Best UK Banks for International Transfers: Top 5 Ranked (2026)

Sending £1,000 to a US dollar account costs about £27 at HSBC and about £55 at Santander. It is the same money on the same day, landing in the same account at the other end. The only thing that changed is which bank you opened an account with, probably years ago, for reasons that had nothing to do with sending money abroad.

Almost nobody notices, because banks do not price this the way they price anything else. There is a fee, somewhere between nothing and £25, and that is the only number you are shown. Then there is a second charge buried inside the exchange rate, and at four of these five banks it is three or four times bigger than the fee. It never appears on your statement, so there is no line to query and nothing to compare.

That is why a free payment at NatWest still costs about £27.50, and why Lloyds, with a fee of only £9.50, is one of the most expensive banks in the country to send money from. The fee and the price are two different numbers, and the banks know which one you look at.

This page ranks the five biggest UK banks on what they actually charge, using each bank's own published figures, checked in August 2026. HSBC comes first and Santander last. Barclays sits awkwardly in the middle, because it is the only one of the five that will not publish its exchange rate charge at all.

Then the part that matters most if you send money home every month. Two UK app banks charge a fraction of what any of the five charge, and a specialist charges less again. For most people the best bank for international transfers is not a bank on their high street.

Find the Best and Cheapest Way to Send Money Abroad

The right answer depends on your amount, your currency and your destination, and it changes as rates move. Put those three things in and you will see what each option actually delivers today.

Then read on for the ranking and what sits behind each number.

The Top 5 UK Banks for International Transfers, Ranked

These are the five biggest high street banks in the UK by customer numbers. The order below is by total cost on a normal payment, then by limits, then by whether the bank is willing to publish its price at all.

The gap between first and last is about £28 on a single ordinary payment. Someone paying a mortgage on a flat in Spain, or sending £1,000 home each month, is losing about £336 a year to a choice they never consciously made.

How We Ranked Them

Cost does most of the work in this ranking, but it is not the only thing that decides whether a bank is usable for your payment.

• Total cost on £1,000the fee plus the exchange rate charge, converted into pounds. Percentages hide the size of the difference and pounds do not.
• Whether the price is publisheda bank that will not state its rate charge cannot be priced before you send, only measured afterwards.
• Limitsa low daily cap stops a payment happening at all, which is a harder problem than an expensive one.
• What is freemost of these banks waive the fee on at least one route, and if that route is yours the ranking changes.

Speed is deliberately not in the ranking. Every major UK bank quotes the same timings, because they all use the same two systems: SEPA for euros inside Europe, which arrives by the next working day, and SWIFT for everything else, which takes 2 to 5 working days.

The Gap Gets Wider as the Amount Grows

The fee is a flat charge, so it stays the same whether you send £100 or £10,000. The exchange rate charge is a percentage, so it scales with the payment. That means the ranking above understates the real difference on anything larger than £1,000.

How much does international money transfer cost once you go past a small amount? Here is the same five banks on the same route, at three amounts.

Santander is the row worth studying. It is the worst of the five on £1,000 and level with HSBC on £10,000, because its percentage steps down to 2% above £10,000 and 1% above £50,000. None of the other four falls anywhere near that fast, which is why a single ranking cannot hold true across every amount.

Why Nationwide, Halifax and TSB Are Not in the Five

Nationwide is a building society rather than a bank, and it is covered further down because it is genuinely the best option in the country for one specific thing. Halifax is owned by Lloyds and runs the identical price list, so including both would be listing the same bank twice. TSB is smaller than the five by a wide margin.

All three are covered below with their own figures. Halifax is the one worth reading, because people switch to it assuming a different price and get exactly the same one they left.

1. HSBC: The Best of the Big Five

HSBC charges £5 for an online payment and adds 2.2% to the exchange rate, so £1,000 to US dollars costs about £27. That is the lowest total of any traditional high street bank, and it is also the only one of the five that charges nothing at all on several common routes.

What HSBC Charges

The fee structure is unusually generous by high street standards. £5 covers an online or app payment to almost anywhere, £17 applies if you send by post, and three routes carry no fee whatsoever: HSBC account to HSBC account anywhere in the world, euros sent to the EEA, and anything sent through the Global Money account.

