TSB International Transfer: Fees, Limits and How to Send Money Abroad (2026)
TSB prices international payments in a way no other UK bank does. Instead of setting its exchange rate margin by how much you send, it sets it by which currency you are sending, and publishes the whole list.
Send US dollars and the margin is 3.20%. Send Turkish lira, Mexican pesos or Moroccan dirham and it is 3.65%. Same bank, same account, same afternoon. The destination changes the price rather than the amount.
That has a second consequence most people miss. Because the margin is fixed by currency, it does not fall as your payment grows, which makes TSB competitive on £500 and one of the most expensive options on £50,000.
This guide sets out the full TSB price list by currency, what a TSB international transfer really costs once the fee and the margin are added together, the £5,000 fee step, the limits, the timings, what you pay to receive money, and where the same money goes further.
Find the Best and Cheapest Way to Send Money Abroad
A published price list tells you the rules TSB applies. It cannot tell you what today's rate does to your amount on your route, and that is the number that decides how much money actually reaches the other end.
Enter your amount and destination below. The comparison shows what each provider delivers to the recipient, which is the single figure that already contains the fee, the margin and any deductions along the way.
Run it before anything over a few hundred pounds. On a £5,000 payment to a top band currency it routinely shows a gap of more than £180 between TSB and providers such as Wise and Xe.
How TSB Sends Money Abroad
TSB charges two separate things and neither behaves the way you would expect from other banks. The fee depends on the channel and on whether you are above or below £5,000. The exchange rate margin depends on the currency and nothing else. Euro payments into Europe carry no fee at all.
The Fee Depends on Where and How Much
Most UK banks publish one transfer fee. TSB publishes four, and the online ones step up at £5,000, which creates a threshold worth knowing about before you decide how to split a payment. Sending online is always cheaper than a branch or a phone call, by £10 on a small payment.
How you send it | Fee |
|---|---|
Online, euros to Europe | No fee |
Online, other payments up to £5,000 | £10 |
Online, other payments over £5,000 | £17.50 |
Branch or phone, euros to Europe | No fee |
Branch or phone, everything else | £20 |
The £5,000 line is the interesting one. Sending £4,999 costs £10 and sending £5,001 costs £17.50, so £2 more money costs £7.50 more in fees. On a payment sitting just above the threshold that you can legitimately split across two days, the saving is real.
Why the £5,000 Line Matters
The arithmetic runs both ways and it is worth doing rather than assuming. Two payments of £4,000 cost £20 in fees because each triggers the £10 charge. One payment of £8,000 costs £17.50, so consolidating saves £2.50 on that amount.
Reverse the numbers and the answer flips. One payment of £5,200 costs £17.50, while splitting it into two payments of £2,600 costs £20, so splitting loses. The break even point sits at exactly £5,000, and the only question worth asking is which side of it your total lands on.
The margin is unaffected either way, because TSB fixes that by currency rather than by amount. That makes the fee the only part of a TSB payment you can plan around, which is unusual and mildly useful.
Where the Money Goes on the Way
Payments leaving Europe travel on SWIFT, which is a messaging network rather than a payment rail. Your money leaves TSB, passes through one or two correspondent banks that hold accounts with each other, and only then reaches the recipient's bank. Each can deduct £10 to £25 before passing it on.
This is why a round number so often arrives as an odd one. TSB did not take that money, cannot see who did, and cannot recover it, because the deducting bank has no relationship with TSB or with you. The way these charges stack up is set out in the guide to telegraphic transfer fees.
TSB International Transfer Fees and the Currency Margin
The TSB international transfer fee is £10 or £17.50 online depending on the amount, £20 in a branch or by phone, and nothing for euros into Europe. The exchange rate margin runs between 3.20% and 3.65% and is decided entirely by the currency you send.
TSB Charges by Currency, Not by Amount
Every other major UK bank sets its margin by size, so a bigger payment gets a smaller percentage. TSB does the opposite thing entirely: the percentage is fixed by the currency and stays exactly where it is whether you send £100 or £75,000. The full list below is published on TSB's own site.
