How to build US credit as a foreigner from Spain
Before you apply for anything American, request your CIRBE report from the Banco de España. It is free, it is yours by right, and it is the only consolidated record of your borrowing that exists anywhere — because the United States will not be able to see any of it.
For a reference on the U.S. business credit bureaus, see the U.S. business credit bureaus guide.
That is the whole shape of the problem. Spain keeps an unusually complete public record of your credit. It stops at the border.
What CIRBE is, and why it matters that it is public
The Banco de España operates the Central Credit Register — the CCR, known in Spain as CIRBE. It records virtually all loans, credits, endorsements and risks reported to it by financial institutions, for both natural and legal persons.
Note what that is. Not a private bureau selling scores to lenders, but a public register held by the central bank, into which the institutions report. Spain's system is state infrastructure. Germany's consumer system is a private company. That difference is why the entitlement below exists.
Any natural or legal person may request their own CCR details free of charge, and may seek correction of inaccurate or incomplete information.
Do it now, for two reasons. First, you should know exactly what Spanish institutions have reported about you before you start telling a US bank about your operating history. Second, if something in there is wrong, the correction right is yours and it is easier to exercise while you are not mid-application.
One thing CIRBE is not: a private consumer bureau list. No complete official list of Spanish private consumer bureaus is publicly documented. If you see a guide naming Spain's "credit bureaus" with confidence, it is going beyond anything that has been substantiated. And an old figure circulates — a €9,000 reporting threshold from a 2018 Banco de España customer article — which is not treated here as current law and should not be quoted as one.
What this does to your position in the United States
You arrive with a documented, centrally held, correctable credit record that no US lender can read, and no route by which it could be recognised there has ever been substantiated.
You are not thin-file because your record is thin. You are thin-file because your record has no reader.
The practical consequence: US bureaus need roughly six months of reported activity before a score exists at all, and for that period you will be assessed on documents rather than data. Which is why the documents are the thing to prepare.
Moving money into the US entity
Spain has no exchange controls. Law 19/2003 is the instrument, and there is no restriction on outward investment, no restriction on holding or receiving USD, and standard anti-money-laundering checks on transfers.
There is, however, a declaration regime, and Spain's is more structured than most of its neighbours'. Royal Decree 571/2023 came into force on 1 September 2023; Order ECM/57/2024 and a Directorate-General resolution of 31 January 2024 set out the declaration procedures and forms, including for Spanish investment abroad. The Ministry of Economy publishes the processing route for those declarations.
Read this correctly, because the distinction is the whole point: it is a declaration regime, not an approval requirement. You are telling the state what you did. You are not asking whether you may.
Separately, the Banco de España's ETE system — established by Circular 4/2012 of 25 April — requires designated resident natural and legal persons to report transactions with non-residents and their external assets and liabilities. ETE is external-sector statistics. It is not a payment-approval process and it does not supply your bank's customer-level document checklist.
So: your capital moves, and there is paperwork attached to having moved it. Get the declaration right rather than discovering it eighteen months later.
And to be plain about the structure — a US LLC does not take you outside Spanish rules. Your transfer out of your Spanish account is a Spanish transaction. Anyone marketing a US entity to you as a way around that is describing something we refuse to do and you should refuse to buy.
Where you stand with Spanish tax
The Agencia Tributaria states that Spanish tax residents pay IRPF on worldwide income, and lists the residence conditions: more than 183 days in Spain, the main base of economic interests in Spain, or a rebuttable presumption based on where your spouse and dependent minor children habitually reside.
That third one catches people. Your family's residence can create a presumption about yours, and it is rebuttable rather than absolute — meaning the burden lands on you.
For companies, the Tax Agency names Law 27/2014 and identifies three bases of corporate residence: formation under Spanish law, a registered office in Spain, or an effective-management headquarters in Spain.
"Effective management headquarters" is the one that matters if you are running a US LLC from Valencia. It is a real risk and a real question, and it is a question for an adviser with the statute open, not for a guide.
The IRS publishes US–Spain treaty material for the 1990 agreement plus the 2013 protocol and a 2014 technical explanation. Treaties allocate taxing rights. They do nothing for your credit file, and no issuer has ever approved anyone because one exists.
Spanish CFC rules: the operative statutory position is not something to take from a guide, so nothing is claimed about them here. Ask properly, with the statute open.
What Spanish founders get wrong
Assuming CIRBE gives them a score they can present. It records risks reported by institutions; it does not produce a consumer score, and it has no readership outside Spain. Its value to you is diagnostic and corrective, before you apply anywhere.
Quoting the €9,000 CIRBE threshold as current law. It comes from a 2018 customer-facing article and should not be treated as a live legal threshold. Check the Banco de España's current material instead.
Reading Royal Decree 571/2023 as permission to seek. It is a declaration framework. The distinction between declaring and requesting authorisation is the difference between an administrative task and a project, and Spanish founders regularly assume the harder of the two.
The practical sequence
Months 1–3. Request your CIRBE report — free, and yours. Get the ITIN if your situation requires one; Form W-7, direct to the IRS. Open a US secured card or credit-builder product that reports to the bureaus, keep the balance low, pay in full. Verify current terms before applying; these products change eligibility and reporting practices frequently.
Months 4–6. Separate business and personal spending. Assemble formation documents, the EIN letter, invoices and statements so you can produce them on request. Make sure your outward-investment declaration under the current regime has actually been filed, and keep the confirmation.
Do not apply widely and hope. A cluster of applications on a new file reads badly and cannot be undone.
Months 7–12. Pull your US reports. Check the surname fields — Spanish two-surname naming is the single most common source of mismatch in US systems, and a split or truncated apellido creates a fragmented file. Fix it now.
On Amex
This guide reaches no conclusion about your Global Transfer eligibility, because the answer depends on which entity issued your particular card.
The test is who issued the card. Global Transfer runs off your relationship with American Express itself; where a local card is issued by a bank under a Global Network Services licence, the relationship belongs to that bank and there is nothing to bring across. Look at your cardholder agreement and find the named issuer.
Knowing American Express issued your card tells you the licensee problem does not disqualify you. It does not tell you Amex will approve the application — that depends on Amex's own programme criteria. Two separate propositions and I am not merging them.
You must also be the primary cardholder, have held the card at least three months, and have the account open and in good standing.
Check before you rely on this: confirm current conditions with Amex directly.
When you don't need us
Request your own CIRBE report. It is free, the right is statutory, and paying an intermediary for it makes no sense.
The ITIN is Form W-7 to the IRS. If your situation is simple, post it yourself.
Where help earns its cost is the US address problem, the effective-management question when you are Spanish-resident and running a US entity, and knowing in advance which providers will accept you.
What we do
Keystone Bridge handles the US side for founders outside the United States — formation, EIN, ITIN, US business banking access, and business credit. Pricing is published on this site.
For the broader picture, see building US credit as a foreigner, LLC vs C-Corp for Spanish founders and opening a US business bank account from Spain.