Hi guys what’s the cheapest and best way to transfer money from Taiwan to US and from US to Taiwan? paypal possible? ACH? for paypal I got an email saying it’s possible to do ACH with E. SUN bank. But not sure how good or how much fee they charge. anyone? thanks
I don’t know if that’s practical for a lot of transfers. I’ve been wondering lately: If the wife and I move to the US in the future and we want to send back monthly “加菜金” payments to her folks, what would be the best way to do that?
She would also need to send back money regularly to cover her Taiwan credit card and insurance savings policy.
[quote=“Hokwongwei”]I don’t know if that’s practical for a lot of transfers. I’ve been wondering lately: If the wife and I move to the US in the future and we want to send back monthly “加菜金” payments to her folks, what would be the best way to do that?
She would also need to send back money regularly to cover her Taiwan credit card and insurance savings policy.[/quote]
I find Moneygram at Walmart to be reasonable enough for my wife to send money to her folks in INdo from USA and for me to send money to Taiwan.
1 Like
I did an estimate on Moneygram to send $5000 from US to Taiwan. The fee is $100.
This is what I did when I was in Taiwan last summer on vacation. I have a US bank account. I have a Taiwan bank account that accepts US currency and NTD. I went to the branch that I opened my Taiwan account originally and I wrote a personal check from my US bank and deposited into my Taiwan bank. The personal check in US bank does not charge anything. For the $5000 check I deposited into Taiwan bank, they charged me around NTD 1100. So, this is cheaper than Moneygram for $5000 US dollars.
I have also sent personal checks from US to my Taiwan relatives. They deposited my checks into their Taiwan bank, and they are charged about the same NTD 1100 or so amount. It also has no cost to me with US bank.
The only downside is that the check will be held for 2-3 weeks, I think.
I was thinking small amounts like a few hundred US dollars, up to 500 US dollars !! For bigger transfers just cash your check and wait.
Citi bank has free global transfer. Capital One 360 has no ATM fee. I use Citi to transfer fund regularly and it’s been great. Before I set my citi accounts up, I use US bank cards to withdraw cash. $5 per withdraw, 20000nt maximum per go. Maybe it’s easier if you just mail them an ATM card and tell me to withdraw cash here when it’s time? Open an account with Citi was easy at the US. It was all done online. In Taiwan, you need to personally apply for one. However, it doesn’t need to be your account, any Citi account would do, your wife’s, her relatives’ etc.
I went to a Citi bank to ask about this two years ago and they assured me that one: I could not open any kind of useful account without a huge sum of money and two: without the aforementioned account, I can’t make free transfers to the US. I don’t know if I was given misinformation or what.
Another thought would be that it would depend on where you are in the US. I send money back to my wife during the summer months and we have a CTBC USA (Chinatrust) account that we have exclusively to send money to her account in Taiwan. While it is not usually any cheaper than anyone else (about $20 US each side), it does have the advantage that it is faster than most other places we tried. The other bank we have used in the past with decent results was HSBC - they would transfer for free, but they required a large deposit with them and unfortunately their rates became a little to low for my tastes.
I went to a Citi bank to ask about this two years ago and they assured me that one: I could not open any kind of useful account without a huge sum of money and two: without the aforementioned account, I can’t make free transfers to the US. I don’t know if I was given misinformation or what.[/quote]
I think it was 1000 nt to open mine. I opened it about 3 years ago. No minimum balance required. I am Taiwanese so don’t know if it is different for foreigners. Perhaps you can try your luck again. It wasn’t more complicated than any other in Taiwan. You have to present 2 ids, sign or use a seal, the standard procedure in Taiwan.
Other than it’s free, it’s also fast. A few hours to a day.
[quote=“mei0319”]I think it was 1000 nt to open mine. I opened it about 3 years ago. No minimum balance required. I am Taiwanese so don’t know if it is different for foreigners. Perhaps you can try your luck again. It wasn’t more complicated than any other in Taiwan. You have to present 2 ids, sign or use a seal, the standard procedure in Taiwan.
Other than it’s free, it’s also fast. A few hours to a day.[/quote]
Thanks, I’ll check it out again. FATCA may have screwed me over, though. I hear a lot of banks are reluctant to do business with Americans these days.
“FATCA may have screwed me over”
Exactly. A US citizen (dual citizenship counts too) that has a foreign bank account needs to read the rules and see if they apply to them.
Penalties are draconian.
FATCA form 8938
FBAR FinCen form 114
and do not forget about ObamaCare (the Affordable Care Act) - that you have IRS mandated “minimum essential coverage”.
Lower income expats can’t assume that they will not be effected.
Do the homework, because the penalties can be substantial.
For Taiwan to the US it’s easiest to just do an international money transfer at a bank if you are only doing a couple of transactions/yr. 400NT and my US bank charges about .6% on their end. 100,000NT for about 1000NT in fees. It’s not worth opening additional bank accounts for that amount of fees.
I did a US to Taiwan transfer once and had to fax the int’l wire transfer form in and pay $25. I never calculated if add’l money was taken out on the Taiwan end and don’t really care since I’m not sending money this way again.
NTD doesn’t seem to be an option with InstaReM, unfortunately.