How bank charge dormant accounts fee if the account balance is zero?

Bank balances can go below zero...

Better choice would be to move put in $1 and remove it again. Do it quarterly or something.

Then go into the branch and close it after the virus is done.

mouseswimming wrote: ↑ I have a bank account which I do not use it. the balance is 0.
I cannot close it online by myself. Also I do not want call them since the waiting time is so long.
Can I leave it as is, and it will be auto close by bank? or I have to do something?

A balance of $0 will keep you from withdrawing any money or writing a cheque (if you don't have overdraft protection) but it doesn't stop the bank from charging a fee.

Think of it like this. You have an account which charges a monthly fee of $5/month for a certain amount of transactions per month. You use the account and then decide to leave the balance as $0.00. At the day of the month where $5 is deducted, the bank will just charge you the $5 so your balance becomes ($5.00) or -$5.00 and then will probably charge you interest. It is the same with any fees that the bank will charge your account even if it becomes negative. It depends on the fee but if let's say the fee is for their safety deposit box rental, they might not let the balance of the account go in the negative territory and just cut/open your safety deposit box and charge you any fees to open the lock. This will depend on how the people at the bank feel and what the contract for your safety deposit box says.

The bank has no problem with charging your account even if you don't have the money in the account.

If it is an online only bank and you need to call them to close it as opposed to visit them to close it, I would just transfer money into it and then transfer it out at a regular interval to maintain activity in the account as long as you aren't paying for every withdrawal transaction you do on the account.

Generally the bank will charge a dormant account fee to a $0 account and put it into negative balance. But they don't pursue it, and just write it off in the end. As well they should, because this is a silly, unjustified fee that they should be ashamed of.

Jucius Maximus wrote: ↑ Better choice would be to move put in $1 and remove it again. Do it quarterly or something.

Quarterly is overkill unless it's Koho. Most online banks have inactivity fees, but they don't kick in till you go one or two years without any transactions. I set my phone to remind me every 51 weeks to do a transaction in each of my dormant accounts.