Margin | Currencies |
|---|---|
3.20% | US dollar, Canadian dollar |
3.30% | Euro, Australian dollar, South African rand, New Zealand dollar |
3.40% | Swiss franc, Japanese yen, UAE dirham |
3.50% | Danish krone, Norwegian krone, Swedish krona, Hong Kong dollar, Singapore dollar, Polish zloty |
3.55% | Saudi riyal, Tunisian dinar |
3.65% | Czech koruna, Hungarian forint, Mexican peso, Moroccan dirham, Turkish lira, Israeli shekel |
TSB describes the margin as the difference between the rate it buys currency at and the rate it passes to you, and it keeps that difference. It applies to money arriving as well as money leaving, which several banks do not do. How this mechanism works across the market is explained in the guide to the mid-market exchange rate.
What the Currency Difference Costs You
The spread between 3.20% and 3.65% is 0.45 of a percentage point, which sounds like rounding until you convert it into pounds on a real payment. It also falls unevenly across TSB's customers, because the cheapest bands are the currencies fewest people send family money to.
Same £2,000, Four Different Countries
One TSB account. One amount. The margin changes because the currency changes.
- To the United States: 3.20%, so £64 in margin.
- To Poland: 3.50%, so £70.
- To Morocco: 3.65%, so £73.
- To Turkey: 3.65%, so £73. Plus a £10 fee on all four.
The gap on one payment is £9, which nobody would change banks over. Across twelve monthly payments it is £876 in margin to Turkey against £768 to the United States, on identical amounts moved on identical dates.
Who the Top Band Actually Hits
Look at which currencies sit in the 3.65% band: Turkish lira, Moroccan dirham, Mexican pesos, Czech koruna, Hungarian forint and Israeli shekels. Those are not currencies people buy for a holiday, they are the currencies of countries with established communities in the UK sending money home.
The cheapest band, US and Canadian dollars at 3.20%, covers routes where transfers are more likely to be one off payments than monthly remittances. The effect is that the customers sending most often are paying the highest percentage, month after month.
There is a legitimate reason behind it rather than a malicious one. Less heavily traded currencies genuinely cost a bank more to source and hedge, and TSB is at least publishing the numbers rather than hiding them the way Barclays does. The effect on your money is the same either way, so it is worth knowing which band you are in before setting up a standing payment.
The Margin Does Not Fall on Big Payments
This is the structural problem and it is larger than the currency banding. At HSBC a £100,000 payment attracts a lower percentage than a £1,000 one. At Lloyds the margin falls from 3.55% to 1.50% across the range. At TSB it does not move at all.
On £50,000 to US dollars, TSB takes 3.20%, which is £1,600. Lloyds at that size takes roughly 2.40% and HSBC around 2.10%, landing at about £1,200 and £1,050 respectively. Wise charges roughly £200 on the same payment. TSB goes from mid table on small transfers to one of the most expensive options on large ones, purely because of a pricing structure rather than a higher headline number.
How to Send Money Abroad With TSB
You can transfer money abroad with TSB through Internet Banking, the app, by phone or in a branch. Online is substantially cheaper, at £10 against £20 on a payment under £5,000, and the difference buys you nothing beyond somebody else typing the details.
How to Send Money in Internet Banking
The TSB send money abroad flow takes a couple of minutes once the recipient exists. Log in, choose an international payment, then add or select the person you are paying. Enter their country, the currency they should receive and their bank details, type the amount, review the rate and confirm.
The review screen is the only point where the exchange rate appears before the money is gone. Search the same currency pair on Google, which returns the mid-market rate, and compare. The gap is the margin from the table above, and with TSB you have the advantage of knowing in advance exactly what that number should be.
Send Before 4:30pm
Requests made after 4:30pm are processed the following business day. That deadline is later than several competitors, which genuinely helps, but it still means a Friday afternoon payment sits untouched until Monday morning before the delivery window even starts.
If your money has a deadline attached, send it in the morning and early in the week. Timing costs nothing, requires no extra effort, and is the only variable on this page entirely within your control.
