Transferring money Europe to US

[chiliverde]

I am closing out a contract this year and will need to move my pay out money (15,00 USD or so) to the US. Are there any legalities I need to consider? Any advice on the best way to do this? Thanks in advance.

[PsyGuy]

Its USD$15.00, take it out of the bank and put it in your wallet and walk it though immigration and customs. You will do better buying USD in the EU than selling EUR in the US.
There are no legalities as long as its not ancient currency thats considered an antique or a retired/defunct currency thats not currency anymore.

[chiliverde]

Haha sorry, my mistake.

15,000

[PsyGuy]

@chiliverde

1) Well in that case then withdraw the currency from your EU account and convert it at the counter to USD (this is important) and keep the receipt (take a photo of the receipt with your phone). Put the currency in a bag and then on your person preferably in one of those geeky pouches and put that under your clothes but still easily accessible. When you leave the EU you will need to declare how much currency you are carrying to customs and immigration by completing a brief form, thought he form may not be available in English.
When you get to the US on your CBP form declare the USD$15K. When you get to customs in the USA they will look at your card ask you why youre carrying so much cash tell them "Im a IT and work in X country and this was the cheapest and most convenient way to move my currency to the USA", they will either let you go or direct you to another screening area, which may be nothing or they will ask you the same question, give them the same answer. They will likely ask to see the currency, and make take a single bill and test it, then return it to you. Then they will wave you through. When you leave the airport, go to your bank or banks ATM and deposit your USD.
You can bring in an unlimited amount of currency into the US, thats perfectly legal, whats illegal is not declaring it accurately when the amount is over USD$10K. Thats why the receipt and converting it in the EU are so important, you dont want to risk that you underestimate the conversion and thus under report your currency declaration.
Essentially its the same response as before take it out of the bank, buy USD, fly it across the pond and walk it through customs, just with more steps. Sounds bold and risky, but "sneaker net" is the most convenient, fastest and cheapest method of moving coin. You convert it in the EU right there, get the posted rate, without fees. When you get to the US you just deposit it, and at the latest its available the next day. No fuss, no complications, and the process is very 'understandable'.

2) If that sounds too risky for you, than this is going to sound extremely anarchistic, but buy travelers cheques, they are basically insured currency and you can buy them in USD in the EU. Its the same process as above (you have to declare them and their value). Why travelers cheques? At 1% if not free, the cheques will cost you USD$15, and with that you will get the same convenience, and efficiency as currency with the peace of mind of knowing they are insured and will be replaced, at a very reasonable cost. You could even mail them to yourself in the USA, and if they got lost/stolen in transit file a claim to have them replaced and then just deposit them in your account in the USA and you could just send them by post.

3) If thats too expensive or your hesitant about the conversion or exchange fees and costs (you think youll get a better rate in the USA on the conversion) than get a cashiers cheque or bank draft and either fly/walk it across as above (same declaration process as above), or you can mail it to yourself either by Post or EMS (however much you want to pay). This avoids the issue of having to do all the declarations. However, your bank might place a long hold on it or the conversion/exchange rate may not be great, or your bank might charge you a fee (which might be as much as a wire fee).

4) If all of that is still too risky or complex or inconvenient to you send a wire.

[shopaholic]

1. Wire the money from your European account to your US account,

or

2. Use Paypal to send the money from a PP account linked with your EU account to a PP accounted linked with your US account. Then use Paypal to transfer the money from the PP account linked with your US account to that US bank account.

[PsyGuy]

PayPal isnt a very good idea. Its fine for small amounts (a few hundred) but not USD$15K. The fees would be close to what you would pay for a wire, you will pay a fee at the international transaction point to send the coin from the EU account and again to receive it in the US account, this is in addition to the currency conversion costs (the rate isnt very good). Your withdraw in the US is limited to USD$300/day and USD$2000/mth it will take you 8 months to get your coin out.

[shadowjack]

1% of 15,000 is 150 bucks, not 15 bucks.

[alexout]

I've done carrying large amounts of cash (makes me nervous), using banks to send a wire transfer (don't like their exchange rates & fees), and now I'm sold on using CurrencyFair for money transfers. I've saved a lot of money with them, and the transfers have all gone smoothly and quickly. Worth a look. Very good customer service, too. I've checked out other companies but I like CurrencyFair the best.