The exchange rate charge is 2.2% on amounts up to £50,000. It tapers on very large payments, reaching 0.4% above £1m, though that band is irrelevant to almost everyone reading this. For a normal payment, 2.2% is the number that applies.

Premier and Private Banking customers pay no fee at all on payments outside the EEA. That is one of the few premium banking perks in the UK that is worth a measurable amount of money rather than a lounge pass.

Where HSBC Wins

Against the other four, it wins on the number that matters. HSBC's 2.2% is the lowest published exchange rate charge of any big UK bank, and Lloyds charges 3.55% for exactly the same service. On a £5,000 payment that difference alone is worth about £68.

It also has the most useful free routes. If the person you are paying banks with HSBC in another country, the whole payment is free of any fee, which no other bank on this list offers. Euros to the EEA are free as well.

The Global Money account is the part most HSBC customers have never opened. It holds over 50 currencies, moves money between them without a fee, and it comes with an ordinary current account at no extra cost. If you already bank with HSBC and send money abroad regularly, opening it is the largest saving available to you without changing bank.

Where HSBC Falls Short

It is still a bank, and 2.2% is still a charge you cannot see. On £1,000 a specialist costs about £6.50 against HSBC's £27, so being the cheapest of five expensive options is a limited compliment.

The phone limit is £10,000 against £50,000 online, which catches people who assume phone banking is the channel for large payments. It is the opposite. And receiving money costs £5 unless it arrives as euros from the EEA, so anyone paid from abroad monthly is paying twice.

The full breakdown, including receiving costs and how the Global Money account works, is in the HSBC international transfer guide.

2. NatWest: No Fee, But Check the Rate

NatWest charges nothing to send a standard international payment, and up to 2.75% on the exchange rate. On £1,000 that works out at about £27.50, which is within 50p of HSBC. Two banks, two completely different pricing models, almost the same price.

Free to Send, 2.75% on the Rate

There is no fee on a standard payment made online or in the app, on any route. There is a £15 fee if you select the urgent option. NatWest does publish its exchange rate charge, which puts it ahead of Barclays on transparency even though the number itself is higher than HSBC's.

Because the fee is zero, the entire cost of a NatWest payment sits inside the rate. On £1,000 that is £27.50, and your statement will show a transfer fee of nothing. This is the clearest example on the page of why free and cheap are not the same word.

The £15 Urgent Fee Buys Nothing on a Euro Payment

This is the single most useful thing to know about NatWest, and it is not something the bank goes out of its way to explain. Standard and urgent euro payments arrive on the same business day, because both run through SEPA and SEPA does not have a fast lane. The £15 changes the timing by nothing at all.

For someone paying rent in Spain or France every month, that is £180 a year buying a service already included in the free option. The urgent fee only earns its keep on a non-euro payment, where the difference between the standard and priority SWIFT routes is real.

The Limits Are the Lowest of the Five

NatWest caps international payments at £20,000 a day once you have biometric approval set up in the app, and at only £750 a day to a payee you have not paid before. That second figure catches people out constantly, usually on the day they need to send.

Add the payee and complete the approval steps a day or two before the payment actually matters. The limit lifts once the account is established, but not instantly, and there is no way to rush it from a branch.

More detail, including exactly which payments justify the urgent fee, is in the NatWest international transfer guide.

3. Barclays: Free to Send, Impossible to Price

Barclays charges nothing for an international payment made online or in the app, and branch payments start at £15. It does not publish its exchange rate charge anywhere on its website, in its terms, or in its fee documents. There is no honest way to put a total next to its name, which is why it sits third rather than first.

The One Bank That Will Not Tell You Its Rate

Every other bank on this page states a percentage. HSBC publishes 2.2%. Lloyds publishes 3.55% with a full band table. TSB goes further and publishes a rate for each individual currency. Barclays publishes nothing, and its customer service will generally tell you the rate is shown at the point of payment.