What You Need From the Person You Are Paying
TSB asks for the recipient's full name and address, their bank's name and address, their IBAN and BIC, and a routing code for payments to the United States. That is slightly more than several banks require, and the bank address in particular is the field people get stuck on. The full checklist is in the guide to what bank details you need to transfer money.
Get the name exactly right, spelled as the recipient's bank holds it rather than as they write it themselves. A name mismatch is one of the main reasons a payment bounces, and a bounced payment comes back short because every correspondent bank that touched it keeps its charge regardless.
The requirement for a bank address alongside the BIC is worth planning for. Many banks derive the address from the code automatically and TSB does not, so gather it before you start rather than stopping halfway through to message the person you are paying.
If You Send Money Every Month
A single payment and a monthly commitment are different problems, and TSB's flat margin makes the second one worse rather than better over time. A 3.65% margin on £1,000 a month to Turkey is £438 a year, plus £120 in fees, which is £558 on £12,000 sent.
The same £12,000 through Wise costs roughly £75 across the year at the mid-market rate, because the price does not change with the corridor. That is the largest single saving available on this page, it takes about ten minutes to set up once, and it repeats every year afterwards.
TSB International Transfer Limits
You can send up to £75,000 a day across all channels combined. It is a single daily ceiling rather than a per payment one, so several payments made on the same day all draw down the same allowance.
£75,000 a Day, All Channels
That sits above NatWest at £20,000 and below Lloyds and Halifax at £100,000, which puts TSB comfortably in the upper half of the high street. For rent, tuition, supplier invoices and most family transfers it is far more headroom than anyone needs.
It covers most house deposits and school fee payments, and it will not cover a full property completion at typical UK prices. At that point you need a provider that can take the whole amount at once, and the guide to transferring large sums internationally covers what to prepare before you start.
It Is One Limit Across Everything
The £75,000 is not per payment and not per channel, which is the detail that trips people up. Everything you send in a calendar day is added together, whether that is one payment or six, and whether they go through the app, Internet Banking, a phone call or a branch counter.
So a deposit paid in the morning and school fees paid in the afternoon both draw on the same allowance, and hitting the ceiling on the second payment is how most people discover the rule exists. Plan a day of multiple payments in advance rather than working it out as you go.
Why TSB Asks Questions About Big Payments
Above roughly £10,000, expect to be asked where the money came from and what it is for. That obligation comes from anti money laundering law rather than from TSB's own policy, every UK bank operates it, and being asked is not a signal that anything about your payment looks wrong.
What to Have Ready for a Big Transfer
If TSB holds your payment, it usually goes through in a day or two once you send documents. The delay comes when they ask after the money has already gone.
- Where the money came from: a house sale statement, an inheritance letter, a sale confirmation, or recent payslips.
- What it is for: the contract, invoice or deposit request with the person's name on it.
- Who the person is: how you know them, especially if the account name looks unrelated.
- The £75,000 daily cap: check it covers your payment before the day it is due.
On a large payment the margin deserves more scrutiny at TSB than anywhere else, because it does not fall with the amount. On £50,000 that is £1,600 against about £1,050 at HSBC and roughly £200 through a mid-market provider.
How Long a TSB International Transfer Takes
Euros to the EU, the EEA, Monaco or Switzerland typically arrive the next working day. Other major destinations take up to four working days. Anything requested after 4:30pm is processed the following business day, which pushes the whole window back.
Euros: Next Working Day
Euro payments run on SEPA, a single scheme with shared rules covering the whole European Economic Area, which makes the timing predictable in a way SWIFT payments never are. Send before the cut-off and the money is normally credited the next working day with no intermediary able to slow it.
TSB extends that group to Monaco and Switzerland, which not every bank does. If you are paying someone in Geneva or Zurich in euros, you get the faster route and the 3.30% band rather than the slower SWIFT path.
The wording matters more than it looks. It is euros to those countries, not Swiss francs. Send francs to Switzerland and you leave SEPA, join the slower route, and pay the 3.40% band instead. The currency decides both the speed and the price, and the country decides neither.
