How to send money to China from the UK, and pick the right channel on the other side

So ask before you send. With Wise, a first transfer to Alipay or WeChat may not be finished when you pay. Wise says recipients may need to link a bank card to the wallet, and calls this a one-time setup. Your relative does this on their phone in a fixed time. At that step they also choose where the money goes: the wallet, or a bank card linked to it.

The four channels, plainly

A Chinese bank account is the right channel when the money is going toward something with a paper trail on the other side: a school fee, a rent, a hospital bill, a loan payment. Your recipient gives you their bank card number, the name on the account, and the bank's name.

Wise says it can only send yuan to banks that are members of CIPS, China's system for yuan payments across borders. Its UnionPay guide says it cannot send to China Merchants Bank, China Minsheng Bank, Industrial Bank, Shanghai Pudong Development Bank or Bank of Nanjing. So ask which bank it is first.

Wise shows an arrival time on its quote, and that time changes during the day. Its UnionPay guide says the money usually reaches the bank account on the same working day, once Wise has your money and has converted it. Its China page says 77% of transfers arrive in under 20 seconds and about 95% in less than a day. With any other app, check the time on the screen before you pay.

An Alipay wallet is the right channel when the money is going to be spent in the week rather than saved. Think groceries, phone top-ups, everyday shopping, and small payments to shops and family. Your recipient must be 18 or over and needs Alipay installed, with a Chinese National ID on file (Hong Kong and Macao residents use a Mainland travel permit). They give you their Alipay ID or mobile phone number.

Wise's Alipay guide sets out the steps for a recipient who still needs this setup. Your recipient gets an Alipay message. They open it and link a bank card within 72 hours. If they do not, the transfer is cancelled and Wise refunds you. If Alipay asks for documents, they have 24 hours. They then pick the Alipay wallet or the linked bank card. The money arrives after these steps, not before.

A WeChat wallet is widely used for money between family and friends inside China. The steps are close to Alipay's, but the time is shorter. Wise's WeChat guide says your recipient must be over 18 and needs a bank card linked to their WeChat account. The first time they get a transfer, they get a link that expires after 48 hours. If they do not finish the steps in that time, the transfer is cancelled and the money is refunded to you. They choose the WeChat balance or the bank card. Wise says the money then arrives almost immediately.

A cash pickup at a Western Union or MoneyGram counter is the right channel for a specific case: an older relative without a smartphone, a family member without a bank account they can use, or a small town where the counter is the answer and the app is not. The cost is higher than the other three. The upside is that the money arrives in cash, in a hand, and nobody needs to open an app or log into a website.

What arrives on £300

We pulled these numbers on 2026-11-05 at about 05:17 GMT, from Wise's live quotes, Western Union's price list, Remitly's calculator, Instarem's own quote and the Wise price comparison. The bank rows on that comparison were collected less than an hour earlier.

The real exchange rate that morning was 9.00 yuan per pound. Over the 30 days before, it ran from about 8.84 to 9.00. So look up the rate on Google or Wise before you send, and compare every quote against it. At 9.00, £300 is about 2,700 yuan before any cost. A quote within about 1% of the rate you find is close to the real one. Anything further is money lost in a worse rate.

• Wise: sends at the real rate and shows its fee on the screen. The fee changes with where the money goes. On £300 paid by bank transfer, the fee to Alipay was £5.03 and about 2,655 yuan arrived. To WeChat the fee was £6.43 and about 2,642 yuan arrived. To a bank card, Wise's card price was about £6 and about 2,645 yuan arrived. Paying by debit card adds about £1 to the fee, so about 8 yuan less arrives.
• Remitly: the fee is £2.99, and £0 on a first transfer only, unless you pay by credit card. If you pay by bank, the rate was about 8.93, a little below the real one. About 2,652 yuan arrived when you pay £300 in all, with the fee taken out of the £300. This price names no channel. That is about 2 yuan less than Wise to Alipay and about 10 yuan more than Wise to WeChat. Remitly's calculator adds the fee on top of the amount you type, so check the total you pay. A first transfer also gets a better rate, on up to £750. Some visits to Remitly's page show this on the first two transfers, so read the offer you see. It pays into bank accounts, Alipay and WeChat.
• Instarem: its own quote showed no fee and about 2,684 yuan on £300, about 30 yuan more than Wise to Alipay. This is its regular price. A first transfer gets a better rate, about 2,690 yuan on £300. Its page asks for the recipient's bank details and does not say if it pays into Alipay or WeChat, so check both in the app.
• Xoom (owned by PayPal): pays into bank accounts and into Alipay and WeChat wallets. Its China page shows only a first-time rate. So before a later transfer, type in £300 and compare the result with the real rate.
• Western Union: the cash-pickup answer. If you pay online, its price list showed about 2,560 yuan in cash for £300 sent, the lowest here. The fee comes on top: £2.99 to £4.99 online, depending on how you pay. Paying at an agent costs more. It also pays into WeChat: about 2,645 yuan on £300 at its regular price, with no fee. A first transfer gets a better rate, about 2,733 yuan.