That is technically true and practically useless, because it means you cannot compare Barclays against anything until you have already started a payment. A free fee sounds like the best deal on this page. It might be. It might also be worse than Santander, and there is no way to know from the outside.

How to Measure the Rate Yourself in 60 Seconds

You do not need Barclays to publish the number, because you can measure it directly. Start a payment in the app, enter the amount and the destination currency, and stop at the confirmation screen without pressing send.

The screen shows you the rate you are being offered. Search the same currency pair on Google, which returns the mid-market rate that banks use with each other. The gap between the two is the charge, expressed as a percentage of the real rate.

Customer reports put Barclays somewhere between 2.5% and 3.5%, which would place it anywhere from second to fourth in this ranking. Measure it on your own account and your own currency, because the answer varies by route.

Where Barclays Is Genuinely Good

The zero fee is real, and on a small payment a flat charge is what does the most damage. Receiving money into a personal account is also free, which puts Barclays ahead of HSBC and NatWest for anyone paid from abroad.

The branch price is the one to avoid. From £15 on top of an exchange rate charge you still cannot see, on a payment you could have made for nothing on your phone.

The measuring method, and what Barclays customers actually report paying, is in the Barclays international transfer guide.

4. Lloyds: The Highest Limit and the Highest Charge

Lloyds charges £9.50 to send and adds 3.55% to the exchange rate, so £1,000 costs about £45. That 3.55% is the highest published exchange rate charge of any big UK bank. It also has the highest online limit of the five, at £100,000 a day, which makes it genuinely useful for a payment nobody else will handle.

The £9.50 Is Not the Price

The fee gets all of the attention because it is the only figure Lloyds puts on the screen, and £9.50 sounds reasonable next to Santander's £25. On a £1,000 payment the exchange rate charge is £35.50, which is nearly four times larger than the fee everyone compares.

The percentage does come down on larger amounts, but far more slowly than at Santander. It only falls below 3% past about £20,000, and it reaches its floor of 1.50% above £250,000. Almost nobody sends that much, so in practice nearly every Lloyds customer pays close to the top rate.

Where Lloyds Wins: The £100,000 Limit

This is the best online limit on the high street and it is not close. NatWest stops at £20,000 a day, HSBC at £50,000 per payment, TSB at £75,000. Lloyds allows £100,000 a day online, and a branch payment has no maximum at all.

If you are paying a deposit on a property abroad, settling a completion, or moving savings after a house sale, that is worth more than any percentage. A fee makes a payment expensive. A limit means the payment does not happen, and a solicitor waiting on a completion date does not care why.

Euro payments to Europe are also free of any fee and arrive by the next working day, so on that one route Lloyds is competitive with everyone.

Halifax Is the Same Price List

Halifax sits inside the same banking group as Lloyds and runs an identical price list. £9.50 fee, free euros to Europe, the same 3.55%, the same bands at the same thresholds, the same £100,000 limit.

So switching between Lloyds and Halifax to get a better price on international payments achieves nothing. They are one price list with two brands on the front, and the only meaningful difference is in the Basic Account terms.

The full band table and the Halifax comparison are in the Lloyds international transfer guide.

5. Santander: The Most Expensive of the Five

Santander charges a £25 fee, the highest of any major UK bank, and adds 3% to the exchange rate on amounts under £10,000. On £1,000 that comes to about £55, which is roughly double HSBC for a payment that arrives at the same time.

A Large Fee and a Large Percentage

Every other bank in this five has either a small fee or no fee. Santander is the only one carrying both a high flat charge and a high percentage, and that combination is what puts it last.

On small payments it is punishing. The £25 fee alone is 5% of a £500 payment before the exchange rate charge has been applied, and about 8% once it has. Anyone sending small amounts regularly from a Santander account is losing more to the fee than most people lose to the rate.

Where It Improves: Large Amounts

Santander is the only one of the five whose percentage falls sharply rather than gradually. It steps down to 2% above £10,000 and to 1% above £50,000, which is a genuinely different pricing curve from its rivals.

On a £75,000 payment Santander takes about 1%, where Lloyds is still charging around 2.10% and TSB has not moved from its full rate at all. On that payment Santander goes from worst in the group to one of the better options, and the £25 fee stops being relevant.

This is the clearest argument on the page for checking your own figures rather than trusting a ranking. The order of these banks genuinely reverses depending on how much you are sending, and no fixed list can tell you where your amount lands.

The full band table and the small payment maths are in the Santander international transfer guide.

The Two Banks That Beat All Five

The ranking above compares five banks against each other. Set them against the rest of the UK market and all five look expensive, because two app banks with full UK banking licences charge a fraction of what any of them charge.

Starling: 0.4% Plus 30p

Starling adds 0.4% to the exchange rate and charges a delivery fee starting at 30p, so £1,000 to US dollars costs about £4.30. HSBC, the best of the big five, charges about £27 for the same payment. That is six times the price for an identical transaction on the same day.

There is no catch in the pricing itself. Starling is a fully licensed UK bank, covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme in exactly the same way as Lloyds, and the 0.4% is published on its own website rather than buried.

The catches are in what it will and will not do. Starling reaches 34 countries, and India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, the Philippines, Nigeria and the UAE are not among them. The daily limit is £10,000. And money arriving from abroad is converted at a 2% margin, five times what it charges to send, on the side of the transaction where there is no confirmation screen to check.

The full country list, the delivery fee bands and the receiving charge are in the Starling international transfer guide.

Monzo: The Wise Rate, No Bank Margin

Monzo does not add a margin to the exchange rate at all. It sends through Wise underneath and passes the rate straight through, showing you the fee as a separate line before you confirm. On £1,000 that comes to about £8 in total.

That structure is why the Monzo pricing screen is the most honest of any UK bank. There is nothing hidden in the rate to go looking for, because the rate is the mid-market one you would find on Google. What is on the screen is what you pay.

How the Wise partnership works underneath, and where Monzo still costs more than going to Wise directly, is in the Monzo international transfer guide.

Why the App Banks Are Cheaper

It is not a promotion or an introductory rate. A traditional bank runs branches, phone centres and decades-old payment systems, and every product has to carry a share of that cost. International payments are a convenient place to put it, because the charge can sit inside a rate where customers do not compare.

An app bank has none of that overhead and, more importantly, was built in a market where customers can compare prices in seconds. So it competes on a number it is willing to publish.

Which means the 2.2% to 3.55% at the big five is not the cost of moving money across a border. Starling moves the same money through the same networks for 0.4%. The rest is margin.

The Other UK Banks Worth Knowing

Three more institutions sit outside the big five but belong in the conversation. One of them is the best account in the country for a job that fee comparisons never measure.

Nationwide: The Best Account to Be Paid Into

Nationwide charges 2.2% to send, matching HSBC, and £15 on a SWIFT payment. What makes it unusual is the other direction: it charges only 0.5% on money arriving from abroad. Every other UK bank charges the same or more to receive as it does to send.

It is also the only UK bank or building society with no sending limit at all, which matters for a completion payment or a large one-off transfer.

Put those together and Nationwide is the strongest current account in the country for anyone paid from overseas. It gets written about almost nowhere, because comparison tables only ever measure the sending side.

The size of the difference: on £2,000 arriving in dollars every month, 0.5% costs about £120 a year. The same income into an HSBC account at 2.2% costs about £528. That is £408 a year on money that has already been earned once.

The full figures, including which Nationwide accounts waive the SWIFT fee, are in the Nationwide international transfer guide.

Halifax: Lloyds With a Different Logo

£9.50 fee, free euros to Europe, 3.55% on the exchange rate, £100,000 daily limit. Every figure is identical to Lloyds because it is the same banking group running the same price list.

The one genuine difference is in the Basic Account, which sends sterling payments free where the standard account does not. That, and the 3pm cut-off that catches people, is covered in the Halifax international transfer guide.

TSB: The Only Bank That Prices by Currency

TSB is structurally different from every other bank here. Its exchange rate charge is set by which currency you are sending, not by how much. US and Canadian dollars are 3.20%, euros 3.30%, and Turkish lira, Mexican pesos, Moroccan dirham, Czech koruna, Hungarian forint and Israeli shekels all sit at 3.65%.

