To send money with an IBAN, you collect the recipient’s account details, pick either your bank or an online transfer service, and submit the payment through a secure portal that validates the IBAN before releasing the funds. The whole submission takes about ten minutes online. The money itself lands in one to five business days depending on where it’s going. The part most people underestimate is the cost, because the fee your bank quotes on screen is rarely the full amount leaving your pocket.
What You Need From the Recipient First
Nothing else matters until you have accurate details. Ask the recipient to pull these directly from their online banking or a recent statement and send them to you as text you can copy, not retype:
- The full IBAN, transcribed exactly. One wrong character means the transfer either bounces or lands in the wrong account.
- The BIC or SWIFT code for their bank. The eight-character version identifies the institution; the eleven-character version points to a specific branch.1Swift. Business Identifier Code (BIC)
- The recipient’s full legal name, spelled exactly as it appears on their account. A minor mismatch can trigger a hold.
- The recipient bank’s address. Some banks require the physical address of the receiving branch.
- A purpose-of-payment code if you’re sending to China, India, or several Gulf states. Your bank will prompt you, but knowing the reason for the payment in advance saves time.
The IBAN itself has a built-in error check. Banking software runs the digits through a mathematical formula before accepting the transfer, so a mistyped character usually gets rejected before the money leaves your account.2SWIFT. IBAN Registry – Registration Authority for ISO 13616 That validation is helpful, but it won’t catch a valid IBAN that belongs to the wrong person.
A Note If You’re Sending From the United States
US banks don’t issue IBANs, and neither do banks in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, or China. When you send from a US account, you’ll use the recipient’s IBAN to identify their account, but your own account is identified by a routing number and account number. If someone abroad asks for your IBAN, tell them US banks use SWIFT codes and ABA routing numbers instead.
Bank Wire or Online Transfer Service
You have two realistic ways to send an IBAN transfer, and the cost gap between them can be large.
Traditional Bank Wire
Log into your bank’s portal or app and look for international wires under transfers. Outgoing international wire fees at major US banks range from nothing (with certain banks, if you send in foreign currency) to $85, with most online transfers falling between $25 and $50. Sending in US dollars rather than the recipient’s local currency tends to cost more, because the conversion then happens at an intermediary or the receiving bank at a rate you don’t control. In-person wires at a branch typically cost more than online ones.
Online Transfer Services
Services such as Wise, OFX, and Remitly can send money to an IBAN without a traditional wire. They generally charge lower flat fees and apply exchange rates much closer to the mid-market rate. In exchange, they sometimes cap per-transaction amounts and may take slightly longer on less common currency routes. For recurring transfers or amounts under a few thousand dollars, they often save real money compared with a bank wire.
Sending the Transfer, Step by Step
Once you’ve picked a platform and have the recipient’s details in hand, the flow is much the same everywhere:
- Log into your banking portal or transfer service and go to international payments.
- Choose your source account and enter the amount, including the currency you want to send in.
- Enter the recipient’s IBAN, BIC or SWIFT code, and full name. Check every character. Use the platform’s IBAN validation tool if it has one.
- Choose who pays intermediary fees (more on this below) and review the quoted exchange rate.
- Read the summary screen carefully. Confirm the total being debited, the amount the recipient will receive, and the delivery estimate.
- Complete authentication, usually a one-time code sent to your phone or generated by a security token.3eCFR. 31 CFR Part 1020 – Rules for Banks
- Submit and save the reference number. You’ll need it if anything goes wrong.
Banks have daily cutoff times for international wires, often around 4:00 or 5:00 p.m. Eastern. Submit after the cutoff and processing won’t begin until the next business day.
What It Actually Costs
Three things reduce what your recipient ends up with:
- The sending fee. This is the flat charge your bank shows you on screen for processing the wire.
- The exchange rate markup. Banks rarely give you the mid-market rate. They add a margin, often 1% to 3%, baked into the rate they quote. On a $5,000 transfer, a 2% markup is roughly $100 that never appears as an itemized fee.
