If you send with Wise, LemFi, Sendwave, Remitly or WorldRemit, the app shows the arrival amount before you send. These apps do not use the international bank system for the last step of the transfer. They hand your pounds to a partner inside the destination country, and the partner pays out in the local currency on the local system. There is no bank in the middle taking a fee, and no bank on the other end doing its own exchange.
Wise also writes down what happens when a send does go through the banks. Its help page on US dollar sends says that where banks along the way are known to take a fee, "Wise predicts these upfront and adds them to your fee, so your recipient still gets the full amount, and there are no surprises on arrival." Boki found no written promise like that from the other four. Their apps show the arrival amount before you send, but your family's bank or wallet could still charge its own fee.
The one exception is Revolut. What its UK fee pages call an international payment still goes through the old international bank system. If you use Revolut for a family send and pick its cheaper fee option, the banks on the way or the receiving bank can still take a slice. Revolut's UK fee pages call the option to pay every fee upfront "Pay All Fees". It is not on every route. Pick it if you see it on the fee screen, or use one of the five apps above.
The four things that can take a slice
1. The fees the banks along the way take
If you send with your own bank, the money leaves London on a route called SWIFT. On that route, your pounds are handed from your UK bank to other banks on the way to your family's bank, and each of those banks can take a fee. That fee is deducted from the money in flight. Your screen does not show it, and your family sees the missing amount but not the reason for it.
Wise's help page on US dollar sends gives a guide. As of 4 November 2026, Wise charges a SWIFT fee of $7.24 to $34.30 per transfer on routes where it expects these fees. Wise's own fee comes on top of that. The SWIFT fee is not your bank's price. At about $1.34 to the pound, it comes to about £5 to £26, and that sum is Boki's estimate.
This does not happen when you send with the apps above, because they do not use the international bank system for these routes.
2. The exchange the receiving bank does when it arrives
If the money arrives at your family's bank in a currency that is not the account's home currency, the receiving bank has to change it before it goes into the account. It does that at its own exchange rate. That rate is worse than the real exchange rate you looked at when you sent the money, and the difference is what the receiving bank keeps.
This can happen on a bank-to-bank wire into Nigeria, where a US dollar wire arrives in a naira account. The receiving bank converts the dollars at its own rate, not at the Google rate you saw. None of this happens if you send with a modern app that delivers naira, cedis or pesos directly.
3. The wallet's own fee to receive money from abroad
A mobile wallet could charge its own fee on money arriving from abroad. M-Pesa in Kenya and GCash in the Philippines do not. As of 4 November 2026, Safaricom's price list shows no charge for receiving, and GCash says claiming money from abroad is free.
Boki found no written line on this from MTN MoMo or AT Money in Ghana, or from OPay or PalmPay in Nigeria. If your family uses one of those, ask them to check the wallet's fee list.
What is not free is the moment your family takes physical cash out at the agent. That fee is small on a normal-sized send, and it is not deducted from the amount that arrives in the wallet: it is deducted from the notes she can walk away with.
As of 4 November 2026, the M-Pesa agent fee on a Kenya send of 20,001 to 35,000 shillings is 197 shillings, about £1.13. On a Ghana MoMo send of 4,560 cedis the flat agent charge is 20 cedis, about £1.28. Both are the family's side of the arithmetic, not yours, and both go away completely if the money stays on the wallet and she spends it there. For what a wallet can and cannot do, and what cashing out costs, see after the money arrives.
4. The country's own tax on incoming money
This is the one that people worry about most, and on the routes Boki writes about it is mostly a myth or mostly gone.
The tax people ask about most for India is TCS, Tax Collected at Source. On money transfers, it applies only to money leaving India, not to money coming in. If you are sending from the UK to a family member in India, into an NRE, NRO or resident savings account, no TCS is deducted. Your family's account type matters for other reasons, but not for this one.
Ghana used to charge a 1 percent tax on mobile-money transfers inside the country, called the e-levy. Even at its peak it did not apply to money coming in from abroad. President Mahama assented to the repeal in April 2025, so the state now charges nothing on the mobile-money transfer itself. Anyone still telling you Ghana's e-levy will nibble at your MoMo transfer is reading old advice.
Nigeria has two rules to know. Since 31 January 2024, the Central Bank of Nigeria has required money-transfer operators to pay out in naira only. Since 1 May 2026, those operators must also run transfers through special naira accounts, and use live market prices as a guide for their rates. A guide is not a fixed rate, so rates can still differ between apps. There is more on the May rule in our piece on the settlement rule. The May rule covers those operators, not bank wires. A dollar wire through a bank can still lose money the way section 2 describes.
