Moving USD from our accounts in the USA to Taiwan

Hi there,

Just landed on the island 1+ week ago and would like to learn how you guys go about getting your USD from your account in the USA to Taiwan? Which bank offers the best deal and what are the deals, things like that? I also will soon have a small amount of monthly income into my bank account monthly in the USA. Thank you.

Best,

Mike

This seems to be all the rage for expats in my area.

TransferWise does not operate in Taiwan. But it works well otherwise.

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Caution. Watch how much you transfer at one time. When my father passed away, my share of the inheritance
was sent to Taiwan.
It caused all sorts of pandemonium. I must have gotten three phone calls from anti-fraud and anti-money laundering agents. Even though I didn’t my best to try to explain, and I thought they understood the situation they did not stop calling until my wife set down and explained everything to them.
And this some of the money came from an attorney.
I think if you try to transfer a large sum of money out of the country you’ll also trigger a mess on the u.s. bank side as well.
I think the limit to avoid trouble is $10,000.

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This. Never send more than $9999 and never send the the exact same amount at regular intervals. Under $3000 is best.

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This post might be of interest:

One of the reasons Transferwise/Ozforex saves people money is it can avoid ‘intermediary bank’ fees. In the worst case, when you transfer money from bank to bank:

  1. Pay a fee in your US bank for the SWIFT transfer
  2. Pay a fee in whatever bank your US bank uses in Taiwan (intermediary bank)
  3. Pay a fee to receive the money in your Taiwanese bank.

If your bank owns a bank in the US and Taiwan, or your US bank has exchanged SWIFT credentials with the bank in Taiwan so they can transfer directly, you can avoid the intermediary fee. You can ask which banks your Taiwan bank works with for sending certain currencies - they are likely to be reciprocal agreements.

For receipt of foreign currency, at least I can say that Taishin never charged me any fees for that. If you also have a bank in the US that doesn’t charge an arm and a leg for SWIFT transfers, then you’re about as good as you can get.

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Second that :+1: