What are the 3 cheapest methods to send money abroad from the USA?
There are many ways of sending money to other countries when you live in the US. If you have to do this regularly, it is best to find the cheapest method.
The United States is home to the largest immigrant population in the world, and many of them retain ties to their home countries. Often, this involves sending money to their loved ones abroad.
If this is done regularly, the process could rack up costs due to transfer fees and conversion rates of currencies. Your hard-earned can easily lose its value when it crosses borders. When wiring an amount through a bank, for example, it could could cost you up to 12% of the money you are transferring. It is therefore prudent to scout around for the cheapest way to send dollars to family or friends in another country.
What are the 3 cheapest methods to send money abroad from the USA?
Wise
Wise (formerly Transferwise) allows transfers from the US to around 70 countries using more than 50 currencies. It’s a borderless bank account that offers some of the best exchange rates in the market. Wise has low upfront fees when going through bank accounts to make the transfer, usually less that one percent of the amount you are sending. You can convert currency across balances, making it easier to send and receive exact amounts from one currency to another. The person you are sending money to must have a bank account in order to receive the transfer.
OFX
This foreign exchange broker specializes in big money transfers, with the minimum amount set at $1,000. It’s free to set up an account, and the company is clear about the structure of the fees it charges. OFX doesn’t charge transfer fees no matter what the size of the transfer, which is available from the US to over 170 countries. However, it does mark up its exchange rate, usually by less than one percent. The money must be sent from one bank account to another.
WorldRemit
With WorldRemit, you can send money with a 1% to 2.5% transfer rate. You can make transfers to Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America, and the service is sometimes the cheapest way to do it when you are wiring amounts to countries in this region. You can use WorldRemit to transfer money to more than 130 countries, with highly competitive rates.