Transferring money between the US and China

[enlijoe 20]

I have not yet found a good way to send money from China to the US so I’m only going to cover the US to China route. I thought I would open up a thread on this issue as I’m sure there are others out there that have or are trying to do this. I’m going to post here what I have found out in regards to this. I found several different methods that all have costs and I have been trying to find the fastest and cheapest way to do this that is still easiest at the same time. This is all very completed as there are three ways they can charge you a fees. The first is a flat rate fee for any amount transferred, then they can charge you a % of the amount and finally there is the exchange rate you are being offered for the transfer. I’m using googles exchange rates when figuring out this hidden charge that is used. At the time of this writing the current exchange rate on google is 6.0433 Yuan to $1.

PayPal costs about .5% when using a linked checking account or Paypal balance and 3.9% when using a credit card. This is by far the cheapest way but requires both people have a Paypal account and a checking account linked to the Paypal account. This takes 3 to 5 business days to send the money and then another 3 to 5 days to receive the money once sent to China for a total of 7 to 10 business days. This means that for any emergency this will not work at all. Paypal does not make it easy to figure out the exchange rate being used. They claim it is completive but don’t give you a way to figure out what it is before you send the money.

Western Union at the time of this writing they exchange rate is 6.0450 Yuan to $1 which comes out to about .03%. If you use a credit card the transfer is done in minutes and costs about $12 to send $100 and $88 to send $2,000 for a total of 4.6% at $2000 or 12.4% for $100. When doing it via Bank transfer or WU pay takes about 3 business days and costs $10 to send $100 or $15 to send $2,000 for a total of $19 or .95% or $100 for 10.4%. That makes this better for larger transfers but for smaller ones it too expensive. The money must be picked up from a Western Union office so that makes this more difficult to use.

The next option is the one I’m using is a nice balance between cost and ease of use. I obtained a Akimbo card. This is a prepaid Visa debit card that offers good rates, allows international use and gives you multiple cards in different names. I’m sending on card with her name on it to China and I keep another here. You have a few options to put money onto the card of (direct paycheck deposit, ACH check, Green Dot). Both direct deposit and ACH are free to use and take about 3 business days to complete. Green Dot cost money to do but is instant transfer if needed. To use in the US it costs nothing as a visa debit card. To get cash from an ATM it is $1.98. If you use as a ATM for a purchase it is $0.99. For an international transaction it is 3% more than the US fees above. The exchange rates used the published by Visa and are very close to the same as the ones used by Western Union or Google. This makes this cheaper than Western Union for small amounts under $500. The card can be used just like we do in the US to purchase anything that you can use a credit card for and at many ATM’s in China. I used my US debit card quite easily while in China to get cash from an ATM and I was paying 2.5% + $5 so this is very close to what my bank offers me to get money. I use Chase Bank and they will not do ACH transactions with this bank so I have to transfer the money to PayPal then transfer the money to my Akimbo card taking me about 6 days to complete.

Please let me know if you have found any other way to do this and how much it costs and how long it takes to complete the transactions.

[edelweiss 3]

For the China to US route, my wife uses her Bank of China Debit card to make our purchases, it takes the funds directly from her BOC account instantly without fees. I will then give her US funds to put in her US account. The debit card works in most stores in the US.

[enlijoe 20]

For the China to US route, my wife uses her Bank of China Debit card to make our purchases, it takes the funds directly from her BOC account instantly without fees. I will then give her US funds to put in her US account. The debit card works in most stores in the US.

Do you mean open an account with Bank of China here in America? If not how do you get the funds to the Bank of China account international wire transfers are a larger fee then most of the other options I have seen and are very slow too.

[edelweiss 3]

No, she has a BOC account in China with her own funds. She uses that debit card to make purchases in the US. We are transferring her money from China to US. I haven't tried transferring from US to China.

[unsmiley 111]

^{I have used bank wire transfers from US to China. Charges range from $25 to $35 flat fee, not sure about the exchange rates I have been getting as they are always opaque. While in China I use a debit card that charges no foreign transaction fees at the ATM to withdraw money; there are multiple banks that issue these in the US.}

[bigdog 376]

I heard debit to debit transfer works well and cheaper but have not seen or done it. We usually just deposit then withdraw when we are in China. I will ask the wife.