It is also the only bank on this page whose percentage never falls as the amount rises. On a £50,000 payment TSB takes about £1,600 where HSBC takes about £1,050, which makes it the most expensive major UK bank for a large transfer by a clear margin.

The full currency table, all six bands, is in the TSB international transfer guide.

What Every UK Bank Charges: The Full Table

Every figure below comes from the bank's own published material and was checked in August 2026. The third column is the one to read first, because at nine of these eleven it is the larger half of the price.

Sending Money Abroad

Reading down that list, the money transfer fee is the smaller half at every bank except Santander. It is also the only half most people ever put side by side, which is precisely why the pricing is built this way.

Receiving Money From Abroad

This side is almost never checked, and that is what makes it expensive. When money arrives in a currency your account does not hold, the bank converts it on the spot and applies a margin. There is no quote, no confirmation screen and no opportunity to decline.

If you are paid from abroad every month, holding the currency instead of converting it is the largest single saving available here. On £2,000 a month at 2.2% that is about £528 a year. The options are in the guides to the best USD bank account in the UK and the best euro account in the UK.

The Free Routes at Every Bank

Free routes are the one area where a high street bank competes properly, and most customers do not know which of theirs are free. If your regular payment happens to fall on one of these, switching bank would save you nothing.

• Euros to Europefree at Lloyds, Halifax, TSB, HSBC and Nationwide, arriving by the next working day.
• HSBC to HSBCfree anywhere in the world, in either direction, whichever country the other account sits in.
• Standard payments at NatWest and Barclaysfree online on any route, with the cost moved into the exchange rate instead.
• The qualificationfree means free of the fee. If the money starts in a pounds account, the rate charge still applies in full.

On £2,000 sent from a Lloyds pounds account to a euro account, the free payment still costs about £71 inside the rate. The only genuinely free international payment on this page is euros sent from a euro balance, where no conversion takes place at all.

If you send euros regularly, holding a euro balance removes the charge rather than reducing it. The UK options are in the guide to UK banks with euro accounts.

Transfer Limits

On anything above about £20,000 the limit decides the shortlist before the price does. Read the guide to transferring large sums internationally before you pick a bank on cost alone.

What to Check Before You Send

Whichever bank you end up using, four separate charges can apply to the same payment. Most people are only ever shown the first, and the other three are where the surprises come from.

The Fee and the Rate Charge

The bank charges to transfer money abroad split into two parts. The fee is the flat amount in the price list, between nothing and £25 depending on the bank. The exchange rate charge is a percentage applied inside the rate you are quoted, between 2.2% and 3.65% at UK banks.

The international transfer charges that actually matter are those two added together. A £9.50 fee sitting next to a £35.50 rate charge is not a £9.50 payment, and comparing banks on the fee alone will point you at the wrong one more often than not.

Search your currency pair on Google before you confirm, and compare the two numbers. Why banks are able to price this way, and what the mid-market rate actually is, is explained in the guide to the mid-market exchange rate.

Banks in the Middle

Payments outside Europe travel over SWIFT, which is a messaging network rather than a direct pipe. Your money moves through one or two correspondent banks before it reaches the destination account, and each of those can deduct a handling charge of £10 to £30 as it passes.

That is why a round number leaves your account and an odd number arrives. Your own bank does not receive that money, cannot predict it, and has no way to recover it for you.

How to find out whether a route uses correspondents, and how to avoid them entirely, is in the guide to telegraphic transfer fees.

Who Pays the Charges: SHA, OUR and BEN

On payments outside Europe your bank may ask you to choose who covers the charges. The three options have unhelpful names, and the choice decides whether the person at the other end receives the full amount or a short one.

Send Pounds or Send Their Currency?

Your bank will ask which currency to send in, and this choice is worth more than the fee. If you send pounds, the receiving bank performs the conversion, chooses its own rate, and never shows it to you before or after.

If you convert first, the rate appears on your screen where you can check it against Google. Neither option is free, but only one of them lets you see the price before you agree to it.

