Early Retirement Extreme Forums

Hi everyone,

I would like to have some recommendations for how you deal with international transfers. We are buying a condo in Spain and are thinking about transferring 120K USD to Spain in Euros. I heard of Transferwise and it seems they have the lowest fees.

Thanks!

Yup I use transfer wise it's pretty good...

I've used TransferWise. It works.

I just walked into my bank branch, gave them the SWIFT number of the recipient's bank's branch, their account number, currency and they did the needful.
I checked above site and their cut seems to be 2.28339% . It'd cost more than that to convert twice as they don't seem to support rubles.
Bank did it for 3%.

Another way: A colleague in Russia wanted to remit home. My family member transferred the equivalent amount according to that day's exchange rate to his family member's account at 0 cost and he gave me the cash.

Edit: Interesting, I had to calculate the above percentage myself and the website only shows the percentage if it is low(er than 1%, I think).

Transferwise still costs a few percent. I have been able to simply withdraw funds in local currency from my checking account using both Santander and Charles Schwab, getting Forex exchange rate with no commission. Not sure about amounts as large as $120k, but if the potential cost is even 1-3% it would be worth inquiring with a large bank like Santander that has US and EU locations.

Transferwise was the cheapest when I have done this.

Free, frictionless ATM withdrawals exist but are usually volume limited per transaction and per month.

With sums this large it's important to look at the exhange rate, not just the transfer fee. TW's selling point has been that they use a mid-market rate and not charge extra by way of converting between currencies. I haven't used TW for a while (so make sure you check), but the the last time I did, a few years ago, their USD-EUR rate was indeed better than the one offered by my bank.

Edit: In your situation probably the easiest way to compare options would be this: I need X€ on a bank account in Spain. How much will it cost me in USD, including exchange and fees.

I shopped around when I bought my condo in Spain and Transferwise was the best option. I transferred some money through Bank of America but that was a lot more expensive.

As others have said, Transferwise.
I can pretty much guarantee it will be the best option overall (considering rate, fees, ease and timing).

Thanks for the comments guys. TW is definitely the best option. The only issue is BOA's limit of 10K a week for domestic transfers. So the whole process will take about 1 month.