The fee and rate will be different on the day you send. At this time, Wise to Alipay and Remitly were about 2 yuan apart on £300. Type your amount into two apps before you pick one.

The bank number

A UK bank delivers less than Wise on £300, but on these numbers the gap is small. NatWest and RBS were the only UK banks on the Wise price comparison for yuan. Both showed no fee and a rate of about 8.79, about 2.3% below the real one. That means about 2,638 yuan arrives, and about £7 is lost in the rate. Wise to a bank card delivers about 7 yuan more, less than £1.

Other banks add a fee. HSBC UK charges £5 online. Premier and Private Banking customers pay no fee, and neither do customers who use a Global Money Account. The fee is still the small number: at NatWest the fee is £0 and the rate costs about £7.

The bigger gap is time. HSBC UK says payments outside the European Economic Area can take up to 4 working days, and sometimes longer.

The name on the transfer has to match

If the name you type is different from the one the receiver's bank or wallet has on file, your family waits and you send again.

With Wise, you usually get your money back. You cannot cancel a transfer to Alipay, WeChat or a UnionPay bank card once it is sent. A WeChat transfer with a wrong name is refunded automatically 48 hours after the payment. But if a receiving bank rejects a transfer, you can cancel for a full refund. Wise says it refunds the full amount in most cases, except Swift transfers, the older system banks use. Other apps have their own rules, so read them before you send.

The rules per channel:

• To an Alipay wallet through Wise: the recipient's name goes in Pinyin (Latin letters, not Chinese characters), with a space between the first name and the family name, and it has to match the name on their Chinese National ID exactly. The nickname the family uses does not work. The English spelling from a passport does not work if it is not the Pinyin their ID uses.
• To a WeChat wallet through Wise: the recipient's full name in Latin letters.
• To a bank card through Wise (routed via UnionPay): the recipient's name has to match what the bank has on file.

Ask your relative to send you the exact spelling their bank has on file, in Pinyin, before you make the transfer. It takes five minutes and saves a cancelled transfer.

The yearly limit on foreign currency

China's foreign-exchange regulator, SAFE, sets a limit of USD 50,000 a year per person on foreign currency sold for yuan. It counts the whole calendar year.

At £300 a month this limit does not touch you. It is a limit on foreign currency your relative converts. It can matter if a large sum reaches them in pounds or dollars to convert in China, such as a school year in advance or a deposit on a flat. Above the limit the checks are stricter, and the bank may ask your relative to show documents.

Before a large send, ask the receiving bank what it needs. Sending in smaller pieces in the same year does not change the limit, and SAFE says its system exists to stop sales in instalments. This is not tax advice. If the send is a large sum or a business payment, talk to a proper adviser at both ends before you tap send.

What WeChat cannot do

WeChat is one of the ways money gets into China, but it is only that. If you thought about opening WeChat Pay yourself to send from your own wallet, read Wise's guide for foreign users first.

Wise says a foreign user can link an international card and pay merchants. It also says foreign users cannot use WeChat Pay for payment transfers, or for red packets (gift money) between friends and family. This is Wise's account. We could not confirm it on a WeChat page.

For the sender staying in the UK, the right route is an app that pays yuan into your relative's WeChat from your side, with no wallet of your own. Wise does this for individual senders. On a first transfer, your relative may need to link a bank card and finish the steps in 48 hours.

Where the money should go, if you are picking

For a family send of a few hundred pounds a month, the app depends on where your family wants the money. On £300 on 2026-11-05:

• Into an Alipay wallet: open Wise. About 2 yuan more arrived than with Remitly.
• Into a WeChat wallet: open Remitly. About 10 yuan more arrived than with Wise, and about 7 more than with Western Union.
• Into a bank account: open Instarem. About 32 yuan more arrived than with Remitly, and about 39 more than with Wise to a bank card.

The Wise and Remitly gaps are about £1 or less, and they can change in a day. So check both apps before you send.

