How Much Does It Cost to Send Money Internationally?
Understanding what you're actually paying — and how to pay less.
Key Numbers
The True Cost of an International Transfer
When you send money abroad, there are typically two cost components — and most people only see one of them:
- 1 Service fee: The flat fee or percentage charged upfront. This is what most people see when comparing services. A five-dollar fee on a typical transfer equals 2.5%.
- 2 Exchange rate margin: The gap between the real mid-market rate and what you actually get. This is often hidden and can add 2-8% to your total cost. Banks are notorious for inflating this margin.
The World Bank measures total cost as a percentage of a $200 transfer, combining both components. This methodology — used across all 322 corridors on PlainRemit — gives you a true apples-to-apples comparison.
Cost by Transfer Method
| Transfer Method | Typical Cost |
|---|---|
| Bank wire transfer | 10-12% |
| Cash transfer operator (WU, MG) | 5-10% |
| Fintech (Wise, Remitly) | 1-5% |
| Crypto / stablecoins | <1% |
Why Costs Vary So Much by Corridor
A transfer of the same amount can cost 1% in one corridor and 15% in another. Key factors include:
- Competition: Major corridors (US→Mexico, US→Philippines) have dozens of providers competing, driving prices down. Niche corridors may have only 2-3 options.
- Banking infrastructure: Countries with robust mobile money systems (like Kenya's M-Pesa) enable cheaper delivery. Countries with limited banking require expensive cash networks.
- Regulatory costs: Anti-money laundering compliance, licensing fees, and capital requirements add overhead — especially for smaller corridors.
- Volume: High-volume corridors attract investment from fintechs. Low-volume corridors don't justify the infrastructure cost.
- Currency liquidity: Less-traded currency pairs have wider bid-ask spreads, adding to the exchange rate margin.
The Most Expensive Corridors
Sub-Saharan Africa consistently has the world's most expensive remittance corridors, with some exceeding 20% of the transfer amount. Corridors to Pacific Island nations are similarly high-cost. The most expensive corridors ranking shows exactly which corridors carry the heaviest burden on senders.
How to Send Money More Cheaply
- 1. Always compare total cost, not just the service fee. A provider with zero fees might offer a terrible exchange rate that costs more overall.
- 2. Use dedicated money transfer services. Wise, Remitly, WorldRemit, and Sendwave almost always beat banks on total cost.
- 3. Send larger amounts less frequently. Flat fees become a smaller percentage on larger transfers.
- 4. Check for promotions. Transfer services frequently offer zero-fee first transfers or loyalty bonuses.
- 5. Use our corridor pages. The corridor comparison tool shows the cheapest available option for your specific country pair.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the average cost to send money internationally?
The global average cost to send $200 internationally is approximately 6.4% of the transfer amount, according to the World Bank Remittance Prices Worldwide database. This means sending $200 costs about $12.80 on average. Costs range from under 1% (cheapest fintechs) to over 15% (some cash operators on niche corridors).
How do banks compare to money transfer apps?
Banks typically charge 10-12% total cost (including service fees and exchange rate margin), while dedicated money transfer apps like Wise, Remitly, and WorldRemit charge 1-5% depending on the corridor. Using a fintech instead of your bank can save 50-80% on transfer costs.
What is the UN SDG target for remittance costs?
The UN Sustainable Development Goal 10.c aims to reduce global remittance transaction costs to under 3% of the amount sent by 2030. The current global average of 6.4% means we're still more than twice the target. Some corridors — particularly fintech-dominated ones — already meet the 3% target.
Understanding the Data
The information presented throughout this guide is informed by publicly available public records published by federal and state government agencies. Our database aggregates and standardizes these records to make them more accessible and easier to interpret for general audiences. When we reference specific statistics or trends, they are drawn directly from these authoritative sources unless explicitly noted otherwise.
It is important to understand the limitations of any large-scale data dataset. Records may contain errors from the original data collection process, some fields may be incomplete for older entries, and classification systems may have changed over time. Our analysis accounts for these factors by clearly labeling data vintage, flagging records with missing critical fields, and noting when temporal comparisons span methodology changes in the source data.
For readers who want to conduct their own research, we recommend going directly to the source whenever possible. federal and state government agencies provides detailed documentation on collection methodology, sampling frames, and known data quality issues. Our goal is not to replace primary sources but to make them more approachable and to highlight patterns that may not be immediately obvious when browsing raw records.
How We Analyze Data Records
Our analytical approach involves several steps designed to surface meaningful insights from large datasets. First, we clean and standardize the raw data, handling variations in naming conventions, date formats, and categorical labels. Then we compute summary statistics, distributions, and comparative benchmarks across relevant dimensions such as geography, time period, and category type.
Key metrics we examine include statistical records, geographic distributions, temporal trends. These indicators provide a multi-dimensional view of each entity in our database, allowing users to understand not just individual records but how they compare to peers, regional averages, and national benchmarks. We believe this contextual approach is far more valuable than presenting raw numbers in isolation.
