bunq Together

What is SOFORT?

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Hey bunqers 🌈

SOFORT is an Online Banking ePayment method, not unlike iDEAL. Where iDEAL is reserved for Dutch bank account owners, SOFORT is available for users who have a bank account in other European countries.

Note: SOFORT is no longer available. Instead, all our users now have access to Instant Bank Transfer. You can now instantly top up your account from your account at another bank. Further information can be found here.

In which countries is SOFORT available?

Austria
Belgium
Germany
Netherlands
Spain

When can SOFORT deposits be used?

As an alternative to iDEAL for topping up your balance
To pay bunq.me requests

Small note: The minimum amount of cash you can deposit with SOFORT is €0,10. All transactions that are lower will be refused by SOFORT.

What is the daily limit for SOFORT transfer?

bunq Personal: €250 in total
bunq Business: €500 in total

Because of extra risks involved, bunq.me payments with SOFORT are not instantly transferred to the receiving bunq account. The payment comes in as soon as we receive it from SOFORT with a normal SCT cycle. A SOFORT deposit to top up your own bunq account will be available for you instantly!

Looking to pay with SOFORT in a web shop? Check out this link to see how.

Update: We've blocked SOFORT deposits coming in from Keytrade, KBC (Belgium), HypoVereinsbank (Germany), and Deutsche Bank (Spain) because they were not providing the name of the accountholder with the transfer. Please note some N26 users experience difficulties regularly trying to top up via SOFORT. To avoid unnecessary waiting time, we recommend you to transfer from your N26 to your bunq account using a regular SEPA transfer.

I’m getting a "limit reached" error, but I haven’t reached it. What should I do?

If you've made a Sofort top-up that hasn't been processed yet because we haven’t received the payment from the other bank, you may encounter this type of error. Once the top-up is received and processed, you'll be able to make another one within the limit.

Good to know

If you've a 'pending' Sofort transaction still open, this one also counts towards your daily Sofort limit as it might still get completed
If you receive an error message "Transaction not allowed", the request expires almost immediately. We'd suggest using a different payment method to complete the payment, for example via a regular bank transfer
Not completed attempts to top up with Sofort expire after 30 minutes
We give you the money from the Sofort top-up payments right away and then we receive the money from the other bank later. Once received we reset the Sofort limit. It takes 2 business days for the limit to be reset and only then you can use Sofort to top-up again
All incoming Sofort transactions contribute to the limit
When you create a bunq.me request and the other party settles the request using Sofort, this counts towards your full limit of €250.00 (eg. request for €10 settled with Sofort will allow the user to only top-up with €240.00 or less)
This limit can also result in a request not being payable with Sofort.
eg. You create a Shared Request for €10.00 and send it to a group of friends. You then top-up your account with €250.00 using Sofort. Your friends will get an error when they try to settle the request using Sofort (Sofort not available for this request). If they try again the next day, they'll be able to settle the request using Sofort again.