. However, some providers may offer this from time to time.
To find out which fees you can avoid, follow these two steps:
1
Inform yourself about the existing German blocked account providers.
2
Check out (regularly) the offer of each provider.
Regarding the second point, you may ask yourself: "Why should I check the offers regularly? The answer is simple: from time to time, some providers have special offers that allow you, for example, to avoid some (or all) of the fees associated with a blocked account.
For example, Fintiba 💰, the market leader as far as the German blocked account is concerned, frequently offers students to open a blocked account for free. For instance, in spring-summer 2023, Fintiba offered a free set-up option twice: in May and August, students could save up to €184 by opening the Fintiba blocked account for free.
To learn more about Fintiba, click here.
Free Option 1: Blocked Account with no opening fees
It is worth noting that Fintiba is not the only blocked account provider to offer (from time to time) the possibility of opening a free blocked account. Expatrio and Kotak Mahindra, for example, are other providers that also offer this option to their customers. Table 1 shows the usual fees charged by these providers.
| Country | Availability | Type of service | Banking Model | European Deposit Protection | Set up fee | Monthly fee | |
| Fintiba | 🇩🇪 | 🌎* | Online | German Partner Bank | ✅ (Germany) | 159 EUR💰 | 9.90 EUR💰 |
| Expatrio | 🇩🇪 | 🌎* incl. USA | Online | Italian partner bank with German branch | ✅ (Germany) | 119 EUR | 9 EUR |
| Kotak Mahindra | 🇮🇳 | Only India | Online | Own British bank with German branch | ✅ (Germany) | 0 EUR | ** |
* There may be exceptions for individual countries (e.g. high-risk countries).
** Kotak Mahindra charges a fee per transaction.
The sorting within the list comes from the following criteria (in the order mentioned):
- banking model
- Direct Bank integration (with German banks vs. other European banks vs. Non-European banks)
- Escrow Model (Payment Service Provider vs. Personal Model)
- availability (worldwide vs. only specific countries)
- total number of customers
- and provider name (A-Z).
The sorting criteria are explained and justified in more detail below:
1) Banking model (direct banking integration vs. escrow model): In the direct banking model, the blocked account is opened in the customer's name at a bank without anyone else in between - whereas, in the escrow model, the account is opened in the name of a third party (the so-called trustee). The direct banking model is, therefore, much easier for customers to understand than the escrow model because fewer parties are involved. The protection mechanism is also easier to understand: in the case of a direct banking model, the deposit guarantee takes effect, while in the escrow model (as in the case of the French deposit guarantee) two different mechanisms come into play depending on the scenario: in the event of the trustee's insolvency, ringfencing (segregated accounts) takes effect and only in the event of the bank's insolvency does the deposit guarantee take effect. The fact that both models are very secure is unaffected by this.
The direct banking model fully complies with the General Administrative Regulation on the Residence Act of October 26, 2009 by the Federal Ministry of the Interior (BMI) since the account is set up in the name of the student and at a financial institution which is permitted to carry out banking services in the federal German territory. In the escrow model, where the account is set up in the name of a trustee and not in the name of a student and opened with a payment-service-provider instead of a financial institution which is permitted to carry out banking services in the federal German territory, does not strictly comply with this requirement - but is also accepted in most of the cases.
The sorting within providers with a direct banking model is as follows:
We list providers that have a partner bank with a European banking license before providers with a partner bank that does not fall under European regulation. This is due to the fact that banks in Europe are subject to a harmonized deposit protection scheme (100,000 euros). Non-European banks that do NOT have a banking license for Germany (e.g. Kotak Mahindra) are listed only after the escrow models - since they do not comply with the General Administrative Regulation on the Residence Act of October 26, 2009.
2) Availability (worldwide vs. only in a certain country): We list providers who generally offer their blocked accounts worldwide (although individual countries may be excluded) before those providers who are only available for certain countries.
3) Number of customers: We sort providers with the same direct banking or escrow model according to their total number of customers (i.e. total blocked accounts opened since their foundation) published on their website. Providers who do not publish any information on this are ranked behind those who provide figures.
4) Name of the provider (A-Z): In the case of equality in the above criteria, providers are sorted alphabetically.
Free Option 2: Blocked Account with no monthly fees
If, for some reason, it is not possible for you to avoid the opening fees, you might still be able to bypass the monthly fees. This is doable if, for example, you go for those blocked account providers that do not charge regular monthly fees. That could be, for instance, ICICI and Coracle [both providers have temporarily suspended their services (no new blocked accounts offered)]. Table 2 demonstrates the standard fees that these providers charge their clients.
| Country | Availability | Type of service | Banking Model | European Deposit Protection | Set up fee | Monthly fee | |
| Coracle [temporarily no new accounts] | 🇩🇪 | 🌎* | Online | Escrow model with payment service provider in France | ✅ (France) | 99 EUR | 0 EUR |
| ICICI [temporarily no new accounts] | 🇮🇳 | Only India | Online | Own British bank with German branch | ✅ (Germany) | 150 EUR | 0 EUR |
* There may be exceptions for individual countries (e.g. high-risk countries).
