How to Send Money Abroad From the UK (2026)

Sending £1,000 to a US dollar account costs about £4.30 through one UK provider and about £55 through another. Same money, same day, same destination. The only thing that changes is which app you open.

Most people open the app they already have, which is their bank. That is the single most expensive decision available, and UK banks make it easy because the cost is split into a small fee you can see and a large exchange rate charge you cannot.

There is a second thing you lose at the border, and almost nobody writes about it. UK payment rules give you some of the strongest fraud protection in the world on a domestic transfer, up to £85,000 paid back within five business days. None of it applies once the money leaves the country.

This guide covers how to send money abroad from the UK: what each bank charges on the same payment, which specialists are worth using, what you give up by crossing the border, and how to get the payment right the first time.

How to Send Money Abroad From the UK: The Short Answer

Use a specialist provider rather than your high street bank, send in the currency the recipient holds, and pay from your bank account rather than a card. That costs about £4 to £8 on £1,000. The same payment through Santander costs about £55, and through Lloyds or Halifax about £45.

Your bank is the convenient answer and almost never the cheap one, costing 5 to 10 times a specialist on the same payment. Check what your amount and destination actually cost before you default to it.

The Five Steps

Collect the recipient's account details in the format their country uses. Open and verify an account with a specialist, which takes about ten minutes once. Enter the amount and check the rate against the mid-market rate. Pay from your UK bank account by debit or open banking. Send in their currency, not in pounds.

Step five is the one people get wrong, and it is worth 2% to 4% of the payment. If you send pounds to a euro account, the receiving bank converts the money at its own rate, which you never see and never agreed to. That silently adds 2% to 4% to a payment you thought you had already priced.

The first transfer takes about ten minutes because of identity checks. Every one after it takes about two. That is why opening the account before you need it matters more than any other piece of preparation, especially on a payment with a deadline. The routes are compared in full in the guide to the cheapest international money transfer.

What It Costs on £1,000, Every Route

These are total costs, fee plus exchange rate charge, on £1,000 converted to US dollars and sent online. Every figure comes from the provider's own published pricing rather than a live quote.

The spread between the top and bottom of that table is about £51 on a single £1,000 payment. Send £1,000 a month and the same choice is worth about £610 a year, which is more than most people save by switching current accounts.

Can I Send Money Internationally Through My Bank?

Yes. Every major UK bank lets you send money abroad from the UK through its app or online banking, and for a one off payment where you already have the account it is the fastest thing to set up. The problem is price, not capability. A UK bank typically costs five to ten times what a specialist costs on the same transfer.

Yes, and Here Is What It Costs

Barclays charges nothing at all to send an international payment online or in the app, and from £15 in branch. That sounds like the cheapest option on this page until you notice that Barclays does not publish its exchange rate margin anywhere, so the real cost is whatever it decides on the day.

HSBC charges £5 online with a 2.2% margin up to £50,000, which tapers to 0.4% at £1 million. That makes it the cheapest of the big five on an ordinary payment, and the £5 fee is only about 18% of what a £1,000 transfer actually costs you. The full breakdown is in the guide to the HSBC international transfer.

At the other end, Santander charges £25 plus 3% up to £10,000, and Lloyds charges £9.50 plus a 3.55% margin, the highest published margin of any big UK bank. Details are in the guides to the Santander international transfer and the Lloyds international transfer.

The Two Charges Your Bank Shows You Separately

Every UK bank international payment has two costs and only one of them is presented as a cost. The transfer fee is a number on the screen, between £0 and £25. The exchange rate charge is a margin added to the rate, between 0.4% and 3.65%, and it is never labelled as a fee.

On £1,000 the fee is the small half and the margin is the large half at every single bank. At Lloyds the £9.50 fee is a fifth of the £45 total. At NatWest there is no standard fee at all and the payment still costs about £27.50, entirely through the rate.

So comparing banks on their fees ranks them almost backwards. The only number worth comparing is how much the recipient actually gets, and the only way to see it is to price the same amount at two providers on the same day.

