What it costs to send 200 dollars abroad: World Bank prices in 48 corridors

Sending $200 across a border cost 5.28% of the amount on average in the 48 corridors this study takes from the World Bank's Remittance Prices Worldwide survey for the third quarter of 2025, the latest quarter the World Bank had published as of November 2, 2026. Cost here means everything the sender pays the provider: the transfer fee plus the exchange-rate margin, the gap between the rate a provider applies and the market rate. Forty-two of the corridors start in the United States; the other six run from the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Canada and Australia to India, Pakistan and the Philippines. For the practical side of pricing a transfer, start with the money transfer hub.

Key findings

• Average and middle. Across the 48 corridors, sending $200 or its local equivalent cost 5.28% on average and 4.83% at the median, so a few costly routes pull the average up.
• Cheapest and dearest. The United Arab Emirates to Pakistan cost least, at 2.17%, and the US to Nigeria was the cheapest US route, at 2.72%. The US to Lebanon cost most, at 11.28%.
• Against the UN goals. Only 2 corridors were at or below 3%, the level the UN wants the global average to reach by 2030, while 23 of the 48 cost more than 5%.
• Fee or exchange rate. The exchange-rate margin made up 23.8% of the total cost in the average corridor, and the fee was the larger part in all but four corridors.
• Bigger transfers. On the same corridors, sending $500 cost 3.53% on average, against 5.28% for $200.
• Who sends and where. The 42 US corridors averaged 5.44% and the three UAE corridors 2.98%. From the US, Sub-Saharan Africa was the cheapest region, at 4.81%, and the Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan and Pakistan the costliest, at 6.47%.

How was the cost of sending $200 measured?

Each corridor's figure is the World Bank's average for Q3 2025: the fee plus the exchange-rate margin, as a share of the amount, across all transparent services surveyed.

The World Bank gathers prices in two ways: researchers pose as customers, and automated collection reads providers' websites and data feeds. In each corridor it aims to survey firms that together handle at least 80% of the market. A service counts as transparent only if its cost can be split into a fee and a margin, so providers that will not disclose the exchange rate they apply are left out; included without their margin, they would look cheaper than they are. Prices for these 48 corridors were collected between July 22 and September 10, 2025, and the corridor pages were checked on November 1, 2026. This study then averages the 48 corridor figures, giving each corridor equal weight.

Three features of the survey shape what the columns can say:

• Local amounts. From the UAE and Saudi Arabia the survey prices AED 735 and SAR 750, the local equivalents of US$200, and AED 1,835 and SAR 1,870 for US$500. From Canada and Australia it prices 200 and 500 in Canadian or Australian dollars. The World Bank set its local amounts in 2008, adjusted them in the third quarter of 2009 and has held them fixed since. Percentages compare across all 48 corridors, but the dollar fee and cost columns are filled for US corridors only.
• Smaller sums from Canada and Australia. One US dollar bought 1.3969 Canadian dollars and 1.4236 Australian dollars on October 30, 2026, at the European Central Bank reference rates in our dollar study. At those rates CAD 200 is about US$143 and AUD 200 about US$140, and a flat fee takes a bigger share of a smaller transfer.
• Gaps. Fourteen corridors had no published data for the quarter and are left out: from the US to the UK, Canada, South Korea, Poland, Russia, Israel, Germany, Japan, Australia, Senegal, Cameroon, Bolivia, Türkiye and Sri Lanka.

Which corridors were cheapest and which cost the most?

The UAE to Pakistan was cheapest at 2.17% and the US to Lebanon the most expensive at 11.28%, more than five times as much.

Rows run from cheapest to most expensive at $200. Half the corridors cost 4.83% or less, yet the average is 5.28%, because the costliest routes sit well above the rest: Lebanon at 11.28%, Afghanistan at 9.19%, Cape Verde at 8.81%, Cuba at 8.75% and Guyana at 8.10%. After the two corridors under 3% come the UAE to the Philippines, at 3.04%, and the US to Ethiopia, at 3.14%. Four rows show n/a for the region because the data carries no regional label for Vietnam, Somalia, Eritrea and Cuba.