Everywhere Else: Up to 4 Working Days
Other destinations take up to four working days, and how much longer depends on how many banks have to handle the payment rather than on distance. A dollar payment to a major US bank often clears at the fast end because sterling to dollar is one of the most heavily traded routes in the world. A thinly traded currency may need three intermediaries. The mechanism is explained in the guide to how long an international money transfer takes.
Working days exclude weekends and UK bank holidays, and the destination country runs its own calendar on top. A payment sent on Saturday is a Monday payment, a UK bank holiday pushes it to Tuesday, and a public holiday at the far end can add another day after the money has already reached the destination banking system.
Send Pounds or Send the Other Currency?
TSB lets you send sterling and leave the recipient's bank to convert, or convert before the money leaves. The two options look nearly identical on screen and hand the pricing decision to entirely different institutions.
Send pounds and the receiving bank applies a rate it chooses, at a margin it has no duty to disclose and usually does not. Foreign banks converting inbound sterling commonly take 3% to 4%, which is no better than TSB and completely invisible from your side of the payment.
Convert before it leaves and the price is at least checkable. With TSB you have an advantage most banks do not give you, because the margin for your currency is published in advance, so you can calculate the cost before you open the app rather than reverse engineering it afterwards.
If Your Payment Is Late or Goes Missing
TSB can trace a payment that has not landed, and the tool that makes it possible is the SWIFT reference, also called the UETR. That is a unique tracking number attached when the payment leaves, and any bank in the chain can use it to show exactly where the money is sitting and which institution is holding it.
Contact TSB through Internet Banking, the app or the number on the back of your card, with the date, the amount, the recipient's account details and the reference ready. Most traced payments turn out to be waiting at a correspondent bank on a compliance check rather than lost, and they normally release within a few working days once queried.
Receiving Money From Abroad Into TSB
SEPA and euro payments arrive free. Other currencies cost £2 on payments up to £100 and £7 above that, and the same currency margin from the table above applies to money coming in as well as going out.
TSB Receiving Money From Abroad Fees
The receiving charge depends on both the currency and the size of the payment. Euros arriving through SEPA carry no fee at all, while every other currency triggers a flat charge before the conversion margin touches the money.
What arrives | Fee to receive |
|---|---|
SEPA and euro payments | Free |
Other currency, up to £100 | £2 |
Other currency, over £100 | £7 |
For anyone paid from abroad monthly, £7 a time is £84 a year in fees alone. The margin then lands on top, and on £2,000 a month arriving in dollars that is another £768 at the 3.20% band, which makes the fee the small part of the bill.
The Margin Applies Both Ways
TSB is explicit that the margin applies to incoming payments exactly as it does to outgoing ones, which is unusual and expensive. Most banks charge less on the way in because inbound customers have no choice and no visibility. Nationwide charges 0.5% inbound against 2.2% outbound. TSB charges the same 3.20% to 3.65% in both directions, so a freelancer paid in dollars pays four to seven times what a Nationwide customer pays on identical income. The comparison is set out in the Nationwide international transfer guide.
If You Get Paid From Abroad Every Month
Sending money gets checked. Receiving money almost never does, and TSB charges the same margin in both directions.
- £2,000 a month in dollars: £7 a time is £84 a year, plus 3.20% which is another £768.
- Total: about £852 a year, and almost none of it appears as a charge.
- Into an account that holds dollars: nothing gets changed, so nothing is taken.
- Who this hits: freelancers, landlords with property abroad, and anyone on an overseas pension.
Wise issues local account details in several currencies at no monthly cost, so dollars arrive into a dollar balance and stay there until you decide the rate is worth taking. The alternatives are compared in the guide to the best USD bank account in the UK.
TSB vs Other UK Banks
TSB sits at the expensive end of the table for a structural reason rather than a headline one. The fees are mid range and reasonable, but the margin starts at 3.20%, tops out at 3.65%, and never falls with the amount, which no other major UK bank does.
What Each UK Bank Charges
Read the second column before the first, because on any payment above roughly £300 the margin exceeds the fee at every bank on this list. TSB is the only entry where that percentage stays fixed no matter how large the transfer becomes.
Bank | Fee to send | Exchange rate charge |
|---|---|---|
TSB | £10 to £17.50, £0 euros to EEA | 3.20% to 3.65%, by currency, does not fall |
Lloyds | £9.50, £0 euros to Europe | 3.55% falling to 1.50% |
Halifax | £9.50, £0 euros to Europe | 3.55% falling to 1.50% |
Santander | £25 | 3% to £10,000, then 2%, then 1% |
NatWest | £0 standard, £15 urgent | Up to 2.75% |
HSBC | £5 online, £0 on some routes | 2.2% up to £50,000 |
Nationwide | £15 SWIFT, £0 SEPA | 2.2% out, 0.5% in |
Starling | 0.4% plus a delivery fee | 0.4% |
Each of these is broken down in its own guide: Lloyds, Halifax, Santander, NatWest, HSBC, Nationwide and Starling.
Why the Flat Margin Matters So Much
On £1,000 to US dollars, TSB takes about £32 in margin and HSBC takes about £22. A £10 gap on a payment that size is real but easy to ignore, and most people would not switch banks over it.
On £50,000 the same comparison is £1,600 against £1,050, a difference of £550, because HSBC's percentage steps down and TSB's does not. The larger the payment, the worse TSB looks, and it happens without TSB ever raising a published number.
What TSB Does Not Offer
TSB has no multi-currency account, which means you cannot hold euros or dollars with it and convert when the rate suits you. Every payment is converted at the moment it moves, at that day's rate, with no ability to wait out a bad week.
It also cannot fix a rate for a future payment, and it cannot deliver to cash pickup points or mobile wallets. For anyone sending money home to family, those two gaps matter more than the fee does, because the delivery method often determines whether the money is usable at the other end at all.
The Three Things to Check Before You Send
TSB publishes everything, which is good. But you have to look in three places to price one payment.
- Which margin band your currency is in: between 3.20% and 3.65%, from the table above.
- Whether your amount is over £5,000: that moves the fee from £10 to £17.50.
- Whether it is euros to Europe: if so, the fee is zero and the margin is 3.30%.
- The daily £75,000 cap: across everything you send that day, not per payment.
Work through all four once and you know what TSB costs you permanently, because none of these numbers move with the size of the payment. That is the one genuine convenience of a flat margin.
TSB and Wise on the Same £1,000
Pricing one identical payment both ways removes the ambiguity. TSB charges £10 plus 3.20% on a dollar payment, landing at about £42. Wise converts at the mid-market rate and charges a stated fee, landing at roughly £6.50 on the same £1,000.
The gap widens on the routes TSB charges most for. To Turkey the margin is 3.65%, so the same £1,000 costs about £47 at TSB, while Wise prices the corridor on its own cost rather than on how heavily traded the currency is. The busier your corridor, the larger the difference.
When TSB Makes Sense
TSB is not the cheapest, but there are cases where it works.
- Euros to Europe: no fee, next working day, and the second lowest TSB margin band at 3.30%.
- A clear published price list: TSB tells you the margin for every currency, which Barclays does not.
- Payments under £5,000: the £10 fee is fair on that size.
- Where it loses: anything large, because the margin never falls.
If you send to Turkey, Mexico, Morocco, the Czech Republic, Hungary or Israel, you are on the most expensive band TSB publishes, and those are exactly the corridors specialists compete hardest on.
How PayPal Compares With a TSB Transfer
PayPal charges 5% of the amount to send money internationally, with a minimum of £0.99 and a cap of £2.99. It then adds roughly 3% above its base exchange rate whenever a currency change is involved, and that second charge has no cap at all.
A Comparison TSB Loses on Almost Every Amount
Because TSB's margin never falls below 3.20% and sits at 3.65% on many corridors, PayPal's flat 3% is actually the lower percentage on every route TSB offers. Add TSB's £10 or £17.50 fee against PayPal's £2.99 cap and the result is uncomfortable for the bank.
Amount | PayPal total | TSB online, dollars | Cheaper |
|---|---|---|---|
£100 | about £6 | about £13 | PayPal by £7 |
£1,000 | about £33 | about £42 | PayPal by £9 |
£5,000 | about £153 | about £170 | PayPal by £17 |
£20,000 | about £603 | about £658 | PayPal by £55 |
PayPal is cheaper than TSB at every amount in this table, which is not a result that holds for most UK banks. It happens because TSB is the only one that never reduces its percentage, so the usual crossover where a bank overtakes PayPal on large payments simply never arrives.
Neither Is the Answer
PayPal works when you have an email address and no bank details, or when the recipient already uses it. It cannot handle a £75,000 payment and it is not built for regular remittances, so beating TSB on price does not make it the right tool.
Wise charges about £6.50 on £1,000 at the mid-market rate, roughly a fifth of PayPal's price and a sixth of TSB's, and it does not change the price because of which currency you chose. The two are set against each other directly in the PayPal vs Wise comparison.
Cheaper Ways to Send the Same Money
Specialist providers price the two costs separately instead of merging them. They convert at the mid-market rate, the one banks use between themselves and the one Google returns, then charge a stated fee on top. The price does not change because of which country you happen to be sending to.
All three below are authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority and required to safeguard customer money in segregated accounts held apart from company funds. None is a bank, so the protection model differs rather than being weaker, and the distinction is worth understanding before moving a very large amount.
Wise
Wise converts at the mid-market rate and shows the fee before you confirm, so the entire price is one visible number rather than a fee sitting beside a margin you have to look up. On the £1,000 to dollars example running through this page, Wise costs about £6.50 against TSB's £42.
Wise also issues local account details in several currencies, which removes both the £7 TSB receiving fee and the inbound margin. Given that TSB applies its full 3.20% to 3.65% to money arriving, that is usually the larger of the two savings for anyone paid from abroad.
The limitations are real and worth stating. Wise is not a bank, so your balance is safeguarded rather than covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, and there are no branches to walk into. The full assessment is in the Wise review.
Remitly
Remitly is built around remittance corridors rather than general transfers, which makes it strongest for South Asia, the Philippines, Latin America and much of Africa. Those overlap heavily with the currencies TSB puts in its top margin band, so the gap on those specific routes is wider than the averages suggest.
It delivers to cash pickup points and mobile wallets, neither of which TSB supports, and it offers a genuine choice between an express option arriving in minutes and an economy option costing less. TSB charges the same fee whether the money is urgent or not.
It is weaker outside its core corridors and on single large payments, which is not what it was designed for. For a fixed amount sent to family monthly it is frequently the cheapest option on this page. For a house deposit it is the wrong tool.
Xe
Xe covers a very wide currency range and is built for larger amounts, with rate alerts and the ability to fix today's rate for a payment you will make later. TSB cannot lock a rate, and its £75,000 daily cap would block most payments large enough for rate risk to matter.
On a £300,000 property purchase, a 4% currency move between exchange and completion is £12,000, which is larger than every fee discussed anywhere on this page combined. Forward contracts exist for exactly that problem, and no UK high street bank offers one on a retail account.
For small everyday payments Wise and Remitly usually beat it, because per transfer economics favour providers built around volume. Xe earns its place on large or scheduled payments where the rate matters more than the fee does.
Find the Cheapest Option for Your Amount
Which provider wins depends on the amount, the currency, the destination and the rate on the day, and with TSB the currency matters more than it does anywhere else. On euros into Europe, free and next day makes TSB a fair choice. On £5,000 to Turkey the gap to Wise is over £180.
Check your own numbers rather than trusting any general rule, including the ones on this page.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the TSB international transfer fee?
Online, euro payments to Europe are free, other payments up to £5,000 cost £10, and payments over £5,000 cost £17.50. In a branch or by phone, euros to Europe are free and everything else costs £20. On top of the fee, TSB adds an exchange rate margin of between 3.20% and 3.65% depending on which currency you are sending.
Why does TSB charge different rates for different currencies?
