How to send money from the US to Honduras

Few economies lean on money from abroad as heavily as Honduras. The Banco Central de Honduras (BCH) counted US$12,212 million in family remittances in 2025, 25.3% more than in 2024, and almost all of it was sent from the US. Families can take the money in lempiras or, if they hold a dollar account, in dollars, and that choice shapes what a transfer really costs. This page covers prices and how providers build them, the ways to collect, the details to gather, the rules at both ends and the dates when money slows down. For international transfers in general, start with the money transfer guide.

What does it cost to send dollars to Honduras?

On World Bank averages for the third quarter of 2025, sending $200 cost $7.97, or 3.99%, and sending $500 cost $13.19, or 2.64%.

Most of that is the fee, $6.36 and $9.33 on average, with an exchange-rate margin of about 0.8% on top.

Providers build a price from two parts. The fee is a flat dollar charge that can change with how you pay and how the money is collected. The margin is the gap between the rate you are given and the reference rate, a percentage that grows with the amount. In the World Bank's August 2025 sample, services paying out dollars applied a rate of exactly 1.00, so their cost was the fee alone, while lempira payouts carried margins of up to about 1.8%. Total costs for $200 ranged from 1.50% to 7.65% across services with transparent prices, a spread of several dollars on every transfer.

The table shows lempira amounts at the current reference rate and at two margins. The BCH sets its own reference rate, the TCR, through a daily currency auction; on October 30, 2026, it stood at L26.9107 for buying dollars.

The guide to exchange-rate markups shows how to read a margin, and the mid-market exchange rate guide explains the reference behind it.

Lempiras or dollars: which should your family receive?

Lempiras are the simpler option, but a relative with a dollar account can receive dollars with no exchange margin at all, and convert later at a bank.

The BCH's 2026 foreign-exchange regulation lets a remittance be paid in dollars or lempiras according to the amount in the sender's original contract, and sets one condition: a beneficiary who wants dollars must receive them as a credit to a dollar deposit account in their own name. A relative without one receives lempiras. The same regulation makes the day's TCR the price at which foreign-exchange agents buy dollars, so a family that converts later at a bank gets the reference rate rather than a remittance company's rate.

Timing matters too. The World Bank's August 2025 survey used reference rates of about L26.2 per dollar, while the TCR was L26.91 at the end of October 2026, so dollars held over that period bought more lempiras. Lempiras remain the practical choice when the money is spent at once on rent, food or school costs, or when your relative collects cash.

Ways to collect: bank deposit, cash pickup or an electronic wallet

Cash pickup works through bank branches and agents such as pharmacies and convenience-store chains, which pay out lempiras against the reference number and the recipient's DNI, the national identity document.

A bank deposit goes into a lempira or dollar account. When the paying bank and the recipient's bank differ, the money can travel through ACH Pronto, the interbank transfer system regulated by the BCH, which credits the recipient immediately. The receiving bank must accept or reject each transfer within 30 minutes, or the system cancels it and returns the funds. Clearing runs in two cycles, from 8:31 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and from 5:01 p.m. to 8:30 a.m., and transfers confirmed after the second cycle roll into the first cycle of the next business day. In 2025 the BCH, 15 commercial banks and a state bank took part directly, with 18 savings and credit cooperatives and one e-money institution connected through them.

Electronic wallets are a newer option. Under the BCH's 2024 e-money regulation, an authorised e-money institution may credit an international remittance to a wallet, acting as the payment agent of a remittance company, as long as the wallet has been activated. Separate rules cap wallet balances and transaction amounts, so a large transfer may be better suited to a bank account. The guide to mobile money explains how wallets work in general.

Account and ID details for a Honduran payout

Gather these before you send; the account currency matters as much as the number.

The DNI number is built from the department and municipality where a birth was registered, the year of registration and a sequence number, under the civil registry law. A dollar payout can only go to a dollar account in the recipient's name, so ask which currency the account holds before choosing.

Honduras approved a 28-character IBAN in May 2024, made up of HN, two check digits, the first four letters of the bank's SWIFT code and a 20-character account number. Banks and the BCH have agreed to phase it in, with mass adoption planned for June 2028, so for now providers normally ask for the local account number. The guides to IBAN numbers and SWIFT codes explain both formats.

Does Honduras tax remittances or ask questions about them?

No tax applies: Honduras's tax authority treats a family remittance as a donation, and donations are excluded from taxable income under the income tax law.

The SAR, the tax authority, set out that position while explaining a proposed tax justice law: remittances are transfers with no commercial relationship behind them, so they fall outside the income tax even under worldwide taxation.

Questions come instead from anti-money-laundering rules. Banks and remittance companies must record and report cash transactions at or above amounts the BCH sets, and several cash transactions for the same person within a set period count as one. Anyone entering or leaving Honduras with US$10,000 or more in cash or similar instruments must declare it to customs, and a 2017 decree fixed the fine for failing to declare at a third of the undeclared amount.

Rules that apply before the money leaves the US

Washington's remittance tax, in force since January 1, 2026, is 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 fall outside it. On the $500 in the example above, paying in cash would add $5.00, more than the entire exchange margin on the lempira quote. The IRS has proposed but not finalized its regulations, and the remittance transfer tax guide tracks them.

Each transfer also comes with federal consumer protections: the price and the amount to be received must be disclosed before you pay, you may cancel within 30 minutes after paying, for a full refund, and you have 180 days from the date the receipt said the money would be available to report an error; remittance transfer rights has the details.

Regular support for family rarely raises gift tax issues. Gifts to one person above $19,000 per recipient in 2026 require a gift tax return, but tax is owed only once lifetime gifts pass $15,000,000 per person; the guide to gift tax on money sent abroad explains the filing.

Which dates slow transfers to Honduras?

Bank holidays, especially the four-day Semana Morazánica in October, slow deposits and close branches; the heaviest months of 2026 so far were March, June and August.

The 2027 dates follow the rules in force and are usually confirmed by announcement a few weeks ahead. Mother's Day falls on the second Sunday of May under a 1927 decree.

BCH figures show how the year has run. January was the low point, at US$870.7 million, before inflows jumped 29.9% in March to US$1,218.3 million. May rose 5.1% on April to US$1,159.7 million, and August was the highest month so far, at US$1,227.9 million. Sending a few days before a long holiday gives time to fix a name or ID problem, and how long international transfers take compares delivery times across routes.

Scams that follow Honduran families

Fake immigration officers are a familiar threat to senders. They call claiming a problem with your status and demand a fee or a bond at once. The FTC says ICE and USCIS never call out of the blue to demand money and never take gift cards, cryptocurrency or wire transfers. USCIS adds that it never asks anyone to transfer money to an individual or to pay fees by phone or email.

Be careful, too, with social media pages and websites that claim a link to USCIS or offer help with visas or work permits for a fee; real government sites end in .gov. At the Honduran end, keep pickup reference numbers private, and never collect or deposit money for someone outside the family, which is how money mules are recruited. The guide to money transfer scams covers other patterns.

How much do remittances matter to Honduras?

Enormously: World Bank data put 2025 inflows at US$11.93 billion, equal to 30.12% of GDP, a higher share than in Guatemala or El Salvador.

The BCH's own count, which differs slightly from the World Bank's balance-of-payments estimate, reached US$10,098.8 million from January to September 2026, 11.2% more than in the same months of 2025. Of that, US$9,940.8 million came from the US. Growth has cooled from 2025, when remittances from the US rose 26.2% in the first nine months.

The guides to sending money to El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico cover the neighbouring routes, and El Salvador's page compares costs across all four.