- Intermediary and receiving bank fees. International wires often pass through one or more correspondent banks, and each one can deduct a processing fee from the amount in transit.
When you set up the transfer, most banks ask who pays the intermediary fees. Three shorthand codes describe the choices: OUR means you cover all fees so the recipient gets the full amount, BEN means fees come out of the transferred amount, and SHA splits them. If you’re paying an invoice for a specific figure, choosing OUR avoids the awkward call later about a shortfall.
How Long It Takes to Arrive
Transfers within the Single Euro Payments Area, which covers EU member states plus a handful of others, typically settle within one business day. SEPA instant payments clear in seconds where both banks support them.
Standard international wires outside SEPA generally take one to five business days.4J.P. Morgan. Wire Transfers: How They Work, Security and Fees A US-to-UK transfer in a major currency might arrive in a day. A transfer to a smaller bank in a country with heavier compliance checks can take the full five. Time zones, currency conversion steps, and screening all add time, and transfers submitted before weekends or holidays sit idle until banking resumes on both ends.
Your dashboard should show stages like “processing,” “sent,” and “completed.” If a transfer hasn’t landed after five business days, contact your bank with the reference number and ask them to trace it through the SWIFT network.
If You Change Your Mind or Something Goes Wrong
Federal law gives you 30 minutes to cancel an international transfer for a full refund. The clock starts when you make the payment, and the right applies regardless of your bank’s normal hours. If you cancel in time, the provider must return the full amount, including fees, within three business days.5Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Procedures for Cancellation and Refund of Remittance Transfers Some providers offer a longer window voluntarily; check your confirmation screen.
If a problem shows up after the transfer completes, you have 180 days from the date the money was supposed to arrive to report the error. Errors include money that never arrives, a wrong amount, or a wrong charge to your account. The provider then has 90 days to investigate. For non-delivery and certain other errors, you can get a full refund or have the transfer resent.6Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. What Is a Remittance Transfer and What Are My Rights
These protections apply to remittance transfers, which covers most international transfers made for personal, family, or household purposes. Business-to-business wires may not carry the same rights.
Wire Fraud: The One Scam to Watch For
International wires are hard to reverse once completed, which is why scammers like them. The most common scheme aimed at IBAN transfers is business email compromise. A fraudster impersonates a vendor, contractor, or real estate agent and sends “updated” bank details for a payment you’re already planning to make. The new IBAN routes the money to the scammer.7Federal Bureau of Investigation. Business Email Compromise
The defense is simple but takes discipline. Verify any change in payment details by calling the recipient at a number you already have on file, not one from the email that requested the change. Be extra cautious when someone pressures you to send urgently; that pressure exists to short-circuit your instinct to double-check. For a large first-time transfer, consider sending a small test amount and having the recipient confirm receipt before wiring the rest.
If You’re Moving Large Amounts, Know the Reporting Rules
Some international transfer patterns trigger federal reporting duties that carry stiff penalties if ignored. If you hold financial accounts outside the United States and their combined value exceeds $10,000 at any point during the year, you must file FinCEN Form 114 (the FBAR) by April 15 of the following year, with an automatic extension to October 15. Penalties for failing to file reach $10,000 per violation for non-willful cases and more for willful ones.8Internal Revenue Service. Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR)
Receiving is regulated too. If you receive more than $100,000 from a foreign individual or estate during a tax year, you must report it on IRS Form 3520. Gifts from foreign corporations or partnerships have a lower threshold: $20,116 for 2025, adjusted annually.9Internal Revenue Service. Gifts from Foreign Person These filings are informational and don’t automatically mean tax is owed, but skipping them can trigger penalties tied to the unreported amount. None of this is caused by the wire itself; the triggers are the balances and totals. But people who regularly send or receive across borders are the ones most likely to hit these thresholds without noticing.