[enlijoe 20]

Here is the thing. She is still in China because we are waiting for K-1 to get approved. She can not afford all of the cost so I want to help. She has also come here and friends are like well while you are there can you get "this" cause it is cheaper in the US. So how to get money to China that is cheap and how to get money from China that is Cheep. This is not about how to use your Chinese money in the US or how to use you dollar while in China.

[roxer 3]

My Fiancee wants to be able to transfer some of her savings to the US on occation. So we are in the same boat - need a cheap way to do that. Getting cash from US to China It is costing me a flat fee of $5 per transaction using a PNC Visa debit card when withdrawing cash from a Chinese ATM. Visa is charging the fee. Not sure how we will do this the other way around. Maybe I should ask if money can be deposited from there to here?

[Jon in RC 6]

I believe BOA and/or CITI's atm cards can be used to take money out in major Chinese banks atm machine. I use HSBC personally. I found that ICBC has better exchange rate than HSBC machine coincidentally in SZ. The other trick is to load your credit card with cash and use it in China without carrying any currency or declearing it.

[enlijoe 20]

I believe BOA and/or CITI's atm cards can be used to take money out in major Chinese banks atm machine. I use HSBC personally. I found that ICBC has better exchange rate than HSBC machine coincidentally in SZ. The other trick is to load your credit card with cash and use it in China without carrying any currency or declearing it.

I'm talking about sending money to China without being there or sending money to the US without being in the US. Example, Wife here in US and friend wants her to get something and send it to her. How to cheaply have them send us the money. Or waiting for K-1 visa to be processed, need to send money to help with the cost of getting K-1 how to send money to China to help out.

[FromPAUS 4]

I'm talking about sending money to China without being there or sending money to the US without being in the US. Example, Wife here in US and friend wants her to get something and send it to her. How to cheaply have them send us the money. Or waiting for K-1 visa to be processed, need to send money to help with the cost of getting K-1 how to send money to China to help out.

I have wired some money to China from my bank account to my fiancee's bank account in China. My US bank took $35 flat fee and the bank in Chinese also has a little bit flat fee on receiving side. The transfer took one to two weeks to complete.

[Jon in RC 6]

I'm talking about sending money to China without being there or sending money to the US without being in the US. Example, Wife here in US and friend wants her to get something and send it to her. How to cheaply have them send us the money. Or waiting for K-1 visa to be processed, need to send money to help with the cost of getting K-1 how to send money to China to help out.

In that scenario, mail the ATM card to china and send the Pin separately. She will have access to your checking acct in china. Wiring money from any major chinese bank has a limit of $50,000 in a year.

[enlijoe 20]

In that scenario, mail the ATM card to china and send the Pin separately. She will have access to your checking acct in china. Wiring money from any major chinese bank has a limit of $50,000 in a year.

Thanks but that is what I'm doing now. I got a prepaid debit cart to do just that was sharing what I found with others and also looking to see if anyone found any better way. Still trying to figure out how to send money from China to the US easy too.

[Jon in RC 6]

Thanks but that is what I'm doing now. I got a prepaid debit cart to do just that was sharing what I found with others and also looking to see if anyone found any better way. Still trying to figure out how to send money from China to the US easy too.

There are some sources that can do a money exchange for the Chinese nationals. I can not vouch for the legality or trustworthiness of those. But I do seen them on some websites catered for the expatriates.

[thosbranch 2]

Thanks but that is what I'm doing now. I got a prepaid debit cart to do just that was sharing what I found with others and also looking to see if anyone found any better way. Still trying to figure out how to send money from China to the US easy too.

I was going to send 500 usd to China via BofA but their rate was horrible and the fee was I think 35 dollars.

I ended up going with Western Union which was only 12 dollars and the exchange rate was 6.07 opposed to BofA 5.7 so I saved a bunch there also.

The only hiccup was that all the western union pickup locations on the site were not correct.

My fiancee finally found western union at the main bank in her city after trying three other nearer locations that were listed but they didn't know anything about westen union.