Remittance Calculator

Sending money abroad is priced three ways at once, and only one of them is usually printed on the receipt. There is a fixed fee per transfer, a percentage fee on the amount, and an exchange rate that sits some way below the mid-market rate. The last of those is the one people miss, because it never appears as a charge; it just means the recipient gets fewer units of their currency. This calculator adds all three into a single cost per transfer, expresses it as a percentage of the amount sent, and scales it up to a year.

The scale of the problem is measured. The United Nations tracks remittance cost as an indicator for its Sustainable Development Goal target 10.c, which aims to bring the cost of sending money below 3% by 2030 and to eliminate corridors costing more than 5%. In the third quarter of 2025 the global average cost of sending a US$200 transfer was 6.36%, down from 7.42% in 2016; digital services averaged 4.59% and digital-only operators 3.54%, while non-digital channels averaged 7.3%. On that 200, the gap between the global average and the 3% target is 12.72 against 6.00, every time the money goes.

The two percentage costs behave the same way, so the calculator adds them. The fixed fee is different in kind, because it does not shrink as the transfer does. On a 100 transfer with the default 5 fixed fee, 1% fee and 0.5% markup, the fixed fee alone is 5% of the money sent and the total is 6.5%. At 500 the same fees come to 2.5%, at 1,000 to 2%, and at 2,000 to 1.75%. Small, frequent transfers are where the fixed fee does the damage; large ones are where the exchange rate markup does.

A worked example

With the defaults, 500 is sent with a 5 fixed fee, a 1% percentage fee and a 0.5% exchange rate markup. The percentage fee is 5, the markup costs 2.50, and with the fixed fee the total is 12.50 per transfer, or 2.5% of the amount. Sent twelve times a year, that is 150. A provider whose all-in cost is one percentage point lower saves 5 per transfer and 60 a year on the same pattern.

What moves the number most

Removing the fixed fee entirely takes the default cost from 12.50 to 7.50, a 1.5% effective rate. Raising the exchange rate markup from 0.5% to 2.5% takes it to 22.50, or 4.5%. Doubling the transfer count to 24 a year doubles the annual figure to 300 without changing the per-transfer cost. Doubling the amount sent to 1,000 raises the per-transfer cost to 20 but lowers the effective rate to 2%, because the fixed fee is spread over more money.

The formula behind this

Cost per transfer equals the fixed fee plus the amount multiplied by the percentage fee and the exchange rate markup, both as fractions: C = F + A × (p + f) ÷ 100. The effective cost is that figure divided by the amount sent, and the annual cost multiplies it by the number of transfers. The World Bank's average transaction cost indicator is built the same way, as fees plus exchange rate margin expressed as a share of the amount sent, so the effective cost from this calculator is directly comparable with the published country averages.

What the receipt doesn't show

The exchange rate markup is the part most providers do not itemise. Working it out takes two numbers: the rate offered and the mid-market rate at the same moment. If the mid-market rate is 1.2500 and the provider offers 1.2375, the markup is (1.2500 − 1.2375) ÷ 1.2500, which is 1%, and that is the figure for the markup field. No fees does not mean no cost. A provider advertising none has moved all of it into this number.

What this doesn't capture

The calculator prices the sending side only. Fees charged to the recipient by their own bank, deductions taken by intermediary banks on the way, and any tax or levy in the destination country all come off the amount that arrives and are not modelled here. It also treats every transfer as identical, when in practice rates move between transfers, first-transfer promotions expire, and the price for cash pickup can differ from the price for a bank deposit. The result is a clean baseline for comparing providers on the same transfer, not a forecast of what any one transfer will cost.