Where does sending money home cost least?
Belgium leads on mean cost of $200 at 3.1%; India is last of the 15 shown at 5.0%.
The headline fee is the small part of sending money abroad; the exchange-rate margin is the rest, and it varies more by where you send from than by where the money goes. The World Bank mystery-shops the major corridors every quarter and records both.
This ranks sending countries by the mean total cost of a $200 transfer across all the corridors the survey covers from that country, in 2025 Q3. A country with few surveyed corridors is ranked on those few, and the count is shown beside it.
Corridors the survey does not cover are absent, never estimated. The tool below gives the figure for a specific corridor, with the cheapest provider the survey found.
| # | Country | Mean cost of $200 | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 🇧🇪 Belgium | 3.1% | 4 corridors |
| 2 | 🇧🇭 Bahrain | 3.3% | 4 corridors |
| 3 | 🇰🇼 Kuwait | 3.5% | 6 corridors |
| 4 | 🇳🇴 Norway | 3.7% | 2 corridors |
| 5 | 🇵🇱 Poland | 3.7% | 1 corridors |
| 6 | 🇴🇲 Oman | 3.9% | 6 corridors |
| 7 | 🇲🇾 Malaysia | 4.0% | 9 corridors |
| 8 | 🇸🇬 Singapore | 4.1% | 9 corridors |
| 9 | 🇨🇲 Cameroon | 4.4% | 1 corridors |
| 10 | 🇵🇹 Portugal | 4.4% | 3 corridors |
| 11 | 🇯🇴 Jordan | 4.4% | 3 corridors |
| 12 | 🇦🇹 Austria | 4.6% | 5 corridors |
| 13 | 🇨🇱 Chile | 4.9% | 1 corridors |
| 14 | 🇩🇪 Germany | 5.0% | 23 corridors |
| 15 | 🇮🇳 India | 5.0% | 2 corridors |
How this is worked out: Mean of the average total cost (fee plus exchange-rate margin, % of amount) of sending USD 200 across each sending country's surveyed corridors, World Bank Remittance Prices Worldwide, 2025 Q3, non-transparent providers excluded, cheapest first. Estimates for comparison, not advice.
Check your own numbers
A ranking is a starting point, not an answer — your income, household and destination change the order. The Cost of sending money home runs the same engine against your own figures, and every country above links to its own page.