A wire's price is spread across several banks, and only one of them sends you a bill. This guide separates each charge, shows what US banks list in their 2026 fee schedules, explains how the OUR, SHA and BEN options assign the fees, and follows a $5,000 wire from the first dollar to the last cent.
What fees come with an international wire transfer?
Up to four charges can apply, and usually only the first appears as a separate charge; the others come out of the payment or are built into the rate.
| Layer | Who charges it | How it's collected | What a US consumer disclosure must show |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sending fee | Your bank | Added to what you pay | The exact fee |
| Intermediary fees | Correspondent banks on the route | Deducted from the payment, unless the wire is sent with OUR | The amount, as Other fees, exact or estimated |
| Conversion markup | Whichever bank converts the currency | Built into the exchange rate | The rate, if the money is to arrive in another currency |
| Receiving fee | The recipient's bank | Deducted before the money is credited | Only a warning that the recipient may get less |
The disclosure column comes from the CFPB's Remittance Rule, which covers wires that consumers send abroad for personal, family or household purposes. Business payments fall outside it. So do wires from a bank or credit union that sent 500 or fewer remittance transfers in the previous calendar year and sends no more than that in the current one.
Under the rule, the charges that intermediary banks deduct, which the CFPB notes are sometimes called lifting fees, are covered third-party fees, so your disclosure has to include them and show the recipient's amount after them. A fee the recipient's bank charges for receiving money into an account is a non-covered fee, unless that bank acts as your provider's agent, which is why the disclosure only has to warn you about it.
How much do US banks charge for international wires?
In nine US bank fee schedules from 2026, sending an international wire in dollars cost $30 to $65, and most of the large banks charged $40 to $50.
| Fee | Range across the nine schedules | Pattern |
|---|---|---|
| Sending a wire in US dollars | $30 to $65 | Three banks charge $10 less when the wire is sent online |
| Sending a wire in foreign currency | $0 to $5 at four large banks | One smaller bank adds a $30 currency fee to its $45 wire fee |
| Receiving an international wire | $0 to $25 | $15 at five of the nine banks |
One schedule also lists a $25 charge to investigate a wire after it has gone.
A flat fee weighs most on small sums. A $45 sending fee is 9% of a $500 wire, 0.9% of $5,000 and 0.09% of $50,000, so wires suit large, occasional payments better than regular family support.
The low foreign-currency fees have a catch. The banks that charge them set the exchange rate, so their earnings move from the fee into the rate, and fee schedules say little about the margin. One schedule says the bank's rate includes a markup and that customers may get different rates; another says the bank may add up to 3% to the rate it selects. Exchange rate markups shows how to measure that margin in any quote.
If you are the one being paid, our guide to receiving money from abroad in the US explains incoming fees, the details a sender needs and when your bank must release the money.
How do intermediary banks take a cut?
Unless your bank and the recipient's bank hold accounts with each other, correspondent banks carry the wire between them, and each one in the chain may deduct a fee.
The CFPB's 2020 rule describes two ways these chains work. In the serial method, the payment instruction and the money move together from bank to bank, one step at a time, and by market practice each intermediary typically deducts a fee from the amount. In the cover method, the payment details go straight to the recipient's bank while the money settles separately through correspondents, which typically do not deduct fees. Your bank's network decides the route, not you, and each extra bank can add time as well as cost; how long international transfers take covers the delays.
Because of the disclosure rule above, the receipt for a consumer wire should already reflect these deductions. A bank or credit union may estimate them only if it sent 500 or fewer remittance transfers to that recipient's bank in the previous year and can't determine the exact fees. The estimate must then be based on its most recent transfer to that bank or on a representative route.
What do OUR, SHA and BEN mean on a wire?
They are charge codes set when a wire is sent, and they decide who pays the sending, intermediary and receiving fees.
| Code | ISO 20022 code | Sending bank's fee | Intermediary fees | Receiving bank's fee | When it's used |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| OUR | DEBT | You | You | You, if the receiving bank bills the sender's bank | An invoice, deposit or tuition bill that must arrive in full |
| SHA | SHAR | You | The recipient | The recipient | The usual default |
| BEN | CRED | The recipient | The recipient | The recipient | Rare; the recipient has agreed to bear every cost |
The three-letter codes come from Swift's older MT message format. Since November 22, 2025, Swift has required cross-border payment instructions to use ISO 20022 messages, in which the same choice is called the charge bearer. The ISO 20022 definitions are simple: under DEBT the debtor bears all charges, under CRED the creditor does, and under SHAR each side pays the charges on its own side.
OUR doesn't guarantee that the full amount lands. Some receiving banks still charge their own customer for an incoming wire, and a conversion at the far end still happens at that bank's rate. When the exact amount matters, ask the recipient's bank how it treats OUR payments and consider sending in the recipient's currency. Not every bank offers all three codes, and some charge extra for OUR, so ask before you send.