For the older relative without a smartphone, Western Union at a counter is the right channel and the higher cost is what you are paying for the counter, not for the app.

Wise's own limits into China are worth knowing before your first send. The per-transfer cap is 33,000 yuan to a UnionPay bank card, or 50,000 yuan to Alipay or WeChat. Each recipient also has a yearly limit in the hundreds of thousands of yuan. The monthly limit is 15 payments to Alipay and 20 to a UnionPay card. For WeChat, Wise's guide gives both 15 and 10. These limits count money from other services too. They do not touch a monthly £300 family send, but check them if you are sending a deposit-sized sum in one go.

Before you send, ask your relative two things: where they want the money, and the exact name on their ID or bank card. Then tell them the day you send, so they can finish any steps in time.

Corrections

• 2026-11-05: This page said Xoom's China page shows no rate. It shows a first-time rate, and the page now says so. It also left out four things, now added: Remitly's no-fee does not cover a credit card, Remitly's figure had the fee taken out of the £300, Western Union's cash price and fees were for paying online, and a Wise transfer to a UnionPay bank card cannot be cancelled either.
• 2026-11-04: We corrected several claims on this page. It said WeChat is the channel most Chinese families already live in; no primary source counts that, so it now says only that the wallet is widely used. It said the app you pick chooses the channel, and that moving money from a wallet costs a second conversion. With Wise the recipient chooses the wallet or a bank card, and the money is yuan in both. It left out that the recipient may need to link a bank card, a one-time setup, and finish the steps within 72 hours for Alipay or 48 hours for WeChat, or the transfer is cancelled. It said a UK bank costs £30 to £40 on £300 and delivers about 2,400 yuan. NatWest and RBS on 2026-11-04 show about £7 and about 2,634 yuan. It said a wrong name bounces the transfer after a day or two and the fee stays kept. Wise refunds in most cases, except Swift transfers, and an Alipay or WeChat transfer cannot be cancelled once sent. It advised splitting a large send across the calendar year. The limit counts the whole year, so that advice is gone, and the sentence saying the rule was tightened in 2026 is gone too. It said Remitly's fee is often zero and that Remitly costs more than Wise on £300. The fee is £2.99, £0 on a first transfer only. Wise's fee changes with the channel, so which of the two delivers more changes too. It called Xoom a bank-card route; Xoom also pays into Alipay and WeChat. We removed the wallet fees, the China Construction Bank and Chinese-characters lines, and the shares with no count, because we could not source them. The WeChat section now gives only what Wise says. The 2026-07-13 lines saying a foreign-card WeChat wallet cannot receive personal transfers or top up could not be confirmed. Wise is no longer the one pick: the app now depends on the channel. The rate and the numbers are new as of 2026-11-04.
• 2026-10-12: An earlier version of this page said the real GBP-CNY exchange rate sat between 9.00 and 9.20 yuan per pound in the week to 2026-10-12, used "anything above 9.00 is close to the real rate" as the quick benchmark, and said £300 arrived as 2,700 yuan through Wise. The live Wise rate on 2026-10-12 is 8.865 yuan per pound, with the 30-day window running 8.85 to 9.08. The rate band has been corrected to the real week-to-date window, the benchmark line has been reworded to tell the reader to compare against today's live rate rather than a fixed number, and the £300 Wise arrival has been corrected to roughly 2,650 yuan.
• 2026-07-13: An earlier version of this page said a foreign user of WeChat could add a UK card and send small payments to Chinese friends. That is wrong. A WeChat wallet with only a foreign card linked can pay merchants at the checkout, but cannot send peer-to-peer transfers, receive personal transfers, or top up. Peer-to-peer inside WeChat needs a verified Chinese bank account linked to the wallet. The same update tightened the UK-bank fee example, which had named an old-school "around £20" figure.
• 2026-07-13: An earlier version of this page named HSBC UK's international transfer fee as £4 online and closer to £9 at a branch. HSBC UK's current published tariff is £5, whether the transfer is arranged online or in a branch. The fee example has been softened to "around £5" and the paragraph steers the reader back to the exchange-rate margin, where almost all of the cost sits.

Related reading

If you also send money to India, the same shape of decision applies on the receiving side: which account (NRE, NRO, resident) the money arrives in decides what is really available to spend. See the India guide. For an account-arrival-rules parallel closer to home, the Nigeria guide and the Ghana guide cover receive-side rules that shape whether the money actually reaches the person.