Some of the busiest US routes sit near the middle of the table. Sending $200 cost 3.68% to India, 4.52% to the Philippines, 4.54% to Mexico and 6.62% to China. In dollars, the cheapest US total was $5.43 to Nigeria and the highest $22.56 to Lebanon, where the fee was the entire cost.

Each row is itself an average, and quotes within one corridor can differ more than corridors do. On the World Bank's US-to-Mexico page for the quarter, individual $200 quotes ran from −2.44%, a no-fee service whose rate beat the reference rate, to 17.50%, a $35 bank transfer paid out in dollars. The guides to sending money from the US to Mexico and from the US to India explain how those two routes are priced.

How much of the cost is the fee and how much the exchange rate?

In the average corridor the fee was about three-quarters of the cost: the exchange-rate margin made up 23.8% of the total, though the split varied widely.

The fee is quoted up front. The margin is hidden in the rate: it is how far the rate a provider applies falls short of the market rate, charged on every dollar converted. The World Bank measures it against a market reference rate recorded when each service is surveyed, so the yardstick moves a little within a quarter; on the US-to-Mexico page, reference rates ran from 18.60 to 18.89 pesos per dollar. Our guides to the mid-market rate and to exchange-rate markups show how to measure the margin on a quote.

In four US corridors the margin cost more than the fee on $200:

Eight US corridors show a margin of exactly zero: El Salvador, Ecuador, Panama, Nicaragua, Yemen, South Sudan, Somalia and Lebanon. El Salvador and Ecuador use the US dollar as their currency and Panama uses it as legal tender, so there is often nothing to convert. The World Bank records no margin where money is paid out in dollars or where the provider gives no rate, and it warns that the true cost may then be higher than shown. Liberia, at 0.01%, and Haiti, at 0.08%, are close to zero as well.

Two margins say more about the yardstick than about providers. Ethiopia's is negative, −0.24%: on average, providers applied a better rate than the survey's reference rate. Bangladesh's 5.08% is the highest in the data, but it was measured against 127.00 taka per dollar while Bangladesh Bank's interbank rate was near 121.7 in August 2025. A provider paying exactly that interbank rate would still show a margin of (127.00 − 121.7) ÷ 127.00 = 4.2%, so most of the 5.08% reflects the reference rate rather than markups, and Bangladesh is not the corridor where providers mark up most. The US to Bangladesh guide reworks that corridor's numbers against the interbank rate.

Why does sending $500 cost less in percentage terms?

Because most of the cost is a fee that grows far more slowly than the amount: the 48 corridors averaged 3.53% for $500 against 5.28% for $200.

The World Bank notes that fees usually vary with the amount sent within set bands, so a $500 transfer often pays the same fee as a $200 one, or only a little more. The margin behaves differently. As a percentage of every dollar converted, it does not shrink as the amount grows.

The fall was steepest where flat fees dominate. Lebanon went from 11.28% at $200 to 5.28% at $500, Haiti from 4.70% to 2.50% and China from 6.62% to 3.73%. It was smallest where the margin does most of the damage, as in Bangladesh, which went from 7.61% to 6.66%. Somalia, where the survey recorded no margin, barely moved either, from 5.60% to 5.12%, so fees there appear to rise almost in step with the amount.

Even at $500, seven corridors still cost more than 5%: Cuba (8.18%), Afghanistan (7.08%), Bangladesh (6.66%), Guyana (5.84%), Cape Verde (5.51%), Lebanon (5.28%) and Somalia (5.12%). The World Bank's global figures follow the same pattern: in Q3 2025 its global average was 6.36% for $200 and 4.08% for $500, and its averages for transfers from the US were 5.04% and 3.44%.

Does the sending country change the price?

Yes: sending to India cost 3.68% from the US and 3.72% from the UAE, but 5.59% from Saudi Arabia and 6.15% from Australia.

