Sending money from the UK to Pakistan is still nearly free on most apps this month. It may not stay that way through the summer.
For 300 pounds today, open Wise. The fee is small enough to see, the rate is close to what Google shows, and the money lands in your family member’s HBL or Meezan account inside a day. If you want the money in an Easypaisa or JazzCash wallet in minutes instead, Taptap Send is free on any send of 125 pounds or more and usually arrives inside a minute. Xoom also pays into the wallets in minutes; its fee is a little higher than Wise’s, worth it only if Taptap does not work for you.
What you should not do this month is open your own bank’s app and let it send pounds straight to a Pakistani bank. The transfer screen will show a small fee, or none. The rate is where the cost hides. On 300 pounds it can quietly cost several pounds more than any of the apps above, taken on the way in.
Why the fee has been zero for so long
For years, sending money to Pakistan has been unusually cheap. Not because the apps are being generous. Because the Pakistani government was paying the banks to make it look free.
The scheme was called the TT-Charges Incentive Scheme. It worked like this: every time someone abroad sent at least 200 US dollars home to Pakistan through a bank or a bank-linked app, the State Bank of Pakistan paid that bank about four pounds worth of Saudi riyals for the trouble. The bank did not charge the sender a fee. It did not need to. It was being paid at the other end.
That four pounds is the number that was quietly making your Wise transfer to Karachi feel free. Wise, Remitly, Xoom, Western Union, HBL Konnect and the rest all fed into banks that were being paid this way. So the “fee zero” line on the app was true as far as it went. Someone was still being paid. It was just not you.
On 1 July 2026, that stopped. The International Monetary Fund had been unhappy with the arrangement for a while – Pakistan was spending about a hundred billion rupees a year on it, a lot of money for a country in an IMF programme – and forced Pakistan to end it. The State Bank has said publicly that the eligible transfers should still arrive free of charge to the sender and the family. But the four pounds that used to make that easy is gone. The bank is now supposed to swallow it.
Whether they will, and for how long, is what this piece is really about.
What is likely to happen next, and when
The banks are already unhappy in public. They have said as much to the Pakistani press. Nothing has changed on any UK-facing app yet. Nothing needs to change immediately either – a bank can absorb the cost for a while to keep the customer.
Over the next three months, watch for one of three quiet changes. The visible fee may come back: the “0.00” on the screen becomes something like 1.99 or 2.99 on a 300 pound send. That is the plainest of the three, and the easiest to spot. The rate may get a little worse instead: the fee stays zero but the exchange rate the app quotes drops a fraction below what Google shows – on 300 pounds, a one percent worsening is three pounds you never see. Or the minimum goes up, or the free option quietly narrows to certain banks or certain arrival methods, and you notice it only as a new sentence buried in the help page.
Any of the three counts as the invoice landing on you, and none of it will arrive as an announcement.
The apps, and what they are good for
If your family has a bank account and can wait a working day, Wise is the plain workhorse. Real exchange rate, small fee shown on the screen, money into HBL, Meezan, MCB, UBL or Bank Alfalah usually inside a day. Wise itself says about 95 percent of transfers to Pakistan land in under 24 hours. This is the option to beat this month. Instarem does the same route by debit card at about two working days; the fee is a small percentage of the amount. Worth opening as a backup for the days a Wise transfer gets held for review.
If your family uses JazzCash or Easypaisa and you want the money there in minutes, Xoom (owned by PayPal) and Remitly both pay into the mobile wallets and into cash pickup branches, usually in minutes. The fee is a little higher than Wise; the reason to pick either of them is arrival speed and the wallet payout. Remitly runs first-transfer promotions on this route often, so read the terms on the screen before you send: the regular rate is on the second transfer, not the first. Taptap Send is a similar app-first option for mobile wallets, and on any send of 125 pounds or more it charges no fee at all. Worth trying first for wallet payouts on a 300 pound send, with Xoom as the fallback if the recipient’s number does not route.
If your family collects cash at a branch, Western Union is longer running than any of the others, and still the option most people mention when the family member does not use a bank or a mobile wallet. Also the option to compare against, because the fee is higher and the rate is worse than the app-first providers. If your family has a bank account, do not pay Western Union prices for arrival that Wise can also do.
One more name worth knowing: HBL Konnect. This is a Pakistani mobile-wallet account the person at home opens. It is not a UK-side sending app. You still send from Wise or Xoom into their Konnect number. It is worth mentioning because it is a good, cheap way for the family to hold and spend the money on the ground, and because when money is sent from abroad into a Konnect account HBL currently adds a small mobile-balance top up.
The other option: hold the money in Pakistan yourself
There is a second thing worth knowing about, especially if you send every month.
Meezan Roshan Digital Account is a bank account in Pakistan you can open from the UK, without going to a branch. It takes about 48 hours to open. You need a valid Pakistani CNIC, NICOP or POC. You can hold pounds, US dollars, euros or Pakistani rupees inside it. You transfer from your UK bank into the Roshan account, and from there to your family’s account inside Pakistan.
Why do this instead of sending each time through Wise? Two reasons. One, the rupee has been volatile and it can be useful to move money into rupees at your own timing rather than at each transfer. Two, if you are supporting family monthly, an account at Meezan you control makes bills, school fees and utility payments straightforward from your phone.
HBL and Bank Alfalah offer their own Roshan Digital accounts too. Meezan’s is the most commonly recommended in the UK-to-Pakistan diaspora because the digital experience is better and the Islamic-banking option is on by default. Do not open a Roshan account for a one-off transfer; the point is that you send often.
What to check, and when
This is the part that matters if you want to still be sending well in three months.
In early August 2026, send a normal 300 pound transfer through your usual app. Screenshot the fee, the exchange rate quoted, and how many rupees land at the other end. Save it. This is your baseline.
In early September 2026, send the same 300 pounds through the same app. Compare to August. If the fee has moved from 0.00 to a small number, that is the price coming back onto the screen. If the fee is still zero but fewer rupees are arriving on the other end for the same 300 pounds, the change is hiding in the rate.
In early October 2026, do the same check. By now the banks that were being paid at the far end have had three months to decide whether to swallow the cost or pass it on. If nothing has changed on your screen by October, the app you are using is either eating the cost quietly or has found another way. Fine. If two of the three checks show a worse total, it is time to try the other apps on this list and pick the one that has moved least.
Google’s own converter is the reference point. Search “300 GBP in PKR” the same minute you are about to send, and compare that number to the rupees the app is offering to send. The gap is the true cost.
What to open today
If your family has a bank account and can wait a working day: Wise. The fee is small and the rate is close to the market.
If your family uses JazzCash or Easypaisa and you want the money there in minutes: Xoom or Remitly.
If your family collects cash at a branch: Western Union, and know you are paying a little more for that convenience.
If you send every month and you want to hold rupees in a Pakistani account you control: Meezan Roshan Digital is the one to open first.
None of the above is a permanent answer. The scheme change on 1 July was real. What the apps do next is not decided yet. Send this month with the app that is straight with you today, and check again in August.
Corrections
- 2026-07-20: An earlier version of this page grouped Xoom and Taptap Send together under “the fee is a little higher” than Wise on a 300 pound send. Taptap Send’s own
published fee schedule is free on any UK send of 125 pounds or more, so on 300 pounds the fee is zero, not higher than Wise’s. The paragraph 2 sentence and the Taptap Send entry in “The apps, and what they are good for” have been rewritten to name that threshold plainly. The narrower point stands: Xoom’s fee on this route is still a little higher than Wise’s.