Why the apps say no
Wise, Remitly and WorldRemit all send money to Bangladesh. None of them send from it. Wise lists Bangladesh only as a country you can send to, and you cannot add taka to Wise from a Bangladeshi bank account. Remitly and WorldRemit do not list Bangladesh as a country you can send from at all. Western Union does send out of Bangladesh, but only through a partner bank, mainly for students and patients, against the same papers the bank would ask for anyway.
This is not the apps being difficult. Under Bangladesh's foreign exchange law, a person living in Bangladesh may not pay anyone abroad without permission from Bangladesh Bank. The central bank gives that permission in advance for a list of reasons, and lets banks approve those reasons at the counter. Anything not on the list goes to Bangladesh Bank itself to decide.
The list is in the rules Bangladesh Bank issued on 30 September 2026. They replace the older rules, and some limits went up this year, so a page that still says USD 12,000 for travel is out of date.
Find your reason
The bank you need is a branch that is allowed to deal in foreign currency, called an "AD" branch. Ask your own bank which of its branches does this.
- Your child is studying abroad. Open a student file at one bank branch. Tuition goes straight to the university. There is no fixed cap.
- You or a family member need treatment abroad. The bank can release up to USD 15,000 with a doctor's letter and the hospital's estimate.
- You are travelling. Up to USD 18,000 a year, written on your passport, in cash or on a card.
- You earn from abroad as a freelancer. Keep up to half of it in a foreign currency account and spend it on real costs.
- You want to send savings, or support a relative who moved. There is no simple route. Read the section on this before you try anything.
University fees and living costs
This is the route most families use, and it works well once the file is open.
Go to one bank branch and open a student file. You bring the bank's application form, the offer letter from the university (for the UK, the offer letter or CAS), the university's own estimate of a year's tuition, housing and insurance, the student's attested certificates, and the student's passport.
The bank pays tuition directly to the university. Living costs can go to the student on an international card. If the university asks for a deposit to hold the place, the bank can send that too, before the visa, as long as the university's papers ask for it.
The bank releases one academic year at a time. For the next year, it will want a progress report and a new estimate from the university. The whole course stays with the same branch. If you want to change banks, the branch sends the file to the new one; it is never handed to you.
Since 10 August 2026 there is a second option. Some universities only take fees through a card payment page. Your bank can now load a card, in the student's name or yours as the person paying, for education payments only. This does not use up your travel allowance.
Tip
Courses below university level, like boarding school or A-levels, are not on the bank's list. For those, the bank has to send your application to Bangladesh Bank first. Allow extra weeks.
Treatment abroad
The bank can release up to USD 15,000 (about £11,250) for treatment abroad. You need a letter from a medical board or the right specialist, and a cost estimate from the hospital abroad. The money should go straight to the hospital's account. A card works too, and up to USD 5,000 can be taken as cash.
If the bill is bigger, the bank sends your papers to Bangladesh Bank, which can approve more once it sees the costs are real.
Travel and your international card
Every adult can take up to USD 18,000 (about £13,500) a year for travel abroad. Children under 12 get half. This went up from USD 12,000 on 6 September 2026. Up to USD 5,000 of it can be US dollar notes; the rest goes on a card or in other currencies. The bank writes the amount on your passport and checks your ticket and visa.
An international card can also pay foreign websites, up to USD 300 (about £225) a payment. Online spending across the year can use what is left of your travel allowance plus up to USD 1,000 more.
If you are leaving Bangladesh for good, on a one-way ticket for work, study or migration, you can take the whole of this year's unused travel allowance with you.
Your own earnings as a freelancer
If you are paid from abroad for software, data entry or other IT work, you may keep up to 50 percent of what comes in in a foreign currency account, called an ERQ account. For other services the share is 30 percent. The 50 percent share started on 22 July 2026. You can spend from the account on real costs: software, hosting, equipment, travel, and personal expenses that you can show are genuine.
What you may not do is leave your earnings sitting in an account abroad. The money has to come into Bangladesh first.
Savings, and family who have moved
This is the hard part, and it is better to hear it plainly.
There is no allowance for a person living in Bangladesh to send their own savings abroad. There is no allowance for a gift. If your brother has moved to Manchester and you want to help him with rent, there is no form the bank can approve on its own.
What exists is narrow. You can apply to support a dependent parent, husband, wife or child who lives abroad, but Bangladesh Bank decides, not the bank, and the application needs a certificate from the Bangladesh embassy or high commission where they live. It says where they live, what they earn, why they went and how long they will stay. The amount approved is whatever the central bank thinks is moderate.
For any other reason, the bank fills in a form for you and sends it to Bangladesh Bank with your evidence. Approval is not automatic, and it can take weeks.
Catch
A sibling, a cousin or a grown child who is working abroad is not a dependant. For them, there is no normal route at all.
What the bank route costs
Two things cost you money: the bank's exchange rate and the bank's charges.
Banks sell pounds at a little more than the rate Bangladesh Bank publishes. On 18 October 2026, Eastern Bank sold pounds at Tk 166.88 each, against Bangladesh Bank's rate of Tk 164.73. On a £10,000 tuition payment, that is Tk 1,668,824 at the bank against Tk 1,647,300 at the central bank's rate. The difference is about Tk 21,500 (about £130).
Then the charges. Opening a student file costs Tk 5,000 at Meghna Bank and Tk 7,000 at Southeast Bank, with a smaller fee to renew it each year. Each transfer carries a sending fee of a few hundred to about Tk 2,000, plus the charges of the overseas banks the money passes through. VAT is added on top of the fees.
So a first-year tuition payment of £10,000 costs roughly Tk 30,000 extra, about £180, a little under 2 percent. Ask your branch for its own schedule of charges and today's selling rate for pounds before you choose it. You will be with that branch for the whole course.
Why people use hundi, and what it risks
Everyone knows someone who does it. You give taka to a man in Dhaka, his partner in London gives pounds to your son, and nobody asks you why. It is quick, and for years it paid a better rate.
The better rate has mostly gone. The gap between the hundi rate and the bank rate was Tk 7 to Tk 10 a dollar in 2023 and Tk 3 to Tk 5 in 2024, according to The Daily Star. In October 2026 the World Bank economist Dilip Ratha said the premium had "fallen to very little".
What has not gone is the risk. Paying someone abroad without permission breaks the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act, which carries up to seven years in prison. Moving money abroad against the rules also counts as money smuggling under the Money Laundering Prevention Act, which carries four to twelve years. In June 2026 the finance minister told parliament that about 55,000 mobile money accounts had been suspended or frozen over online gambling and "digital hundi".
And if the money does not arrive, there is no receipt, no bank and no one to complain to. For a university, there is a second problem: money from an unknown sender with no paper trail is exactly what a UK university or bank may stop and ask about.
If you are the relative in the UK
If your family in Bangladesh asks how to send you money, start with the reason. If you are studying, tell them to open a student file at one bank and send you the university's offer letter and fee estimate to take to the branch. If you are paying for treatment, send them the hospital's estimate.
If it is just to help you, tell them the truth: there is no easy legal way, and you would rather they kept the money than took the risk.
When the money comes, keep the Bangladeshi bank's receipt and the invoice it paid. A UK bank can ask where a large payment came from, and that paper is the answer. Our guide to sending money to the UK covers what UK banks tend to ask.
If you are sending money the other way, to family in Bangladesh, that is the easy direction. The Bangladesh guide shows what arrives on each app. And if this all sounds familiar, it is the same wall people meet getting money out of Nigeria.
The bank will ask you why. Have the answer on paper, from the university or the hospital, and the money can go.
Corrections
None so far. If we get something wrong, the fix is dated here.