Kenya has a government tax on M-Pesa transaction fees, called excise duty. It does not touch incoming money. It sits on the fee the family pays when she sends, withdraws or pays a bill on M-Pesa. If she is only receiving, she pays nothing. And in Pakistan, the recipient pays no tax on a normal family send through the banks.
What the answer looks like on your route
If your route is a normal transfer app into a family account or wallet in Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, India, the Philippines or Pakistan, the app shows the arrival amount before you send. Your family's bank or wallet could still charge its own fee. If she takes physical cash out of a wallet, a small agent fee comes off the notes she walks away with, not off the wallet balance.
If your route is your UK bank app sending a wire through the international bank system into a family bank account in any of those six countries, expect the family to get less than you sent. The banks along the way can take a fee. The receiving bank can take more if the currency does not match. Do not use this route to send money to family. Use one of the apps above.
If your route is Revolut, the cheaper fee option means the receiving side can still take a slice. Look for Pay All Fees, which is not on every route, or use Wise for the same job.
On every route, a real transfer never asks the person receiving to pay first to release the money. If someone asks your family to pay a fee before they can have the money, it is a scam.
What to check on your next send
Open your app, type in the pound amount you plan to send, and look at the arrival number. Now open one of the apps above (Wise if you are new to this) and type in the same amount. Compare the two arrival numbers.
If they match to within a pound or two, you are on the right route. If your app shows a lower arrival number, the difference is that app's own rate or fee. If it shows no arrival number at all, one of the four things above could take a slice. Either way, switch app before you send.
Corrections
- 2026-11-05: An earlier version of this page called the $7.24 to $34.30 Wise charges on these routes Wise's own price, which could read as all Wise charges. That range is Wise's SWIFT fee, and Wise's own fee comes on top.
- 2026-11-04: An earlier version of this page said a Central Bank of Nigeria rule of 1 May 2026 requires money-transfer operators to pay recipients in naira, at a rate benchmarked to the live market. That rule requires them to run transfers through special naira accounts and to use live market prices as a guide. Paying out in naira comes from the January 2024 guidelines.
- 2026-11-04: An earlier version of this page listed Kuda as a wallet, said India's TCS applies only to money leaving India without limiting that to money transfers, and said one of the four things on this page explains a lower arrival number on another app. Kuda is a bank as well as an app and is off that list, the TCS line now covers money transfers only, and the page now says a lower arrival number is that app's own rate or fee.
- 2026-11-04: An earlier version of this page said £300 sent on a normal transfer app arrives as £300. The app's own cost comes out first, so the family gets the amount the app shows, which is worth a little less.
- 2026-11-04: An earlier version of this page said the old bank-to-bank US dollar wire route into Nigeria had closed and now paid the market rate. The Central Bank of Nigeria rule covers money-transfer operators, not bank wires, so a bank wire can still lose money at the receiving bank.
- 2026-11-04: An earlier version of this page said Kenya's excise duty on M-Pesa fees is 20 percent. Boki could not confirm that rate from a current Kenya Revenue Authority source, so the figure has been removed.
- 2026-11-04: An earlier version of this page gave bank wire losses of $15 to $50 per bank, £20 to £40 and £20 to £50 on a single send, and £15 to £50 on a £500 send. None of these had a primary source, so the page now gives a dated guide from Wise and marks the sterling sum as an estimate.
- 2026-11-04: An earlier version of this page said the amount on the screen arrives in full on all five apps, and that seven named wallets take money from abroad free. Boki has written sources only for Wise, on US dollar sends, and for M-Pesa and GCash, and the page now says so.
- 2026-11-04: An earlier version of this page called Revolut's pay-every-fee option "OUR". Its UK fee pages call it "Pay All Fees", and it is not on every route, so the page now says both. The page also quoted Revolut's fee terms and linked a July Friday number as the current week's amount. Boki could not confirm the quote on a UK page, and the Friday figure was out of date, so both have been removed.
- 2026-11-04: An earlier version of this page said one of the four things on this page explains any money your family did not get, and said the Philippines charges the recipient no tax on incoming money. A family's own bank can also charge a fee for receiving, and a bank wire into a Philippine peso account can carry a documentary stamp. Both lines have been removed.
- 2026-07-31: An earlier version of this page linked the provider names Wise, LemFi, Remitly and WorldRemit to
/reviews/pages that do not yet exist on the site (returned 404). The links have been removed and the provider names left as plain text. Sendwave and Revolut retain their links because those review pages resolve.