How to send money from the US to El Salvador

El Salvador has used the US dollar as legal tender since 2001, at a fixed rate of 8.75 colones per dollar, so a remittance from the US arrives as dollars with no conversion at all. Families received US$9,987.91 million in 2025, 17.8% more than in 2024, according to the Banco Central de Reserva (BCR), and the World Bank puts the inflow at more than a quarter of the economy. With no exchange rate to hide a margin, the price of a transfer is almost entirely its fee, which changes how quotes should be compared. This page prices transfers on that basis, compares cash, deposits and bitcoin wallets, and covers the rules and the calendar on both sides. The money transfer guide explains international transfers in general.

What does a transfer to El Salvador cost when there is no exchange rate?

The fee is the cost: World Bank averages for the third quarter of 2025 show $6.99 to send $200, or 3.50%, and $9.33 to send $500, or 1.87%.

The survey records an exchange-rate margin of zero at both amounts, because dollars go in and dollars come out.

That makes El Salvador the easiest route in the region to compare. On a peso, quetzal or lempira transfer, a low fee can hide a weak exchange rate, as the guide to exchange-rate markups explains; here the amount your relative receives is simply the amount you send, and the only questions are the fee, how you pay and how the money is collected. The table puts the four routes covered in these guides side by side.

Because fees are flat, the cost as a percentage falls quickly with size: a $500 transfer costs only a third more than a $200 one on these averages. Batching smaller payments into one larger transfer is the main lever you control, and the guide to the cheapest way to send money abroad compares funding methods in more detail. Two less obvious costs are worth checking: some card issuers treat a remittance paid by credit card as a cash advance, with its own fee and interest, and cash funding adds the federal tax described below.

Cash at the counter, a bank account or a bitcoin wallet?

Most of the money is collected in cash: BCR figures show 59.0% of remittances from January to September 2026 were paid at a counter and 36.3% credited to accounts.

Counter payouts, worth US$4,494.6 million over those nine months, happen at bank branches and at agents such as pharmacies and convenience-store chains. The recipient brings the reference number and a DUI, the national identity document, or a passport. Account credits came to US$2,768.0 million and land in a savings or checking account in dollars, so there is nothing to convert and nothing to collect in person.

When the paying bank is not your relative's bank, the money can move on through Transfer365, the BCR's instant payment system, which has run 24 hours a day, every day of the year, since June 2021. It connects 28 financial institutions, charges users nothing, and has no cap beyond the balance in the account. Since June 2022, Transfer365 Móvil has also let people pay to a mobile number linked to an account, and the system connects with the rest of Central America.

Bitcoin wallets remain a niche. Remittances into cryptocurrency wallets came to US$51.75 million from January to September 2026, 0.68% of the total, which is already close to the US$57.67 million for all of 2025, itself down 32.5% on 2024. About 3.9% of remittances arrive in travellers' pockets, a figure the BCR estimates from surveys in the US.

What has changed since the 2025 bitcoin law reform?

Since April 30, 2025, nobody in El Salvador has to accept bitcoin, so a family paid in bitcoin must find its own way back to dollars.

Decree 199, published in the Diario Oficial on January 30, 2025 and in force 90 days later, rewrote the 2021 Bitcoin Law. Acceptance became voluntary, and only private individuals and wholly private companies may accept bitcoin at all. The reform repealed the articles that let taxes be paid in bitcoin and obliged the state to provide automatic, instant conversion to dollars, and it requires the state's own debts to be paid in the currency in which they were contracted. The amended law still calls bitcoin legal tender, but in practice it is now an optional asset rather than money everyone must take.

For remittances, three things follow. A relative who receives bitcoin carries the price risk until they sell, and pays a spread to do so. A shop or landlord can refuse it. And a payment sent to the wrong wallet address cannot be reversed, because there is no bank to call. Families who already use a wallet can keep doing so, but for most, dollars in an account or at a counter are simpler; the guide to sending money with stablecoins covers crypto routes in general.

Details to collect from a recipient in El Salvador

A deposit needs the account details below, while a counter payout needs the name, the DUI number and the reference.

