Below is that fee in seven countries: Kenya, Uganda, Ghana, Tanzania, Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire and Nigeria. The send-side app shows the first half of the cost. The second half is paid at the agent.
The two steps
Mobile money is a two-step system, and only one step is visible from the app.
Step one is the SMS. The transfer app talks to the wallet, the balance updates, and the family sees the money. This is the step the send-side product owns, and this is the step it markets. In every country, this step is fast and mostly cheap.
Step two is the agent. The agent may be a small kiosk with a green sign at the end of the market street, a shop counter, or a woman at a plastic table with a phone. The family walks in, presents the phone, gets cash. This is the step the send-side product does not touch and does not price. The mobile network sets the fee ladder for this step, the agent takes their cut of it, and the family pays it. In some countries there is also a small government tax loaded on top.
The gap between the wallet balance and the note in the hand is where the fee sits. It is small in some countries and meaningful in others. You can work out what your family will lose to it before you send.
The map
The pound amounts on this map use exchange rates from 12 November 2026. Rates move, so check the rate on the day you send.
Kenya - M-PESA
M-PESA is the template, and on a UK send the arithmetic is gentle. The withdrawal fee at the agent runs on a ladder from KES 11 (about 6p) at the smallest bands up to a hard cap of KES 309 (about £1.80) on anything from KES 50,001 to the KES 250,000 per-transaction ceiling.
On your £300 send, which arrives as roughly KES 52,000 (about £300) in the wallet, the family pays the top-band fee: KES 309. They walk out with the equivalent of about £298.20. The loss to cash-out is small, about 0.6% of the amount.
Airtel Money sets its own fees. If the family uses Airtel, check the fee on the receipt.
There is a way to skip the withdrawal fee entirely: pay the merchant directly from the wallet, using PayBill for utilities and schools, or Buy Goods for shops. At most shops the customer pays nothing on Buy Goods, and the shop pays the fee. Fuel stations are the exception: there, Safaricom has the customer pay the transaction charge.
On PayBill, 
each business chooses who pays the fee: the business, the customer, or both. If the family has not paid a biller before, they can pay a little over KES 100 first and check the receipt, because smaller payments may show no fee. Either way, if the money is going to be spent on bills or in a shop, there is no cash-out fee. The Kenya page covers the PayBill route in more detail.
Uganda - MTN Mobile Money and Airtel Money
Uganda has two networks, and one thing on top that Kenya does not.
The MTN Mobile Money ladder runs from UGX 330 at the small bands up to UGX 20,000 (about £3.75) at the ceiling. Airtel Money has its own ladder, so if the family uses Airtel, check the receipt. Then, separate from the operator fee, the government adds a 0.5% withdrawal excise duty on the amount, deducted automatically at the same moment. It is not a mobile-money company charge. It is a tax the wallet sits inside.
On a £200 send to Kampala, which arrives as roughly UGX 1,066,000 (about £200), the family pays the MTN fee for that band (UGX 15,000) and the 0.5% tax on the amount (about UGX 5,300). The total is around UGX 20,300, roughly £3.80, or about 1.9% of what you sent.
The lever exists here too. An MTN MoMo Pay code lets the family pay a merchant straight from the wallet. That skips the withdrawal fee and the 0.5% tax, because the tax is only on withdrawals. But 
MTN says that since 15 August 2025, customers who pay informal merchants pay the same fee as sending money. So check the first receipt.
Ghana - MTN MoMo
MTN's fee table has three steps. Below GHS 50 (about £3.20), the fee is GHS 0.50 (about 3p). From GHS 50 up to GHS 2,000, the fee is 1% of the amount. Above GHS 2,000, it is flat: GHS 20 (about £1.30), whatever the size.
A word about the e-levy, because the internet is still full of the old story. The Electronic Transfer Levy was repealed in April 2025. Since then, the family sees no e-levy line on the receipt. Money sent in from abroad was exempt even when the levy was live. If you have been reading old guides and worrying about a 1% deduction on the wallet on top of the withdrawal fee, that worry is out of date.
