Ask HN: How do you receive USD for work abroad without getting ripped off? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How do you receive USD for work abroad without getting ripped off?

13 pointswaterlooalex33 comments

To those that work for a US company (but live elsewhere), how do you get paid, and do you manage to avoid horrible fees?

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We use transferwise for almost all of our international payments. transferwise rocks. We used to use XETrade, but this isn't available to us where we currently live and work. Our bank(s) hate us for using transferwise, and actually try many different ways to stop us from using it (except for making the process cheaper - funny thing, that)

I'm curious, are those payments for work you've done for a US company?

I do love what transferwise is doing, thats awesome that the banks are riled up about it :)

Yes, and we use it pay companies in the US that we use. Anything that annoys the banks is OK in my book :)

Can't recommend Transferwise enough! I've been using them at least once per month for two years now (GBP<->EUR) and they've been brilliant.

I've used Paypal because it was very simple to setup, until I realised how much I was losing, then I setup a bank to bank international wire, which took some time because most account managers I have talked had no idea how to do. It still takes some fees, but a lot less compared to Paypal.

Wire transfers always seem to take so long. How long do they take for you?

Wire transfers should be instantaneous. ACH transfers take 2-5 days.

Even international wire transfers? Eg US to another country.

Yes.

Wow. When ever I've done cross border wires they take at minumum 1 day.

I've not experienced that, even within SEPA (the EU's transfer area). Payments from e.g. Denmark to Germany seem to typically take one business day to go through.

I've got a business bank account with Chase, and they'll do currency conversions and international transfers, via online banking, with a minimum of fees.

They've also got a credit card (Sapphire Preferred, I believe) that has no currency exchange fees, and has both a chip (useful in Europe) and a magstrip (useful everywhere else).

If you set up a local bank account, keep the FBAR in mind.

Some banks—such as Thailand's Bangkok Bank—have a US branch just for receiving transfers. That way, you have a US routing number along with your normal local bank account number, and then can get your US pay despoiled just as if it were going to a US account. Fees tend to be lower than manually wiring money each month.

Thats pretty slick.

You mean bank transfer fees?! You cannot avoid them unless you also have an US bank account which you won't get if you are not living in the US. Private money transfer is pretty cheap with well known services like e.g. Paypal (I'm guessing this is one of the main reasons Paypal exists, easy and cheap).

Yes, transfer fees etc. Also I found out my bank takes a cut on currency exchange!! Eg they take 2.5% vs the market rate. PayPal fees seem high.

Paypal's cheapness varies by country, here in Costa Rica they only work with one bank who charge 0.5% per transaction with a generous $11 minimum fee.

Does PayPal also charge their international fee and currency exchange fee?

https://www.paypal.com/cr/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_display-xborde...

https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/helpcenter/helphub/article...

The bank fees are separate and on top of PayPal's, moving money to/from PayPal can only be done through their website instead of PayPal's and they collect their fees that way.

You don't have to live in the US to set up a US bank account. You just need to physically be in the US.

That said, I think your resident country needs to have a relationship with the US. I was approved no problem as an Australian, but one of the devs I work with from Ukraine was declined.

I have a US bank account & use OzForex (you can use USForex as a US citizen). I've also used XE Trade in the past.

Transferwise is awesome (much better UI), but not as good as OZ/USForex or XE in terms of rates.

A lot of this is dependent on where you live? Are you billing via a US/International LLC? Or is this a direct contract? do you spend USD in the current country or another currency?

At least here in Brazil the best way is to convert the USD to Bitcoins and sell it in the local market, however not every company is willing to do so.

When there is no such option: Wire transfer

Is it safe to use Bitcoin?

No.

Bitcoin is very volatile, so you could lose or gain unknown amounts during the "transfer" (even if it is within a few minutes).

Additionally unlike a traditional wire transfer you cannot prove that you're transferring it to yourself (it is an anonymous currency by design after all) therefore they could come after you for tax (or worse accuse you of laundering).

Wires are a rip-off. However the costs are knowable and there is a very low risk of any misunderstanding from the big G in either country.

I use a company called XE, and to be frank it is a huge PITA. But at least all money is completely traceable/verifiable (the broker is almost too paranoid about fraud, that's why it is such a pain) and the fees are relatively low. It would be very easy to prove with XE that I sent it to myself.

A friend had mentioned XE to me, it looked like a good option. What makes it a PITA? You mentioned broker but I'm not sure exactly what you mean.

I also use XE. I think he might be referring to setup. Setting up an account takes a lot of documentation and took a few weeks IIRC. Once it's setup though, things are easy.

TransferWise.

I read about them, they sound awesome. Is your employer happy to use them?

I just use it to send money to myself internationally.

Is no one here aware of WesternUnion? It's the oldest and largest money transfer company around.

Their standard products limit transfers to under US$3k, and the fees are not much lower than PayPal.

https://transferwise.com/blog/2012-04/send-money-abroad-comp...

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