You also need the right identifiers for the destination: an IBAN for Europe, a routing number for the United States, a BSB for Australia, an IFSC code for India. The full list by country is in the guide to what bank details you need to transfer money.

If Your Payment Is Late or Held

A payment that stops moving without explanation usually has one of four causes: the bank is running a check on a large amount or a new payee, the recipient name does not match the account, the destination requires additional review, or it simply missed the daily cut-off and is queued.

Ask your bank for the SWIFT reference, sometimes called the UETR. That single tracking number lets any bank in the chain see exactly where the payment is sitting, which converts a vague complaint into a question someone can answer.

Above about £10,000, expect to be asked where the money came from and what it is for. Every UK bank is required to ask, and having the evidence ready before you send is the difference between a one day hold and a two week one.

How Long It Takes

Euro payments to Europe arrive by the end of the next working day at every bank on this page, because SEPA sets that standard. Everything else runs over SWIFT and takes 2 to 5 working days depending on how many correspondent banks sit in the route.

Weekends and UK bank holidays do not count as working days, and every bank has a daily cut-off between about 2pm and 4:30pm. If the destination country has its own public holiday, add another day at the far end. The full timings are in the guide to how long an international money transfer takes.

Specialists: Cheaper Than Every Bank on This Page

Specialist transfer companies price differently from banks in one specific way. They use the mid-market exchange rate, the same number Google returns, and charge a separate fee on top. Nothing is concealed inside the rate, so the two halves of the price are both visible.

All three below are authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority and are required to hold customer money separately from their own. None of them is a bank, which means your money is safeguarded rather than covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. That is a different protection, not an absent one, but it is worth understanding before moving a large amount.

Wise

9.5

Read our review

Fees & Exchange Rates10.0

Transfer Speed9.0

Safety & Trust10.0

Service & Quality9.5

Go to Wise

Read our review

Wise uses the real exchange rate and shows the fee as a separate line before you confirm. On £1,000 to US dollars it costs about £6.50, against about £27 at HSBC and about £55 at Santander, which is the gap this entire page has been building toward.

It also issues account numbers in several currencies at no cost, which addresses the receiving side as well as the sending side. The full assessment, including where it loses, is in the Wise review.

What it does not do: there are no branches, no overdraft, no cash payout, and no FSCS cover. For someone who wants to walk into a building and talk to a person about a £200,000 completion payment, that matters.

Where it is strongest is money moving in both directions. If you send abroad and are paid from abroad in the same month, the currency accounts usually save more than the transfer pricing does.

Remitly

8.5

Read our review

Fees & Exchange Rates8.5

Transfer Speed8.0

Safety & Trust10.0

Service & Quality9.0

Go to Remitly

Read our review

Remitly is built specifically for sending money home to family, and it is strongest across South Asia, the Philippines, Latin America and much of Africa. Those are precisely the corridors where every bank on this page is slowest and most expensive, and where Starling does not operate at all.

It can pay out as cash for collection or straight into a mobile wallet, neither of which any UK bank offers. For a recipient without a bank account, that is not a convenience feature, it is the difference between the money arriving and not arriving.

It also splits the choice between fast and cheap. Express delivery arrives in minutes at a higher price, Economy takes a few working days at a lower one. A bank charges you the same either way and gives you no say in the trade.

It is weaker outside its core corridors, and it is not built for a single large payment. For £200 a month to Manila, Lagos or Karachi it is usually the cheapest option available anywhere.

Xe

9.0

Read our review

Fees & Exchange Rates7.5

Transfer Speed10.0

Safety & Trust10.0

Service & Quality9.0

Go to Xe

Read our review

Xe covers a wide range of currencies and is built around larger transfers. You can set a rate alert, or lock today's rate for a payment you will not make for several months, which is a facility no UK bank offers to a personal customer.

On a £300,000 property purchase, a 4% move in the rate between exchange and completion is £12,000. That single number is larger than every fee discussed on this page combined, which is why rate certainty matters more than pricing on a payment of that size.

Xe also gives you a named person to deal with on large transfers. On small everyday payments Wise and Remitly beat it comfortably. More options are compared in the guide to the best apps for international money transfer.