MTN briefly announced a 0.75% charge on MoMo-to-bank transfers, dubbed the "backdoor e-levy" by the parliamentary Minority. The Bank of Ghana suspended it on 26 May 2026, before it took effect. We have found no report that it has come back. The ordinary cash-out an ordinary family does is untouched by any of this.
On a £200 send to Accra, which arrives as roughly GHS 3,120 (about £200), a full withdrawal sits above the GHS 2,000 threshold, so the fee is the flat cap: GHS 20. The family walks out with roughly GHS 3,100, about £198.70. The loss is around 0.6%.
Pay a merchant with the MoMo merchant code, and no cash-out fee applies to anyone.
Tanzania - M-Pesa Tanzania and Mixx by Yas
This section covers two networks, as the Uganda section does. Vodacom runs M-Pesa here (a separate operation from Kenya, with its own numbers). Yas, the group formerly known as Tigo, runs Mixx (formerly Tigo Pesa).
Each operator has a fee ladder. On top, the government adds its own withdrawal levy on a small ladder of its own; the two reach the family as a single deduction. On a £300 send that arrives as roughly TZS 1,047,900 (about £300), 
Mixx by Yas charges an operator fee of TZS 8,000 and a levy of TZS 1,875. The total is TZS 9,875, close to £2.80, or about 0.9% of the amount. If the family uses M-Pesa, check the fee on the receipt.
Tanzania has the same merchant-pay lever the other East African markets have. Whether the family uses it depends on whether the money is going to a place that accepts wallet payment; where it does, the cash-out step is skipped.
Senegal and Côte d'Ivoire - Orange Money and Wave
Wave, the challenger, priced the traditional cash-out fee to zero. Orange Money in Senegal has two prices. Cash-out from the main wallet 
costs 1%, up to XOF 5,000 (about £6.40). Money received from abroad through Orange's partners is free to withdraw. Those partners are Orange Money Europe, Ria, Taptap Send, Western Union, MoneyGram, PayPal, Paysend and Small World. If you send with another app, check the receipt.
In December 2025 the state layered a 0.5% money-transfer tax (TTA) on withdrawals, capped at XOF 2,000 per transaction. It applies once withdrawals pass XOF 20,000 in a day. On Orange Money, the operator confirms it collects the tax at the counter. On Wave, cash-out remains free at Wave's own fee; the TTA applies at Wave to the extent the operator collects it - check the receipt.
On a £250 send to Dakar, which arrives as roughly XOF 196,200 (about £250), the cost on Orange Money depends on the route. If the money came through one of Orange's partners, the withdrawal is free. The family pays only the 0.5% TTA and walks out with roughly XOF 195,200. From the main wallet, they pay the 1% fee (about XOF 1,962) and the TTA (about XOF 981), and walk out with about XOF 193,250. Wave charges nothing itself; the TTA still applies, so the amount reaching the counter is XOF 195,200 to XOF 196,200 depending on how the operator collects it.
In Côte d'Ivoire, Wave is still free to cash out. Orange Money charges a flat 1%: on that same £250 send, the fee is around XOF 2,000, about £2.50.
So if the family in Abidjan uses Wave, cash-out is free. If they use Orange Money, it is not. The cash-out cost on the same UK send depends on which app is on the family's phone.
Note: Senegal's TTA (Law 2025-17, effective December 2025) is a 0.5% state tax capped at XOF 2,000 that applies to transfers, withdrawals, bill payments, merchant payments and transfers going out of Senegal. It applies once withdrawals pass XOF 20,000 in a day. It is a state tax, not an operator fee, and Orange Money confirms it collects it at the counter.
Nigeria - a different mechanic
Nigeria works differently from the other six countries. Wallet-to-wallet transfers are largely free (with a NGN 50 stamp duty from the government on transfers of NGN 10,000 and above). The cash comes out of an agent's POS machine at a kiosk on the corner.
The Central Bank has capped customer withdrawals through an agent at NGN 100,000 per day and NGN 500,000 per week since December 2024.
The Central Bank also publishes a Guide to Charges. The latest final version we have found is 
the 2020 Guide. For mobile money operators, it lists cash-out through an agent as "No charge". For self-service cash-out, it lists 1% of the amount, with a minimum of NGN 50 and a limit of NGN 500. In April 2026 the Central Bank published a draft of a new Guide. The draft says NGN 100 for every NGN 20,000 at an agent, plus an extra charge if the agent works for a different provider. We have found no final text. The prices below are what agents are reported to charge, not figures from the Guide.