When Your Bank Is Actually the Right Answer

There are three cases. A euro payment inside the EEA, where several UK banks charge nothing: HSBC, Nationwide on SEPA, and Lloyds on euro payments to Europe all send free, and the margin on a small euro payment may be less than the effort of opening something new.

A very large payment, where the bank margin tapers. HSBC drops to 0.4% at £1 million and Lloyds to 1.50% above £250,000, which narrows the gap considerably at that size.

And a destination no specialist serves, where your bank's SWIFT access is the only route that reaches the account at all. That case is rarer than people assume but it is real. The bank by bank ranking sits in the guide to the best UK banks for international transfers.

The Cheapest Way to Send Money Abroad From the UK

The cheapest way to send money abroad from the UK is a specialist provider paying into the recipient's bank account, funded from your UK current account and sent in their currency. That costs about £4 to £8 on £1,000 against £27 to £55 at a high street bank, and the gap widens as the amount grows.

The £1,000 Comparison

On £1,000 the practical choice is between about £4.30 at Starling, about £6.50 at Wise and about £8 at Monzo, against about £27 at the cheapest big bank and about £55 at the most expensive. The difference between the best and worst mainstream option is roughly £51.

Starling deserves its place at the top of that list and it is worth being honest about why it is not always the answer. It sends to 34 countries, which leaves out India, Pakistan, the Philippines, Nigeria and the UAE. It caps you at £10,000 a day. And it charges 2% on money coming in against 0.4% going out. The full picture is in the guide to the Starling international transfer.

The £5,000 Comparison, Where the Gap Widens

Percentages compound, so the ranking stays the same and the amounts stop being trivial. On £5,000 to US dollars: Starling about £20, Wise about £28, HSBC about £115, PayPal about £153, Santander about £175, Lloyds about £187.

That is a difference of about £167 between Wise and Lloyds on one payment. On a £50,000 transfer the TSB margin, which never falls with amount, costs about £1,600 against about £1,050 at HSBC, a £550 gap between two high street banks doing the same thing.

TSB is the only UK bank that prices by currency rather than by amount, from 3.20% on dollars up to 3.65% on Turkish lira, Mexican pesos, Moroccan dirham, Czech koruna, Hungarian forint and Israeli shekels. That makes it the worst big bank on large payments. Detail is in the guide to the TSB international transfer.

What Actually Makes It Cheaper

Four habits do almost all the work, and picking the perfect provider is the least important of them. Leave the high street bank, which is worth £20 to £50 on £1,000. Send in the recipient's currency, which saves 2% to 4% of silent conversion at the far end.

Fund from your bank account rather than a card, which saves 0.5% to 2%. And pay into a bank account rather than choosing cash pickup, which costs more because somebody has to physically hand over the money.

Price the year rather than the payment, because that is where the number stops being ignorable. On £500 sent every month to family, Wise costs about £3.25 a payment and Santander costs about £40, because the £25 flat fee lands on top of 3%. Annually that is about £39 against about £480.

Over 5 years the same monthly habit costs about £195 one way and about £2,400 the other, a difference of roughly £2,200 on payments nobody would describe as large. The flat fee is what does the damage at this size, which is why a £25 charge hurts far more on £500 than on £5,000.

The same arithmetic applies to a monthly mortgage or rent payment abroad. At £1,500 a month, Lloyds costs about £63 a payment, the £9.50 fee plus 3.55% on the conversion, which is about £750 a year. A specialist at 0.65% costs about £10 a payment, about £117 a year. That £633 gap is decided once, in a dropdown.

What does not make it cheaper: hunting for referral codes, waiting for a better rate on a small payment, or splitting one transfer into several to stay under a threshold. A major currency pair moves about 0.5% in a week, which is £5 on £1,000, so timing is noise at ordinary amounts.

International Money Transfer Services UK: Who Does What

Three providers cover almost every case for a UK sender, and they are built for different jobs rather than competing on the same one. The right question is not which is cheapest overall, because that changes with the corridor, but which one is built for the payment you are making.

