Sending money home

Legal General Legal Matters
1

Is it true that a foreign worker can send no more than $nt100,000 home in one go?

And that if flying out you are not allowed to carry more than a certain amount of money on you?

2

No.

… without declaring it, yes. You are limited to carry in and out of Taiwan the equivalent of US$10,000 in foreign currencies, TW$60,000 in local currency, and 6000 renminbi (Mainland Chinese money). In the case of foreign currency, you can carry more if it is properly declared and recorded. In the case of Taiwan dollars, a special permit is required to carry more. And for renminbi, any excess being brought in will be held by customs until your departure.

Keep in mind also the customs regulations of any other countries you will go through.

3

The bank I use, Chang-Hwa, told me that you can wire up to NT$500,000 in one shot without attracting any attention here in Taiwan with the relevant authorities.

4

My bank told me that the equivalent of 15,000 USD, which I guess is around 500,000 nt needs to be declared by filling out a form.

I don’t believe it has any significant impact on the sender. Something to do with keeping track of the general total of funds held in Taiwan or something along those lines.

5

Slightly off topic but no point starting a new thread.

I want to have my publisher in Australia wire me money as opposed to sending a check (which takes a month to cash). Do I only pay a service charge no matter what the amount? Why do I have it in my head that I pay a percentage of the amount?

6

There’s possibly four places where a wire transfer gets charged:

  1. The originating bank pays a fee

  2. An intermediate bank imposes a fee (many banks don’t have wire transfer capabilities themselves and use a larger bank to do transfers)

  3. The receiving bank imposes a fee

  4. The receiving bank charges commission on the foreign exchange

1 and 3 are almost certain to happen. 2 is pretty common but usually isn’t very large. 4 still happens at some banks here.

Percentage wise, every bank has a spread between their bid and sell prices for foreign exchange which usually amounts to around 1%, but this would apply whether you wired in money, waited the 6-8 weeks for a check to clear, or brought in actual foreign money.

7

[quote=“Muzha Man”]Slightly off topic but no point starting a new thread.

I want to have my publisher in Australia wire me money as opposed to sending a check (which takes a month to cash). Do I only pay a service charge no matter what the amount? Why do I have it in my head that I pay a percentage of the amount?[/quote]
Not sure if this will help or not.

When sending money home, I used to send it as USD and get it changed at the other end. A couple of issues, firstly, I got raped on the forex rate at the other end, and secondly, the USD went via a ‘transfer bank’ or something like that in New York. That transfer bank took a fee based on a % value.

Now I change the money here to the destination currency, and now it goes directly, with no ‘transfer bank’. The forex rate is better here too.

So, I know you want it to go the other way, but the above info might be of interest with respect to the type of currency sent.

8

Thanks guys. I should be able to get the money sent as NT. Or I could have it deposited as US dollars in a foreign currency account.

9

What I do when I want to send money to my parents in the U.S. is I send traveler’s checks in the mail. I sign my name at the top as soon as I buy the traveler’s checks. Then I also sign my name at the bottom and I write my father’s name in the middle where it say “Pay to the order to”. Then when my father receives the traveler’s checks, he takes them to his bank and deposits them. (At most banks in the U.S., they treat traveler’s checks the same as personal checks.)

But this method doesn’t work when sending money the other direction (to Taiwan from overseas). One time my father sent me a $1000 traveler’s check with his name signed at the top and bottom and blank in the middle. I first tried to deposit it at my bank where I have an account and they said “No way! You can only deposit a traveler’s check if the name at the top is your own name and the bottom has to be blank until you sign it right here when you are depositing or cashing it!” (The middle has to be blank, too, but luckily it already was blank in the middle.)

Then I spent the next 3 or 4 hours going around to every bank in the city where I was living then (Pingdong). After going to about 20 different banks, I finally found one very small bank that was willing to let me cash it, but they wouldn’t give me the cash right away. Instead, they just gave me a receipt and they said I would have to wait about a month until the check “cleared”! Then I called the bank once a week and finally about a month later, they said I could come in and give them my receipt and pick up the cash. After that experience, I told my father to never again send me any traveler’s checks!

So now when my father wants to send money to me, we do it a completely different way. Now he deposits the money in my credit card account and I use my credit card at an ATM machine to withdraw the money.

But the limit for how much money you can withdraw from a credit card at an ATM machine is very low, much lower than if you use an ATM card that was issued from a bank in Taiwan. I think the limit is only about NT$9000 or NT$10,000 per day. (But if you use an ATM card issued by a bank in Taiwan, the limit is NT$20,000 per withdraw and NT$100,000 per day!)

10

You should have gone to the office of the travelers’ check company. That probably would have cleared things up. In Pingtung, I guess you have to expect some, um, unfamiliarity with that sort of thing, though.