The trade association's standard list is a moving target across sources: NGN 100 to NGN 200 on the smallest bands, NGN 300 to NGN 500 on a NGN 5,000 withdrawal (6 to 10%), flattening to NGN 600 to NGN 800 on a NGN 50,000 withdrawal (about 1.2 to 1.6%). Actual practice varies. In cash-tight areas of Lagos, agents have been reported charging 10% on small withdrawals. In quieter times the standard list holds.
On a £250 send that arrives as roughly NGN 444,900 (about £250) in the wallet, the family cannot cash the whole thing out in one visit. They visit a POS agent several times across several days, or split across agents, and pay roughly 1% to 3% of the amount in agent fees along the way, depending on the mix of bands and where they are. Realistically, the family walks away with somewhere between NGN 431,600 and NGN 440,500, about £242 to £248.
The wallet leg is essentially free. The cash-out is where the shrinkage happens.
The lever, plainly
The wallet balance does not always have to become cash. The family can pay the school or the electricity bill from the wallet, or pay a shop with its merchant code: Buy Goods or PayBill in Kenya, MoMoPay in Ghana and Uganda. That skips the withdrawal fee, but the payment itself may carry a fee. In Kenya, the customer pays the charge at fuel stations, and some PayBill billers pass the fee to the customer. In Uganda, MTN's tariff shows a customer charge on school fees and electricity. So check the first receipt.
If the money you sent was going to be spent on bills or in a shop anyway, this route is free of the cash-out fee. It is also the reason mobile-money receipts do not always translate to trips to the agent. Ask the family what they were going to spend it on; if a merchant on the other end takes wallet payment, the cash-out fee never applies.
In Nigeria, paying from one wallet to another works and is nearly free. But where the seller wants cash, the family has to visit a POS agent and pay the agent's rate.
When your family wants dollars, not the local currency
Some families would rather hold dollars than the local currency. The piece on dollars, euros or local currency walks that decision in more detail.
The bank-account alternative
In Kenya, Ghana, Uganda and Tanzania, the family may also hold a bank account. If they do, some transfer apps let you send straight to it. This is different arithmetic. There is usually an ATM withdrawal fee to get the money into notes, a monthly maintenance fee on the account, and sometimes a small fee on the incoming transfer itself. Add those up and compare them with the wallet's cash-out fee. On larger, one-off sends where the family will hold rather than spend, the bank route sometimes wins on the total.
Before you switch, ask the family what they already do. If they cash out at an agent every week, the wallet probably still suits them.
The one-line recap
- In Kenya, M-PESA cash-out costs the family about KES 309 at the top, roughly £1.80 on a £300 send. Merchant-pay skips it.
- In Uganda, MTN charges an operator fee plus a 0.5% government tax, together about 1.9% on a £200 send. Merchant-pay skips both, but a customer paying an informal MTN merchant pays the send fee.
- In Ghana, MTN MoMo charges a flat GHS 20 on anything above GHS 2,000, about £1.30. The e-levy is gone.
- In Tanzania, Mixx by Yas charges an operator fee plus a small levy, together about 0.9% on a £300 send. On M-Pesa, check the receipt.
- In Senegal, Orange Money charges 1%, up to XOF 5,000, from the main wallet. Money from abroad through Orange's partners is free to withdraw. The 0.5% state TTA applies on top once withdrawals pass XOF 20,000 in a day, capped at XOF 2,000. That is about XOF 981 on a £250 send. Wave charges no operator fee; the TTA applies to the extent Wave collects it at the counter. Check the receipt.
- In Côte d'Ivoire, Wave is free, and Orange Money charges a flat 1%, about XOF 2,000 on a £250 send.
- In Nigeria, the POS agent takes 1% to 3% at the counter, and the family is capped at NGN 100,000 per day.