TSB sets its margin by currency rather than by amount, which no other big UK bank does. US and Canadian dollars are the cheapest at 3.20%. Euros are 3.30%. Czech koruna, Hungarian forint, Mexican pesos, Moroccan dirham, Turkish lira and Israeli shekels are the most expensive at 3.65%. The margin is the same whether you send £100 or £50,000.
How do I send money abroad with TSB?
Log in to TSB Internet Banking or the app and choose an international payment. You need the recipient's full name and address, their bank name and address, their IBAN and BIC, and a routing code for payments to the United States. Enter the amount and currency, check the exchange rate on the screen, then confirm. Requests made after 4:30pm are processed the next business day.
What is the TSB international transfer limit?
You can send up to £75,000 a day across all channels. That is a single daily limit rather than a per payment one, so several payments on the same day all count toward the same £75,000. It is higher than NatWest at £20,000 and lower than Lloyds and Halifax at £100,000.
How long does a TSB international transfer take?
Euro payments to the EU, the EEA, Monaco or Switzerland typically arrive the next working day. Other major destinations take up to 4 working days, because the money passes through more banks and each one adds processing time. Anything requested after 4:30pm is processed the following business day.
What are the TSB receiving money from abroad fees?
SEPA and euro payments arrive free. Other currencies cost £2 if the payment is up to £100 and £7 if it is over £100. TSB also applies the same currency margin to money coming in as it does to money going out, so a payment arriving in dollars carries the 3.20% as well as the £7.
Is TSB expensive for sending money abroad?
On small payments it is mid table. On large ones it is one of the most expensive, because the margin never falls with the amount. On £50,000 to dollars, TSB takes about £1,600 in margin against about £1,050 at HSBC. Every other big UK bank reduces its percentage on large payments and TSB does not.
Does TSB charge for sending euros to Europe?
There is no fee for euro payments sent to a country in the EEA, whether you send online, by phone or in a branch. But the 3.30% euro margin still applies if the money starts in a pounds account. On £2,000 that is about £66, on a payment with no fee at all.
What is the cheapest way to send money abroad from TSB?
Sending euros to Europe from a euro balance costs nothing at all. For anything else, a company using the real exchange rate is usually cheaper, because it does not charge a 3.20% to 3.65% margin. The saving is biggest on large payments and on the currencies TSB puts in its top band.
Is TSB safe for sending money abroad?
Yes. TSB Bank plc is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority, and your money is protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme up to the normal limit. Safety is not the issue. The margin that does not fall with the amount is.
Should You Use TSB to Send Money Abroad?
For euros into Europe, TSB is a reasonable choice on its own terms. No fee, next working day, Monaco and Switzerland included, and the euro margin at 3.30% is the second lowest band TSB publishes.
For anything else, check which band your currency falls in before you decide anything. If you send to Turkey, Mexico, Morocco, the Czech Republic, Hungary or Israel, you are paying 3.65%, the most TSB charges anyone, on every payment regardless of size.
And if you are moving a large amount, look elsewhere. TSB is the only major UK bank whose margin does not fall as the payment grows, which costs about £550 more than HSBC on £50,000 and roughly £1,400 more than a mid-market provider on the same transfer.
Sources
Every fee, margin, limit and timing on this page comes from TSB's own published material and was checked in August 2026. Bank pricing changes with little notice, so confirm the number that applies to your payment before you send it.
- TSB, Foreign exchange international payment margins, the full margin table by currency.
- TSB, International payments FAQs, fees to send and receive, limits, timings and required details.
- TSB, International transfers in Internet Banking, how to set up a payment.
- 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, check TSB, Wise, Remitly and Xe are approved.
- Financial Services Compensation Scheme, what is covered for banks and building societies, how much of your money is protected.
Prices for Wise, Remitly and Xe were checked on the same day against the same £1,000 to US dollars payment. The method behind those calculations is in the guide to how banks charge for money transfers.
Mohammad Humaid
Verified AuthorMo is the founder of MoneyTransferStore. As an expat who has experienced the challenges of sending money across borders himself, he set out to help others like him avoid hidden fees and unfair exchange rates on international transfers. With a background spanning fintech, payments, and Web3, Mo brings years of practical experience to building a platform focused on transparency and trust.