How Wise, Remitly and Xe Compare

These three are not competing for the same payment. Each is built around a different job, which is why asking which one is cheapest produces a different answer depending on what you are actually doing.

Sending £300 to the Philippines and sending £80,000 to a Spanish notary are different problems with different answers, and no fixed recommendation survives both. The method for checking your own numbers is in the guide to the cheapest way to send money abroad.

What About PayPal?

PayPal is not a bank, but a large share of people reach for it first when they need to send money to someone abroad, so it deserves a straight answer rather than being ignored. It charges 5% of the amount with a £0.99 minimum and a £2.99 cap, plus 3% above the base exchange rate on conversion.

What PayPal Costs on Real Amounts

The £2.99 cap is the number people notice, and it makes PayPal look inexpensive next to a £25 bank fee. The 3% applied to the rate has no cap at all, and on anything above about £100 that is the part doing the damage.

Set against the bank table, PayPal at about £33 on £1,000 sits between HSBC and Nationwide. It is not the most expensive option on this page and claiming otherwise would be inaccurate.

Where PayPal Is Worst

Small payments, which is exactly the use case it is chosen for. About £6 on £100 is 6% of the money, against under £1 through a specialist, and the £0.99 minimum means small payments never escape the fee.

It earns its place when you have someone's email address and no way to get bank details today, and when speed matters more than a few pounds. The full comparison against a specialist is in the PayPal vs Wise comparison.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which Bank Should You Use?

If you already hold a Starling or Monzo account, use it. About £4.30 or about £8 on £1,000 against £27 at the best traditional bank is not a decision that needs weighing, provided your destination is covered and the amount is inside the limit.

If you are staying with a high street bank, HSBC is the strongest of the five and NatWest is level on cost as long as you avoid the urgent option. Lloyds, Halifax and Santander are the ones to avoid for anything that is not euros to Europe, and TSB is the worst of all of them on a large payment.

If your money goes somewhere Starling does not reach, or the amount is over £10,000, price a specialist before you send. On a £5,000 payment the difference between the best and worst option on this page is over £150, and on £50,000 it runs into four figures.

Pick by What You Are Actually Doing

Most people fall into one of these five situations, and the right answer is usually obvious once the situation is named rather than the bank.

Whichever you choose, check the rate on your screen against Google before you press send. It takes ten seconds, it works at every institution on this page, and it is the only way to see the half of the price nobody shows you.

And if you transfer money abroad from UK accounts more than a few times a year, price the year rather than the payment. Twelve monthly payments of £1,000 through Lloyds instead of Starling costs about £490 more over that year.

The practical answer for most people: open a Starling or Monzo account for sending, keep your existing bank for everything else, and use a specialist for the destinations those two do not reach. It takes an afternoon to set up and nothing to run.

Sources

Every fee, charge, limit and timing on this page comes from the institution's own published material and was checked in August 2026. Bank pricing changes with little notice, so verify the number that applies to you before you send.

• HSBC UK, International money transfer, the £5 fee, free EEA euro payments, the 2.2% rate charge and the £50,000 online limit.
• Nationwide, SWIFT and SEPA international payments, the £15 SWIFT fee, 2.2% out and 0.5% in, and the absence of a sending limit.
• Lloyds Bank, Send international payments, the £9.50 fee, free euro payments, correspondent charges and the £100,000 limit.
• Starling Bank, International bank transfer fees, the 0.4% conversion fee, the country list and the 30p to £5.50 delivery fees.
• PayPal, UK consumer fees, the 5% international fee with its £0.99 minimum and £2.99 cap, and the 3% conversion charge.
• Financial Conduct Authority, Financial Services Register, to confirm any bank or provider named on this page is authorised.
• Financial Services Compensation Scheme, what is covered for banks and building societies, the protection limit and what falls outside it.

Barclays, NatWest, Santander, TSB, Halifax and Monzo figures come from each institution's own pages and are sourced individually within that bank's guide. The method behind these cost calculations is set out in the guide to how banks charge for money transfers.