In most of these countries the cash-out loss is small enough that you would not have thought to ask about it. In Uganda and Nigeria it is worth knowing about. In Senegal, the cost depends on the wallet and on how the money arrived, and the state adds a 0.5% withdrawal tax capped at XOF 2,000, so check the receipt. Ask the family what they are going to do with the money before it arrives. If they can pay from the wallet, the cash-out step, and the fee that comes with it, does not need to happen at all.
This map is one part of Boki's arrival coverage, which follows the money once it has arrived on the other side of the wire.
Corrections
- 2026-11-12: An earlier version of this page said Senegal's TTA applies to withdrawals "above" or "over" XOF 20,000 a day, which could read as a tax on the part above XOF 20,000 only. The page now says it applies once withdrawals pass XOF 20,000 in a day. The tax figure on the £250 example did not change.
- 2026-11-05: An earlier version of this page gave the Ghana loss as around 0.65%, and the Nigerian agent fees as 2 to 4% on the smallest bands and about 1 to 1.6% on NGN 50,000. Those percentages did not match the fees beside them, so the page now says around 0.6% and about 1.2 to 1.6%, and the 2 to 4% is gone.
- 2026-11-05: An earlier version of this page said MTN announced the 0.75% charge in May 2026, gave the date as 25 May, and said the Bank of Ghana suspended it inside 24 hours. Those dates rest on press reports, and the Bank of Ghana's release gives no announcement date, so the page no longer gives one.
- 2026-11-05: An earlier version of this page said Orange Money in Senegal charges no cash-out fee, and set this against Côte d'Ivoire. Orange's fee calculator shows 1%, up to XOF 5,000, from the main wallet, and money from abroad through its partners is free to withdraw, so the page now says so and the Senegal example gives both routes.
- 2026-11-05: An earlier version of this page said Senegal's TTA took effect on 17 December 2025 and applies to international transfers. Orange's notice says 16 December and lists only transfers going out of Senegal, so the page now says December 2025 and names those transfers.
- 2026-11-05: An earlier version of this page said OPay, Palmpay and Moniepoint have no schedule of cash-out fees, because the withdrawal is not what they charge for. We have no source for this, so the line is gone. The Nigeria section now gives the Central Bank's cash-out figures, and says which one is a draft.
- 2026-11-05: An earlier version of this page said Wave moved the agent's earnings onto a different part of the business. We have no source for this, so the line is gone.
- 2026-11-04: An earlier version of this page said an MTN MoMo withdrawal in Ghana below GHS 50 is free. MTN's fee table shows GHS 0.50, and the page now says so.
- 2026-11-04: An earlier version of this page said paying a merchant with MTN MoMo Pay or Airtel Money Pay in Uganda has no operator fee and removes the whole cost. Since 15 August 2025, MTN has charged customers the send fee when they pay informal merchants, so the page now says that, and it makes no fee claim for Airtel Money Pay.
- 2026-11-04: An earlier version of this page said the customer pays nothing in most cases when paying from the wallet, with two exceptions in Kenya, and that Nigeria is the exception on this route. No source counts these, and MTN Uganda's tariff shows customer charges on school fees and electricity, so the page now says the payment may carry a fee and no longer singles out Nigeria.
- 2026-11-04: An earlier version of this page said Orange Money in Côte d'Ivoire runs a fee ladder, and that Nigeria's agent withdrawal caps started in April 2026 after an October 2025 change. Orange charges a flat 1%, and the Central Bank set the caps in December 2024, so the page now says that. The cap amounts and the XOF 2,000 example did not change.
- 2026-11-04: An earlier version of this page gave the Tanzania example as M-Pesa's fee with Mixx close to it, said Airtel Money raised its withdrawal fees in Kenya in July 2026, and said Airtel Money's fees in Kenya and Uganda match or come close to the other network's. We could confirm only Mixx's figures, from its own tariff, so the example is now Mixx's, the July 2026 line is gone, and the page no longer compares the others.
- 2026-11-04: An earlier version of this page said as fact that MTN's 0.75% charge has not come back. The line now says we have found no report that it has.
- 2026-11-04: An earlier version of this page said these are the countries most UK senders send to, that MTN is the dominant wallet in Ghana, that the wallet is almost always cheaper than a bank on small sends, and that Uganda has the largest cash-out cost on this map. No source supports the first three, the Nigeria figures go higher than Uganda's, and all four lines are gone.