[chiliverde]

Thank you, everyone. Has anyone used Transferwise? Someone recommended that to me.

[PsyGuy]

@SJ

Thanks @SJ, thats correct. I dont pay for my travelers cheques so for me its zero.

@chiliverde

Currency fair is an idea, but it all depends on the receiving bank, because the bank can choose to treat it as an incoming wire which could be as high as USD$50. The exchange rate is pretty good if you get it (which you should) but Currency fair adds their own percentage, its low but its there. The fee is very low as well (yours would be about USD$4.00). Currency fair is like a ride share (Uber) currency market and bank, its crowd sourced, but at the end its still up to the receiving banks treatment of the transaction. I dont know where you bank but if your going to use Currency Fair you might want to consider shopping around for a credit union that essentially charges no fees. If you did that and your okay with the complexity and the risk at conversion (USD and EUR are very common currencys with a health market), than Currency Fair may give you the best value.

Transfer Wise doesnt work well for large currency transactions. The issue is transaction costs, for international wires banks charge a set/fixed fee regardless of the amount transferred, which for small amounts (a few hundred to a thousand, etc.) are very expensive. Thats where Remittance Services like Western Union and Money Gram and Transfer Wise come in, which use scaled fees based on the amount sent, but have low limits on how much you can send. For your size of a transaction (USD$15K) Transfer Wise would charge about the same as a wire (USD$90), you might as well just send the wire.

It all depends on the fees, cash is the lowest (zero) everything else that involves someone (a bank) somewhere along the line doing something for you youre going to pay for it. The same goes for the point of exchange, no one is going to do it for free, thats how they make their coin. Whether you get the best rate on a crowd based market, a banks counter, or in a computer in a room somewhere when the exchange occurs is going to take research and a certain amount of risk (the difference in exchange rate between when the order is placed and when it settles).
You also need to consider time most transfer services take about 5-10 days and wires can take up to 30 days (but usually settle in 5 days or less, especially with EUR and USD). This doesnt include weekends and non business days. EUR coming out of the EU to a US international/commercial bank should take 5 days or less.

Your first step is not figuring out a service to use, its finding out what your bank will charge and possibly finding a new bank or other financial institution. If you have a credit union in both e US and the EU that charges nothing for ACH transfers and will treat the incoming remittance service as an ACH and not a wire than you can get your fees done to a couple dollars with a strong exchange rate that could beat cash without the risk. If you can find those institutions you can just send a wire for a fraction of the cost that beats a remittance service (Credit Unions tend to offer the best currency exchange rates whether at the counter or on the network).
If you do go with a Credit Union (CU) be sure to ask about their intermediary charges. Most CUs do not have ISBN routing numbers so they must use an intermediary bank in the US to process the transaction on FEDWIRE (the ABN, or US banking regional system) this fee can be as substantial as using an international bank and paying their wire fee.

[Lastname_Z]

Have you looked into Revolut? It's a fairly new service but it seems that it does a good job of making money transfers super easy (especially if it's EUR to USD) and at better rates.

[PsyGuy]

I had never looked at Revolut, it has some early access but it looks really, really new. Might work for you, but have no idea what the risk profile would be. Sounds great and it could also evaporate.

[MaxKI]

If you have a bank account in the US then use transferwise or ozforex to transfer the money. Best exchange rate around, I'm American and have been living in Australia, that's what we do when we come back to the states to visit family since we have bank accounts in both countries.

[expatscot]

I use Revolut - have done for almost 3 years (think it's been around in the UK for longer than other places.) It's reliable, the app is easy to use, and they're usually pretty responsive when issues arise.

I've only ever used it for getting small amounts of money from my UK account - there are no fees to load the card, and you can do it in $, £, Euro, AUD and a few other currencies. I've used it in the UK, Germany, Egypt, China, Australia, Cyprus, all with no problem. Also if you load it in £, you can then convert it to Euro (for example) and withdraw it with low or no cost.

As you can see, I'm a big fan of it and would recommend it - and I'm not being paid for saying all this, but if someone from Revolut is reading..... :-)

[Helen Back]

www.transferwise.com. Part of PayPal but way cheaper.