The sorting within the list comes from the following criteria (in the order mentioned):
- banking model
- Direct Bank integration (with German banks vs. other European banks vs. Non-European banks)
- Escrow Model (Payment Service Provider vs. Personal Model)
- availability (worldwide vs. only specific countries)
- total number of customers
- and provider name (A-Z).
The sorting criteria are explained and justified in more detail below:
1) Banking model (direct banking integration vs. escrow model): In the direct banking model, the blocked account is opened in the customer's name at a bank without anyone else in between - whereas, in the escrow model, the account is opened in the name of a third party (the so-called trustee). The direct banking model is, therefore, much easier for customers to understand than the escrow model because fewer parties are involved. The protection mechanism is also easier to understand: in the case of a direct banking model, the deposit guarantee takes effect, while in the escrow model (as in the case of the French deposit guarantee) two different mechanisms come into play depending on the scenario: in the event of the trustee's insolvency, ringfencing (segregated accounts) takes effect and only in the event of the bank's insolvency does the deposit guarantee take effect. The fact that both models are very secure is unaffected by this.
The direct banking model fully complies with the General Administrative Regulation on the Residence Act of October 26, 2009 by the Federal Ministry of the Interior (BMI) since the account is set up in the name of the student and at a financial institution which is permitted to carry out banking services in the federal German territory. In the escrow model, where the account is set up in the name of a trustee and not in the name of a student and opened with a payment-service-provider instead of a financial institution which is permitted to carry out banking services in the federal German territory, does not strictly comply with this requirement - but is also accepted in most of the cases.
The sorting within providers with a direct banking model is as follows:
We list providers that have a partner bank with a European banking license before providers with a partner bank that does not fall under European regulation. This is due to the fact that banks in Europe are subject to a harmonized deposit protection scheme (100,000 euros). Non-European banks that do NOT have a banking license for Germany (e.g. Kotak Mahindra) are listed only after the escrow models - since they do not comply with the General Administrative Regulation on the Residence Act of October 26, 2009.
2) Availability (worldwide vs. only in a certain country): We list providers who generally offer their blocked accounts worldwide (although individual countries may be excluded) before those providers who are only available for certain countries.
3) Number of customers: We sort providers with the same direct banking or escrow model according to their total number of customers (i.e. total blocked accounts opened since their foundation) published on their website. Providers who do not publish any information on this are ranked behind those who provide figures.
4) Name of the provider (A-Z): In the case of equality in the above criteria, providers are sorted alphabetically.
Providers that are still active but currently do not accept new customers are listed at the end of the list.
Free Option 3: Blocked Account with no opening and no monthly fees
As mentioned above, in fairly rare cases, the providers of blocked accounts may also have a special offer that allows students to avoid both the set-up and monthly fees. This was the case with Expatrio in July-October 2023.
Blocked Account Fees as just one of the criteria
Do not overestimate the importance of fees!
In general, the difference in fees between providers is not significant. Therefore, it should not be the sole deciding factor when choosing a provider of a blocked account. The total amount of money involved in this process is quite significant, so it's important to take your time and find answers to questions such as
- Am I eligible to open a blocked account with the given Blocked Account provider? For example, not all of the providers offer a service for minors. Also, some providers cannot offer a service to students from particular countries, while others may be just for students from specific countries.
- Which blocked account provider promises more safety for my money? Here, inspect the banking model and check for deposit protection.
- How reliable is the blocked account provider? How experienced is it? For instance, pay attention to the number of students who have already opened an account with the provider. Also, for example, check the recent reviews on Trustpilot and Google.
- How easy is it to open a blocked account with the given Blocked Account provider? Research what are the documents that the provider requires (aka assess the level of bureaucracy), and how quickly you can open an account and receive the blocking confirmation.
Once you have answered these questions, you can combine the information you have gained with the details on pricing and you will be able to make an informed decision and choose the right provider based on your preferences.
To find answers to these and other important questions, check out this article, which will help you to choose the right provider for you.
Summary Box
Usually a blocked account is not available for free. However, students can often make good use of offers to bypass blocked account opening or monthly fees. In addition, although it is less common, blocked account providers may also have a special offer for a free blocked account with no set up or monthly fees.
And remember, be careful when choosing a blocked account provider. Consider not only the fees, but also some other key aspects to make sure you make the right decision that fits your priorities.
