US citizen turned away by two Bulgarian banks over FATCA — do any banks actually accept Americans?

This is FATCA fatigue, not anything about you. US law obliges any bank serving US persons to report their accounts to the IRS, and some smaller Bulgarian banks decided the compliance machinery is not worth it — so they blanket-refuse Americans. The good news: the large banks have the machinery and take US customers routinely. Where to aim: UniCredit Bulbank, DSK and Postbank all onboard US persons as standard practice; OBB generally does too. Even there, expect the process to be slower than for other nationalities because your file goes through a compliance review. What smooths it: bring your residence permit and passport, a completed IRS Form W-9 (have it printed and filled in — offering it proactively signals you know the drill and saves a week of back-and-forth), proof of address, and your marriage certificate as evidence of ties to Bulgaria. Answer the source-of-funds questions concretely. As with everything in Bulgarian banking, the branch matters: large central branches see American customers weekly; a small-town branch may never have processed a W-9. Do not settle for using your wife's account — you need your own for residence renewals, taxes and basic financial independence, and informal arrangements create their own problems. One separate obligation people discover late: once your foreign (non-US) accounts exceed 10,000 dollars in aggregate at any moment in the year, you must file the FBAR with FinCEN, and possibly Form 8938 with your tax return. Not a tax, just reporting — but penalties for ignoring it are outsized. Bank-by-bank notes for foreigners are in /guides/opening-bank-account-bulgaria.