Group averages mix very different routes. The US figure of 5.44% covers 42 corridors, including small, costly ones such as Lebanon and Cuba, while the UAE's 2.98% covers only its routes to Pakistan, the Philippines and India, and the Canada, Saudi Arabia and Australia rows each describe a single corridor. Same-destination comparisons are fairer, and India is the one country this data reaches from all five senders:

At $500 the UAE route was cheapest, at 2.19%, and Australia's still the dearest, at 3.53%. Margins rose in broadly the same order as total costs, from 0.75% out of the UAE to 1.71% out of Australia, so the exchange rate explains part of the gap and fees the rest. Two other destinations appear from two senders: to Pakistan, the UAE route cost 2.17% against 3.81% from the US, and to the Philippines, 3.04% against 4.52%.

Corridor guides cover each of these routes, including the UAE to India, Saudi Arabia to India, Canada to India, Australia to India, the UAE to Pakistan and the UAE to the Philippines.

Which regions are cheapest to reach from the United States?

Sub-Saharan Africa, at 4.81% across eight corridors, then Latin America and the Caribbean at 4.90%; the Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan and Pakistan cost most, at 6.47%.

Each regional figure hides a wide range. In Sub-Saharan Africa, Nigeria cost 2.72% and Cape Verde 8.81%, while Ethiopia, Kenya and Ghana were all below 4.5%; the guide to sending money from the US to Nigeria covers the cheapest of them. The Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan and Pakistan group runs from 3.81% for Pakistan to 11.28% for Lebanon, and Lebanon and Afghanistan, at 9.19%, lift its average. Latin America and the Caribbean has the most corridors, 15, from El Salvador at 3.50% to Guyana at 8.10%. South Asia here means India, Nepal and Bangladesh, because the World Bank groups Pakistan and Afghanistan with the Middle East and North Africa. The four US corridors without a region label, Vietnam at 5.27%, Somalia at 5.60%, Eritrea at 6.55% and Cuba at 8.75%, count in the US average but not in this table.

The World Bank's worldwide regional averages for Q3 2025 swap the two ends of this ranking. Sub-Saharan Africa was the most expensive region to send money to, at 8.46%, and the Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan and Pakistan the cheapest, at 5.11%; South Asia was at 5.30%, Latin America and the Caribbean 5.64%, East Asia and Pacific 5.83% and Europe and Central Asia, excluding Russia, 6.80%. Those figures average services from every sending country, including routes within Africa: nine of the 13 corridors that cost more than 20% in Q3 2025 started in Sub-Saharan Africa. They also include low-cost Gulf routes into the region, such as the UAE to Pakistan.

How do these averages compare with the World Bank's global figures?

They are lower than the World Bank's 6.36% global average for Q3 2025 but higher than its 5.04% figure for the US, because each one counts differently.

The World Bank's averages count services, not corridors. A route where dozens of services were surveyed, such as the US to Mexico, carries far more weight in its figure for the US than a route with a handful, while this study counts Lebanon exactly as much as Mexico. Its global average sits above ours because its corridors include costly routes this study does not cover: South Africa, for example, was the most expensive G20 country to send money from, at 15.65%.

This data has one row per corridor, so it cannot split costs by type of provider, but the World Bank's report does. In Q3 2025 banks averaged 14.99%, post offices 5.58% and money transfer operators, a group that includes app-based services, 4.72%. Digital services, paid for online or by self-service and received into an account, averaged 4.59% against 7.30% for the rest, and an index of five digital-only operators came to 3.54%. By how a transfer was funded, cards averaged 4.39%, cash 7.01% and bank accounts 8.69%. By how it was received, payouts to a debit card averaged 3.61% and to a mobile wallet 3.92%, while deposits to an account at the same bank as the sender's, or a partner bank, averaged 13.91%.

How close are corridors to the UN's 3% and 5% goals?

Few corridors meet them: only 2 of the 48 cost 3% or less, and 23 cost more than 5%, the ceiling the UN wants no corridor to exceed by 2030.

