Someone in Lithuania has given you their Paysera details. An account number, an IBAN starting with LT. They want you to send money there. You are in the UK, and you want to know: should I open Paysera to send this, or is Wise still the right answer?
The answer depends which end of the transfer you are standing at. For the person in Lithuania, Paysera is genuinely good. For the person sending from the UK in pounds, it is not the right app for most sends – and the reason comes down to one fee.
If you are in Lithuania and want an account to receive into
Open Paysera. It does this well.
Paysera gives you a real Lithuanian IBAN. Any bank or payment app can send a euro transfer to it, the same way they would send to any Lithuanian bank. The first thirty outgoing euro transfers each month cost nothing. After that, thirty euro cents each.
You can use those free transfers to pay rent, send money to a family member, or move funds between your own accounts. They arrive the same day if you send them before the late-afternoon cut-off. Some transfers arrive in under a minute, at any time of day, when both banks support it.
For the Lithuanian side of a UK-Lithuania money move, this is a clean, low-cost receiving point. Tell your family to open Paysera if they want a simple Lithuanian account to receive into. The account is free. The IBAN is real. The first thirty outgoing transfers a month cost nothing.
If you are sending from the UK in pounds
This is where Paysera does not work well for most people, and where you should probably open Wise or Revolut instead.
The problem is how you get pounds into Paysera. The free transfers Paysera talks about are free only if the money is already in euros. If your money is in pounds, you first have to move those pounds into a Paysera euro account. That costs a flat fee of around 15 euros per transfer.
On a 200 pound send, 15 euros is roughly 13 pounds, before Paysera’s own exchange rate is applied. That is around 6 to 7 percent of the transfer. On a 500 pound send it is still around 3 percent.
Compare that to Wise on the same 500 pound send: the fee is around 3 to 4 pounds. Or to Revolut Standard on a weekday, inside the 1,000 pound free monthly amount: nothing at all. Paysera does not come close on either.
Paysera also does not give you a UK account number the way Wise and Revolut do. That means you cannot top up from your UK bank the easy way. You either pay the flat fee to send pounds in, or you already hold euros somewhere else.
If you want to send money from the UK to Lithuania, open Wise or Revolut. The Lithuania guide has the full comparison. On a weekday send under 1,000 pounds a month, Revolut Standard is usually the cheapest. On larger amounts, or at the weekend, Wise wins. If you already bank with Starling, the “Send money abroad” button sends euros to Lithuania at Starling’s own rate (0.4 percent above the real rate) with a small delivery fee. That is usually competitive on this route. If you want the cheapest headline number, still open Wise.
Paysera is the account the person in Lithuania receives into. It is not the app you in the UK send from.
The one case where Paysera makes sense from the UK
Some people live between Lithuania and the UK. They already hold euros somewhere. They get paid in euros. They need a Lithuanian account number to pay Lithuanian bills or receive Lithuanian payments. For that person, Paysera works well as a long-term euro account.
You fund it in euros, from another euro account, using a normal euro transfer. The fifteen-euro GBP fee never applies. The free outgoing transfers inside Lithuania are useful. It is a good tool for that specific person.
That person exists. But they are not the typical UK sender reading this on a Sunday evening, about to send money to family in Vilnius. If that is you, open Wise.
Safety and who regulates Paysera
Paysera is not a bank. It is a payments company, licensed by the Bank of Lithuania since 2012 (licence LB000251). Your money is kept in separate accounts from Paysera’s own money. Paysera cannot lend it out or invest it.
This is not the same as UK bank protection. In a UK bank, if the bank fails, a UK government scheme covers your money up to 120,000 pounds. Paysera is not a UK bank, so that scheme does not apply. In Paysera, if the company fails, your money is meant to be safe because it is kept apart from Paysera’s own money.
If something goes wrong, you deal with the Bank of Lithuania and Lithuanian consumer law. Not the UK financial regulator, and not the UK Ombudsman.
Paysera is a large company. It holds more than 595 million euros of customer money. But if you are used to UK bank protections, this is worth knowing before you keep a lot of money in it.
Paysera’s own pages name the Bank of Lithuania as their regulator. They do not name the UK regulator. Before you open an account, check for yourself. Search “Paysera” at register.fca.org.uk. If you cannot find them, you have no UK regulator to complain to if something goes wrong. That is a real thing to think about before you open the account.
The account freeze pattern
Paysera has a consistent pattern in its Trustpilot reviews. Most long-term users are satisfied. A smaller group reports their account being restricted without explanation. Support is slow to respond. The problem can take weeks or months to resolve.
Paysera lists the reasons an account gets restricted on their own pages. The main ones: an expired ID, income you cannot show a source for, and any transactions linked to crypto. UK customers face extra checks as well. Paysera flags the UK as a country that gets closer scrutiny than most.
This happens with many payment apps, not only Paysera. All of them are required by law to check money for signs of fraud, and any of them can freeze an account while they check. The difference is what happens next. Wise and Revolut both have UK-facing support that answers faster than Paysera does.
This matters most if you are using Paysera to receive large payments in Lithuania. A salary. A house deposit. Do not send that kind of money into Paysera without a backup account somewhere else. Use it for smaller transfers. Do not hold a large balance in it for a long time unless you understand the risk.
The verdict
If someone in Lithuania has given you their Paysera account to receive into: that is a real account and a real IBAN. Send euros to it the normal way. It works.
If you are in the UK and someone has told you to open Paysera to send money to Lithuania: don’t. The fee to get pounds into Paysera makes it more expensive than Wise or Revolut on almost every send. Open one of those instead. Wise on a Sunday, Revolut on a weekday – the full comparison is in the Lithuania guide.
Paysera is worth opening if you already have euros somewhere. If you live between Lithuania and the UK, and want a Lithuanian account for receiving and paying inside Lithuania, it is a good tool. You get thirty free euro transfers a month, a real Lithuanian account number, and fast payments to any Lithuanian bank.
The person sending money from the UK in pounds on a Sunday night is not that specific person. For them, the right app is still Wise.
Corrections
- 2026-07-13: An earlier version of this page said the UK deposit protection scheme covers your money in a UK bank up to 85,000 pounds. The limit rose to 120,000 pounds per person, per authorised firm on 1 December 2025. The figure has been corrected.
- 2026-07-13: An earlier version of this page said 15 euros was roughly 7.5 percent of a 200 pound send. At today’s exchange rate 15 euros is closer to 13 pounds, so the fee is around 6 to 7 percent of a 200 pound send. The figure has been corrected.
- 2026-07-13: An earlier version of this page said Revolut Standard cost about 1.50 pounds on a weekday inside the free monthly amount. It is free. Revolut Standard charges nothing for a euro transfer inside the eurozone and nothing for the conversion inside the 1,000 pound monthly allowance on a weekday.
- 2026-07-13: An earlier version of this page said Starling’s “Send money abroad” button sent the money via Wise. Starling ended that partnership in 2018 and now sends internationals itself, at 0.4 percent above the real rate with a small delivery fee. The paragraph has been rewritten.