All three are authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority and appear on the public Financial Services Register, which is the check worth doing on any international money transfer services UK search result before you hand over money. Authorised firms must hold customer funds separately from their own operating money, so a firm failing does not put your transfer at risk.

Wise, for Bank Account to Bank Account

Wise uses the mid-market rate, the rate you see on Google, and charges a visible fee from 0.1% instead of hiding a margin in the rate. On £1,000 to dollars that is about £6.50 all in. It holds over 40 currencies in one account and gives you local account details in several of them, which matters if money comes back the other way. Full scoring in the Wise review.

What it cannot do is cash pickup. If the person receiving the money has no bank account, Wise is not the tool, and no amount of price advantage changes that.

9.5

Read our review

Fees & Exchange Rates10.0

Transfer Speed9.0

Safety & Trust10.0

Service & Quality9.5

Go to Wise

Read our review

Xe, for Large Payments and Fixed Dates

Xe treats a large transfer as normal rather than exceptional, removes its transfer fee above certain thresholds, and lets you lock a rate for a payment with a future date. On a property purchase abroad or a payment tied to a completion date, that rate locking is worth more than any fee difference. Detail in the Xe review.

9.0

Read our review

Fees & Exchange Rates7.5

Transfer Speed10.0

Safety & Trust10.0

Service & Quality9.0

Go to Xe

Read our review

Remitly, for Cash and Wallets

Remitly reaches over 170 receiving countries with cash pickup and mobile wallet delivery as well as bank deposit, and offers an economy option over 3 to 5 days or an express option in minutes. It covers exactly the corridors Starling does not, including India, Pakistan, the Philippines and Nigeria. Detail in the Remitly review.

8.5

Read our review

Fees & Exchange Rates8.5

Transfer Speed8.0

Safety & Trust10.0

Service & Quality9.0

Go to Remitly

Read our review

The Three Way Table

The winner changes with the payment, which is the honest conclusion and the reason a comparison on your own figures beats any ranking written in advance. On the same £1,000 to a US bank account all 3 land within about £3 of each other, so on that route the choice barely matters. On a £1,000 cash pickup in the Philippines only 1 of the 3 can do it at all.

The Protection You Lose at the Border

This is the part almost no UK guide covers. Since 7 October 2024, UK payment firms must reimburse victims of authorised push payment fraud up to £85,000, within five business days. The Payment Systems Regulator called it a set of "world-leading protections". It does not apply to international payments at all.

What UK Rules Give You on a Domestic Payment

The reimbursement requirement covers the Faster Payments System and CHAPS, the two systems that move sterling between UK accounts. If you are tricked into sending money to a fraudster's UK account, your bank must pay you back up to £85,000, and it must do so within five business days of you reporting it, subject to a claim excess of up to £100.

Alongside it sits Confirmation of Payee, described by UK Finance as a "name checking service for UK based payments". It tells you before you send whether the name you typed matches the name on the account, returning a match, a close match, a no-match or unavailable. It is the single most effective defence against paying the wrong person.

Why None of It Applies Abroad

The reimbursement rules are explicit about scope. They do not apply to payments across other payment systems, to international payments, or to payments made for unlawful purposes, and the receiving account has to be held in the UK. An international transfer fails that test on both counts, because it leaves the Faster Payments and CHAPS systems and it lands outside the UK.

Confirmation of Payee has the same boundary built into its name. It checks UK based payments. Send to a Spanish IBAN or a Philippine account number and there is no name check at all, which is why a single wrong digit can send money to a stranger who is under no obligation to return it.

So the protection profile inverts exactly when the amounts get larger and the recipient gets harder to reach. On a domestic payment you have a statutory backstop. On an international one you have your own care and nothing else. The verification routine that replaces it is in the guide to the safest way to send money internationally.

What to Do Instead

Three habits replace the protection you no longer have. Telephone the recipient on a number you found yourself and read the account details back to them, digit by digit, before you send anything. Never use details that arrived in an email you did not initiate, because payment redirection fraud works by intercepting exactly that email.

