Remittance Transfer Rules: Disclosures, Cancellation, and Errors

If you send money to someone in another country, federal remittance transfer rules require the company handling the transfer to tell you upfront exactly what it will cost, how much your recipient will get, and when the funds will arrive. Those protections come from Regulation E, are enforced by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and cover most electronic transfers over $15 sent from the United States abroad for personal reasons.¹ You also get a short cancellation window, a formal way to dispute errors, and the right to complain to the CFPB if the provider won’t make things right.

What the Provider Must Tell You Before You Pay

Before you hand over any money, the provider owes you a written or electronic disclosure you can keep. That pre-payment disclosure has to break out four things:²

The transfer amount in the currency you’re paying.
The exchange rate the provider will apply, rounded to at least two decimal places.
Every fee the provider charges and every tax it collects, listed separately.
The total your recipient will actually receive in their local currency.

Read the “total to recipient” figure carefully. It does not have to account for fees charged by intermediary banks in the recipient’s country or foreign taxes the provider doesn’t control, though the disclosure must warn you that those outside charges could reduce the final amount.² So if you’re sending to a country where correspondent-bank fees are common, the person on the other end may still get less than the disclosed total.

One wrinkle worth knowing: certain federally insured banks and credit unions can give you estimated exchange rates instead of exact ones when sending to countries where they handle 1,000 or fewer transfers a year and cannot pin down the rate at the time of disclosure. The transfer also has to come from your account at that institution. When the exchange rate is an estimate, the downstream numbers it affects can be estimates too.³ The final figures can shift, and that shift is legally permitted.

What Your Receipt Must Include

Once you pay, you get a receipt that becomes the official record of the transfer. It repeats the financial details and adds a few items you should not lose track of:²

The specific date in the foreign country when the recipient can access the funds.
The provider’s name, phone number, and website.
A statement telling you that you can contact the state licensing agency and the CFPB with questions or complaints.
A statement explaining your right to cancel the transfer.

Keep this receipt. The date-available line matters most, because it starts the clock on your right to dispute an error.

Your 30-Minute Right to Cancel

You can cancel a remittance transfer for any reason within 30 minutes of paying, as long as the recipient has not already picked up or received the money.⁴ To cancel, give the provider enough information to identify you and the specific transfer. Usually that means your name and a confirmation number.

Once the provider accepts a valid cancellation, it has to refund everything within three business days: the transfer amount, all fees, and any taxes collected.⁴

Here is the catch that trips people up. If the recipient picks up the cash or the funds land in their account before you cancel, the right disappears. With some services, cash pickups happen within minutes. If you realize you sent money to the wrong person or entered the wrong amount, call immediately.

Recurring transfers work differently. If you set up pre-authorized transfers scheduled at least three business days ahead, you cancel by contacting the provider at least three business days before the next scheduled transfer.⁵

Disputing an Error

You have 180 days from the date of availability shown on your receipt to notify the provider of an error. Your notice can be oral or written, and it needs your name, the transaction details, and a description of what went wrong.⁶

The regulation defines “error” more narrowly than you might expect. These situations qualify:

You were charged more than the disclosure said you would pay.
The provider made a computational mistake on your transfer.
The recipient got less than the receipt promised, unless the shortfall came from disclosed estimates or third-party fees you were warned about.
The funds were not available by the date on your receipt, unless the delay came from fraud screening, legal compliance, or circumstances outside the provider’s control.
The provider failed to give you a required disclosure, or you need clarification about whether an error occurred.

A simple status check (“has the money arrived yet?”) does not count as an error notice unless the funds actually missed the disclosed availability date. Requests for tax records and changes the recipient asks for also fall outside the definition.⁶

After you file a notice, the provider has 90 days to investigate. It must report its findings within three business days of finishing, with a written explanation and a note that you can request the documents it relied on.⁶

If the provider confirms an error, you choose the remedy. Either the provider refunds the amount that was not properly transmitted, or it resends the correct amount to your recipient at no extra charge. The provider has one business day to act on your choice, or as soon as reasonably possible after that.⁶ The provider cannot just apologize and close the case. You pick how the mistake gets fixed.

When These Rules Don’t Apply

The protections above cover consumers, not businesses. If a company wires money to a foreign supplier, that transfer falls outside these rules.⁷ The rules also skip transfers of $15 or less, and the sender has to be located in a U.S. state or territory with the recipient in a foreign country.¹

Small institutions are also carved out. A bank or credit union that handled 500 or fewer remittance transfers in the previous calendar year, and stays at or below that number in the current year, is exempt from the disclosure, cancellation, and error-resolution requirements.⁷ If you use a small community bank for an occasional international wire, it may not be legally required to give you the same upfront cost breakdown a dedicated money-transfer service would.

If the Provider Won’t Fix It

Providers that ignore disclosure, cancellation, or error-resolution requirements face liability under the Electronic Fund Transfer Act. If a provider violates the rules for your transfer, you can sue for actual damages plus statutory damages between $100 and $1,000 in an individual action, along with attorney’s fees. Class actions can reach up to $500,000 or one percent of the provider’s net worth, whichever is less. Willful violations can carry criminal penalties.⁸

You can also file a complaint with the CFPB at consumerfinance.gov/complaint. The bureau forwards your complaint to the company and requires a response. You will need your name, email, phone, and mailing address. Describe the problem clearly, include the important dates and dollar amounts, and attach supporting documents like your receipt, statements, and correspondence with the provider. Attachments are capped at 50 pages, and you generally cannot submit a second complaint about the same issue, so include everything the first time. If you are filing for someone else, attach written authorization from that person, because the company will likely require it.⁹

A CFPB complaint does not replace the formal error-resolution process. Notify the provider directly within the 180-day window first so your legal rights are preserved. The CFPB complaint is a parallel track, useful when the provider stonewalls or when you want the bureau to see the pattern.

1
eCFR. 12 CFR 1005.30 – Remittance Transfer Definitions
2
eCFR. 12 CFR 1005.31 – Disclosures
3
eCFR. 12 CFR 1005.32 – Estimates
4
eCFR. 12 CFR 1005.34 – Procedures for Cancellation and Refund of Remittance Transfers
5
eCFR. 12 CFR 1005.36 – Transfers Scheduled Before the Date of Transfer
6
eCFR. 12 CFR 1005.33 – Procedures for Resolving Errors
7
eCFR. Requirements for Remittance Transfers
8
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1693m – Civil Liability
9
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Submit a Complaint