Since the Finance Ministry replaced the separate tax number with the DUI, an adult Salvadoran's DUI also serves as their NIT, so a form asking for a tax number can take the DUI. The 28-character IBAN combines a four-letter bank code with a 20-digit account number, and the guide to IBAN numbers explains the check digits. Copy the name exactly as the DUI shows it, including both surnames, because counter staff compare the two, and the financial intelligence unit lists remittances credited to an account in a different name among its warning signs.

Reporting and tax rules in El Salvador

El Salvador does not tax remittances. A March 2024 reform of the income tax law added a provision stating that money received from abroad, for any reason, is not income for tax purposes, and lawmakers named remittances among the flows it covers.

Reporting happens without the recipient's involvement. Financial institutions send the Unidad de Investigación Financiera (UIF), the financial intelligence unit, a monthly report on every family remittance of US$200 or more and on electronic transfers of US$1,000 or more. Cash transactions above US$10,000, in a single operation or added up over a month, are reported within five business days. The UIF says account holders do not file anything themselves, because their bank reports on their behalf.

The UIF's guidance to banks also lists patterns that can hold up a payout: remittances from many senders with no apparent family link, pickups split across agencies to stay under limits, deposits into an account in someone else's name, and expired or hard-to-verify ID. A family that sends to one person, in that person's name, with a current DUI, stays clear of all of them.

What do US rules add?

A 1% federal tax on cash-funded transfers, plus federal rights to cancel a transfer or dispute an error.

Since January 1, 2026, the remittance tax has been 1% of the amount sent, on transfers paid with cash, a money order, a cashier's check or a similar physical instrument. Transfers funded from a bank or other financial-institution account, or with a US-issued debit or credit card are not taxed, so funding from a bank account or card is the easy way around it. The proposed regulations are not final yet, and the remittance transfer tax guide follows the details. On a route with no exchange margin, the tax can rival the fee: on a $300 transfer it adds $3.00.

Your provider must still disclose the fee and the amount to be received before you pay, and federal rules let you cancel within 30 minutes after paying, for a full refund and report an error within 180 days from the date the receipt said the money would be available; remittance transfer rights explains both.

When should you send money to El Salvador?

Any day works for a deposit, since Transfer365 never closes, but plan cash pickups around the holidays and the December and May peaks.

Branches and agents close on the holidays in the Labor Code, listed below, and every town outside the capital also has a holiday for its main patron saint's festival.

December 2025 was the biggest month on record, at US$961.12 million, 18.0% above November. In 2026, May was the strongest month through September, at US$923.05 million, up 8.5% on April; May is the month of Mother's Day. Sending a few days early around both dates leaves time to sort out an ID problem at the counter, and how long international transfers take compares delivery times on other routes.

Scams and mistakes to avoid

Callers posing as US immigration officers target Salvadoran families as they do others, threatening deportation unless a fine or bond is paid at once. The FTC says ICE and USCIS never accept gift cards, cryptocurrency or wire transfers, and never call out of the blue to demand money. Hang up and check with the agency through its official website.

Crypto adds its own traps. Be wary of anyone who asks for a remittance to be sent to a wallet address, especially in the middle of an emergency call, because a wallet payment cannot be recalled once it is confirmed. Promises of guaranteed bitcoin profits from someone met online are a classic investment scam.

At the Salvadoran end, the main mistake is lending a name. Collecting remittances for someone else, or letting another person use your account to receive them, matches the warning signs the UIF asks banks to watch for and is how money mules are recruited. Keep pickup reference numbers private, and read money transfer scams for other common patterns.

How dependent is El Salvador on remittances?

Heavily: the World Bank puts 2025 inflows at about US$10.1 billion, roughly 27.5% of GDP, a share only Honduras exceeds among the four routes compared above.

On the BCR's figures, remittances reached US$9,987.91 million in 2025, up 17.8%, and US$7,619.92 million from January to September 2026, 3.5% more than in the same months of 2025. Monthly inflows have stayed between about US$760 million and US$925 million all year, with January the lowest and May the highest.

The guides to sending money to Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico cover the neighbouring routes, where a currency conversion adds an exchange-rate margin to the fee.