Who converts the currency, and what does it cost?
Whichever bank converts sets the rate, and on a wire of several thousand dollars its markup is often the largest single cost.
- You send foreign currency. Your bank converts before sending and shows the rate and the amount in euros, pesos or rupees on your disclosure. Its wire fee is often lower, as the table above shows, because it earns on the rate.
- You send dollars. The recipient's bank, or a correspondent, converts when the money arrives, at a rate you don't see in advance. If you tell your bank the money will arrive in dollars, or don't know the currency, the CFPB's commentary lets it make every disclosure in dollars, even when the account is in pesos and the money is converted before it's credited.
A US bank or credit union can also give an estimated exchange rate, but only if it sent 1,000 or fewer remittance transfers in the previous year to that country in its local currency and can't determine the exact rate. Either way, check the rate against the mid-market exchange rate on the day you send; the dollar to euro converter shows it for euros.
What does a $5,000 wire cost from start to finish?
In this example, a $5,000 wire to a landlord's euro account costs between $141.16 and $151.16, depending on the charge code and on which bank converts.
Assume a mid-market rate of €0.8957 per dollar, close to the market at the start of November 2026, a $45 fee for a dollar wire, a $5 fee for a euro wire, one intermediary that deducts $20 from dollar wires and a €10 incoming fee at the landlord's bank. The fees sit within the ranges above; the markups are illustrative.
Worked example: $5,000 sent in dollars, with SHA
| Step | Amount |
|---|---|
| You pay, including the $45 sending fee | $5,045.00 |
| An intermediary bank deducts its fee | −$20.00, leaving $4,980.00 |
| The landlord's bank converts at €0.882265, 1.5% below mid-market | €4,393.68 |
| The landlord's bank deducts its receiving fee | −€10.00, leaving €4,383.68 |
| Value of what arrives, at mid-market | $4,894.14 |
| Total cost | $150.86, or 3.02% of $5,000 |
- Sending fee: $45.00
- Intermediary deduction: $20.00
- Conversion markup, 1.5% of $4,980: $74.70
- Receiving fee, €10 at mid-market: $11.16
Switching the same wire to OUR moves the fees onto you but barely changes the total. If your bank charges you the $20 intermediary fee and passes on the €10 receiving fee as $11.16, you pay $5,076.16, the full $5,000 is converted and €4,411.32 arrives, worth $4,925.00. The total cost is $151.16, which is 30 cents more because the extra $20 is now converted at the markup, and the landlord gets €27.64 more.
Worked example: The same $5,000 sent in euros
| Step | Amount |
|---|---|
| Your bank converts at €0.873308, 2.5% below mid-market | €4,366.54 |
| You pay, including a $5 fee for a foreign-currency wire | $5,005.00 |
| Intermediary deduction, assumed none | €0.00 |
| The landlord's bank deducts its receiving fee | −€10.00, leaving €4,356.54 |
| Value of what arrives, at mid-market | $4,863.84 |
| Total cost | $141.16, or 2.82% of $5,000 |
- The markup, 2.5% of $5,000, costs $125.00, 25 times the wire fee
- You pay $40 less up front than for the dollar wire, and the landlord gets €27.14 less
The two wires end up close in total but hide their costs in different places: the dollar wire in fees and deductions, the euro wire in the rate. A transfer service charging an $8 fee and a 0.5% markup, paid out as a local euro transfer, would cost $33.00 on the same $5,000 if the landlord's bank charged nothing to receive it. Those alternatives are compared in finding the cheapest way to send money abroad, with more on SEPA transfers and sending money from the US to Europe.
How can you cut each wire fee?
Each layer has its own lever, and the largest savings usually come from the exchange rate rather than the sending fee.
| Fee | How to reduce it |
|---|---|
| Sending fee | Send online if your bank charges less there, and combine payments into fewer, larger wires |
| Intermediary fees | Ask whether your bank pays the recipient's bank directly, and use OUR when the exact amount must arrive |
| Conversion markup | Compare the bank's rate with mid-market before choosing dollars or the local currency, and get a quote from a transfer service too |
| Receiving fee | Ask the recipient what their bank charges for an incoming wire; a local payment, such as a SEPA transfer in Europe, may avoid it |
| Returned wires | Check the name, account number or IBAN and SWIFT code before sending, since a returned wire can lose money to fees and a second conversion |
To check those details, see what an IBAN contains and how SWIFT codes are built. For moving money between US accounts, including funding a transfer service, an ACH transfer usually costs less than a wire; see ACH vs wire transfers.
Keep the disclosure and the receipt. If the recipient gets less than the disclosure promised, other than through a receiving fee or foreign tax that only had to be flagged, you can report an error within 180 days from the date the receipt said the money would be available. Remittance transfer rights explains what the provider must do next.
Our guide to sending money internationally compares wires with the other ways to pay someone abroad.