- 2026-11-04: An earlier version of this page said Nigeria has no published customer fee cap on agent withdrawals, and that the agent sets the price. The Central Bank does publish a figure for cash-out at an agent, so those lines are gone.
- 2026-11-04: An earlier version of this page said families in Kenya, Ghana and Nigeria hold dollars because the local currency is losing value, that sending local money means swapping into dollars twice, and that local currency may not be the right thing to send. Over the last twelve months the naira rose and the Kenya shilling barely moved, and a licensed bureau in Nigeria cannot sell dollars for a family to keep. Those lines are gone, and the page now points to our piece on that decision.
- 2026-11-04: An earlier version of this page said the fee has been priced to zero in two places on this map, and that the wallet leg in Nigeria is free on any wallet. The page's own figures say otherwise: Senegal has a state tax, Orange Money in Côte d'Ivoire charges 1%, and Nigeria has a NGN 50 duty on larger transfers. Those lines are gone.
- 2026-11-04: An earlier version of this page said Ghana's MoMoPay works like Kenya's Buy Goods, but we found no MTN Ghana source for what the customer pays, so that line is gone. It also quoted an Orange Senegal line that came from a promotion for regional transfers. The quote is gone.
- 2026-11-04: An earlier version of this page said most household billers in Kenya are on a PayBill setup where the business pays the fee, but no source counts billers by setup. The page now says each business chooses who pays, and says to pay a little over KES 100 first when checking the receipt, because smaller payments may show no fee.
- 2026-11-04: An earlier version of this page said most Kenyan families already pay merchants from the wallet, that Nigeria runs on cash for most things a family buys, and that the cash-out step can be skipped half the time, but no primary source counts any of these. The Kenya, Nigeria and closing lines now give no share.
- 2026-11-04: An earlier version of this page said most families in Kenya, Ghana, Uganda and Tanzania now hold a bank account alongside the mobile wallet, but no primary source shows this and survey figures for adults point against it. The page now says only that the family may also hold one.
- 2026-11-01: An earlier version of this page said the customer pays nothing on Kenyan Buy Goods and PayBill payments. At authorised fuel stations, Safaricom has the customer pay the Buy Goods charge, and some PayBill billers pass the fee to the customer. The page now says so, and says to check the receipt on the first payment to a new biller.
- 2026-11-01: An earlier version of the Uganda and Senegal examples used exchange rates from July 2026. The Uganda shilling fell more than 10%, so the Uganda example said £200 arrives as about UGX 1,001,352, with a cash-out cost of about £4 (2%). At 1 November rates it is about UGX 1,139,000, and the cost is about £3.60 (1.8%). The Senegal example now uses about XOF 196,600, with about XOF 983 in TTA (it said XOF 191,250 and XOF 956). All pound amounts on the page now use rates from 1 November 2026, and the page says so.
- 2026-07-31: An earlier version of the Ghana section said a "backdoor e-levy" charge on MTN MoMo-to-bank transfers "was introduced in June 2026". The 0.75% charge was scheduled for 1 June 2026, and the Bank of Ghana suspended it on 26 May 2026, before it took effect. The paragraph has been rewritten to reflect that timeline.
- 2026-07-31: An earlier version of the Senegal section said cash-out was free on both Orange Money and Wave, with a note that Senegal's December 2025 transfer tax "does not sit on the cash-out". Senegal's TTA (Law 2025-17, effective December 2025) is a 0.5% state tax capped at XOF 2,000 that applies to withdrawals over XOF 20,000/day. Orange Money confirms it collects it at the counter; Wave's operator fee is zero but the state tax still applies. The main-body paragraph, the worked example, the recap line and the ending line have all been rewritten so the tax is stated where it applies.
- 2026-07-31: An earlier version of the Nigeria section quoted specific AMMBAN trade-association figures ("NGN 200 on NGN 5,000", "about 1.6% at NGN 50,000") that could not be substantiated against a primary AMMBAN release. The paragraph has been softened to a range across the sources actually in circulation, keeping the directionally correct 1-3% overall family loss.