Send a small test payment first on any new recipient or corridor, £1 or £10. It costs one extra day and it settles the question of whether the details are right while the amount at risk is trivial.

And check the provider is authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority on the public Financial Services Register rather than trusting a badge on a website. Authorised firms must safeguard customer money separately from their own, so the firm failing does not put your transfer at risk. That is a different protection from fraud reimbursement and it is the one you do still get.

Sending Euros From the UK: SEPA After Brexit

Euro payments are the single biggest exception to everything above, and the one case where it costs nothing to send money abroad from the UK through your existing bank. The reason is SEPA, the Single Euro Payments Area, and the UK is still in it. That was not guaranteed after Brexit and it was confirmed only in May 2026.

The UK Is Still in SEPA, and That Was Not Guaranteed

The European Payments Council board voted to support continued UK participation after what UK Finance called "a long and thorough process of deliberation through all of the EPC's governance levels". The UK stays in as a non-EEA participant, under criteria that require a strong economic and legal relationship with the EU.

UK Finance was blunt about what the alternative would have meant: consumers and businesses on both sides of the Channel facing "missing billing deadlines, mortgage payments, or other crucial transactions". For anyone paying rent, a mortgage or a supplier in the eurozone from a UK account, this is the most consequential payments decision of 2026 and almost nobody noticed it.

Practically, it means a euro payment from the UK to an EEA account still travels on the SEPA rails rather than the more expensive SWIFT route. That is why the fee is often zero and why the money usually arrives the next working day.

Which UK Banks Send Euros for Free

Four of the big names charge nothing for a euro payment inside the EEA, which is the one case where using your existing bank is genuinely defensible. HSBC sends EEA euro payments free. Nationwide charges £0 on SEPA against £15 on a SWIFT payment. Lloyds sends euro payments to Europe free against £9.50 elsewhere. TSB charges £0 on euro to the EEA against £10 to £17.50 otherwise.

NatWest is free to receive euros and charges no standard fee to send. It does charge £15 for an urgent payment, and it delivers standard and urgent euro payments at the same speed, so on a euro payment that £15 buys nothing at all.

When a Euro Payment Still Costs You

The fee being zero does not make the payment free, because the exchange rate margin still applies. Lloyds sends euros to Europe with no fee and still takes 3.55% on the conversion, which is about £35 on £1,000. Free means free of the fee, not free of the 3.55%.

There is one way to make it genuinely free, and it is to hold euros rather than convert them. If you have a euro balance, a SEPA payment from a bank that charges no fee costs you nothing at all, because there is no conversion to mark up. That is the argument for a multi-currency account for anyone paying into the eurozone regularly.

The second trap is sending pounds to a euro account and letting the receiving bank convert. That is not a SEPA payment at all, it is a currency conversion done by somebody with no incentive to be cheap, and it typically costs 2% to 4% on top.

Getting the Payment Right the First Time

An international transfer from the UK fails for dull reasons far more often than dramatic ones: the wrong account format, the wrong currency, the wrong charge option, or a missed cut off time. All four are settled before you press send and none can be fixed afterwards.

The Details Each Country Wants

Account formats differ by country and the wrong shape is rejected rather than delayed. Europe and much of the Middle East use an IBAN of up to 34 characters. The United States uses a 9 digit routing number plus an account number. Australia uses a 6 digit BSB. Canada uses a transit number plus an institution number.

Several corridors, including India, also require a purpose of payment code. Leaving it blank stops the payment rather than slowing it down. Ask the recipient to send you their details exactly as their own bank prints them, rather than translating anything yourself.

SHA, OUR and BEN, in Plain English

A bank international payment carries a charge code that decides who pays the banks in the middle of the route. SHA means you pay your bank's charge and the recipient pays everyone else's, which is why less money often arrives than you sent. OUR means you pay everything and the full amount arrives. BEN means the recipient pays everything.

Most UK online banking sends SHA by default and never asks you. If the exact amount matters, for a bill or a rent payment, ask your bank for OUR and accept the higher upfront charge. Specialists avoid the question entirely because there are no banks in the middle. The charge itself is broken down in the guide to the telegraphic transfer fee.

Limits and Cut Off Times

UK bank limits vary enormously and they are the constraint that will actually stop you rather than any legal cap. Lloyds allows £100,000 a day online, TSB £75,000, HSBC £50,000, NatWest £20,000 with biometrics, and Starling £10,000. Nationwide publishes no sending limit at all.

Cut off times matter just as much. Most UK banks stop processing international payments in the early afternoon, and Halifax uses 3pm. A payment submitted after the cut off waits for the next working day, and a Friday afternoon transfer can sit until Monday, with a public holiday at either end adding more. Nationwide's fee structure and its unusual receiving rate are covered in the guide to the Nationwide international transfer.

One more limit worth knowing is what an urgent option actually buys. NatWest charges £15 for an urgent payment, but delivers standard and urgent euro payments at the same speed, so on any euro payment that £15 buys nothing. Detail in the guide to the NatWest international transfer.

With those settled, the only question left is which route your amount and destination actually make cheapest, and that takes under a minute on your own figures.

The Bottom Line on Sending Money Abroad From the UK

There is one decision that matters more than every other on this page. To send money abroad from the UK cheaply, leave the high street bank. That is worth about £20 to £50 on every £1,000 you send, and about £610 a year on a monthly payment. Send in the recipient's currency, pay from your bank account, and open the account before you need it rather than during a deadline.

Which Provider, in One Line Each

Starling if you already bank there and the destination is one of its 34 countries. Wise for a bank account in a major currency, or if you want to hold more than one currency. Xe for a large payment or one with a fixed future date. Remitly if the recipient needs cash or a mobile wallet.

Your own bank only for a free euro payment inside the EEA, for a payment large enough that the margin tapers, or for a destination nothing else reaches. Barclays is worth a special mention here: it charges nothing online and publishes no margin, so it is the one bank you genuinely cannot compare without pricing it yourself. That is covered in the guide to the Barclays international transfer.

And Remember What Changes at the Border

The £85,000 reimbursement guarantee and the Confirmation of Payee name check both stop at the UK border. On an international payment your own verification is the entire protection, so make the phone call, read the digits back, and send a small test first on anything new.

Frequently Asked Questions

Sources

Bank fees and exchange rate margins on this page come from each bank's own published pricing and were checked in August and September 2026. UK banks change these regularly, so confirm your own bank's current rate before a large payment.

• Payment Systems Regulator, APP scams reimbursement decision: the £85,000 maximum, the start date of 7 October 2024, coverage of Faster Payments and CHAPS, and the description of these as "world-leading protections". The reimbursement requirement does not apply to international payments and requires the receiving account to be held in the UK.
• UK Finance, Confirmation of Payee: described as a "name checking service for UK based payments", returning a match, close match, no-match or unavailable response.
• UK Finance, UK maintains participation in SEPA: the European Payments Council board vote, continued UK participation as a non-EEA participant, and the warning about "missing billing deadlines, mortgage payments, or other crucial transactions".
• Bank pricing pages for HSBC, Barclays, Lloyds, Halifax, NatWest, Santander, Nationwide, TSB, Starling and Monzo: the fees, exchange rate margins, daily limits and cut off times quoted throughout. Barclays publishes no exchange rate margin.
• PayPal UK fee page: 5% of the amount with a £0.99 minimum and a £2.99 cap, plus 3% above the base exchange rate on conversion, which is uncapped.
• Wise, pricing: use of the mid-market rate with fees from 0.1%, and multi-currency account coverage.
• Financial Conduct Authority, Financial Services Register: for confirming a provider is authorised and that customer funds are safeguarded.

Nothing here is financial advice. Worked examples use published fee and rate policy rather than live quotes, and the total cost of any transfer depends on the rate at the moment you send.