Target 10.c of the UN Sustainable Development Goals calls for reducing "to less than 3 per cent the transaction costs of migrant remittances" by 2030 and eliminating "remittance corridors with costs higher than 5 per cent". The two parts are measured differently. The 3% goal applies to the World Bank's global average, which stood at 6.36% in Q3 2025, down from 9.67% in Q1 2009 but still more than twice the goal (6.36 ÷ 3 = 2.1). The 5% goal applies to every corridor, and the World Bank's test is whether at least three services that meet its speed, transparency and access requirements average 5% or less: its SmaRT measure, not the corridor's ordinary average.

The middle row is what remains of the 48 once the other two rows are taken out (48 − 2 − 23 = 23). The 23 corridors above 5% do not all fail the UN test as the World Bank applies it, since a cheap minority of services can pass a corridor whose average is high. Across all the corridors the World Bank tracked in Q3 2025, 78% had a SmaRT average below 5% and 20 had no qualifying service at all. The global SmaRT average was 3.29%, just above the 3% line.

What can't this data tell you?

It can't price a transfer today: these are one quarter's averages from mid-2025, taken before the US remittance tax began, and some charges are left out.

• A dated snapshot. Prices were collected between July 22 and September 10, 2025, and the World Bank had published nothing newer as of November 2, 2026. Providers reprice often and exchange rates move every day.
• No US remittance tax. Since January 1, 2026, US senders have paid a federal tax of 1% of the amount sent, on transfers paid with cash, a money order, a cashier's check or a similar physical instrument. None of that is in these prices; the remittance transfer tax guide explains who pays it.
• Charges at the receiving end. Fees taken by the recipient's bank, cash-out fees on mobile wallets and taxes in the receiving country are not tracked; mobile money explained covers the wallet charges.
• Margins depend on the yardstick. Dollar payouts and missing rates show as a zero margin, which the World Bank says can understate the cost, and Bangladesh's 127.00 taka benchmark and Ethiopia's negative margin show that the reference rate itself can be off.
• No weighting by use. Corridors count equally here and services count equally within each corridor's figure, whatever their market share, so the averages describe what is on offer rather than what most senders pay.
• A partial sample. These 48 corridors are a slice of the World Bank's survey, and 42 of them start in the US. Results for the other four sending countries rest on one to three corridors each, and providers that would not disclose their exchange rate are not in any of them.

What does this mean for someone sending money?

The averages are a benchmark for judging a quote, not a price to expect, and they show how much of a transfer's cost can hide in the exchange rate.

A quote can be compared with these figures once both parts are counted: divide the fee by the amount sent, then add the margin, measured against the mid-market rate at the moment of the quote. Percentages work across currencies, so the same check applies to a transfer from Dubai or Toronto. Like any historical data, these prices do not predict what a provider will charge next, and a corridor's average says nothing about any single provider.

The cheapest way to send money abroad sets out how to compare providers step by step, and how long international transfers take covers the speed side of the trade-off. For where the money goes, and how much it matters to each receiving economy, see the companion study of remittances by country.

How to use and cite this data

The data is free to reuse under the CC BY 4.0 license, with credit and a link to this page.

• Download the CSV file, which has one row per corridor and the nine columns of the main table. The sender and region tables can be quoted with the same credit.
• Give the survey quarter with any figure, for example: sending $200 from the US to India cost 3.68% in the World Bank's Q3 2025 survey.
• Say when a corridor is priced in another currency (AED, SAR, CAD or AUD), and add the reference-rate caveat when quoting Bangladesh's margin.
• Suggested credit: Source: Sonic Wallet analysis of World Bank Remittance Prices Worldwide data, Q3 2025 survey (prices collected July 22 to September 10, 2025; corridor pages checked November 1, 2026).
• The underlying prices are the World Bank's, so credit Remittance Prices Worldwide as the original source.

Our editorial policy explains how we check sources and correct errors in studies like this one.