The World's Cheapest and Most Expensive Places to Send Remittances, 2026
Introduction
Sending $200 to a family member abroad can cost anywhere from 60 cents to nearly $40, depending entirely on which country the money is going to. The World Bank tracks the average cost of sending remittances — as a percentage of the amount sent — across 101 receiving economies, and the spread between the cheapest and most expensive corridors is enormous: a factor of more than 70.
This report ranks all 101 economies with available 2023 data (a handful carry 2020 or 2021 readings), from the cheapest destination in the world to send money to, Croatia at 0.3%, to the most expensive, Cuba at 19.6%. For context on remittance volumes and where the money actually flows, see our earlier report on remittance corridors and costs and our ranking of where remittances matter most as a share of GDP.
The 15 cheapest corridors
| Rank | Country | Cost (% of amount sent) | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Croatia | 0.3% | 2023 |
| 2 | Ukraine | 0.7% | 2023 |
| 3 | Senegal | 0.7% | 2023 |
| 4 | Côte d’Ivoire | 0.7% | 2023 |
| 5 | Georgia | 0.8% | 2021 |
| 6 | Romania | 0.9% | 2023 |
| 7 | Poland | 0.9% | 2023 |
| 8 | Malaysia | 1.0% | 2023 |
| 9 | Kazakhstan | 1.2% | 2021 |
| 10 | Belarus | 1.3% | 2021 |
| 11 | Azerbaijan | 1.3% | 2021 |
| 12 | Lithuania | 1.4% | 2023 |
| 13 | Hungary | 1.6% | 2023 |
| 14 | Philippines | 1.7% | 2023 |
| 15 | Mali | 1.7% | 2023 |
Note that two of the cheapest corridors — Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire — are West African economies with deep mobile money penetration (66.9% and 53.4% mobile money account ownership respectively, per Global Findex). Mobile-money-driven competition has pushed costs on these corridors down to levels that rival high-income European markets.
The 15 most expensive corridors
| Rank | Country | Cost (% of amount sent) | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 87 | Malawi | 7.6% | 2021 |
| 88 | Bangladesh | 7.7% | 2023 |
| 89 | Algeria | 7.8% | 2023 |
| 90 | Guyana | 7.9% | 2023 |
| 91 | Zambia | 8.1% | 2023 |
| 92 | Botswana | 8.4% | 2023 |
| 93 | Uganda | 8.9% | 2023 |
| 94 | Afghanistan | 9.0% | 2023 |
| 95 | Eritrea | 9.2% | 2023 |
| 96 | Vanuatu | 9.5% | 2023 |
| 97 | Tajikistan | 10.3% | 2023 |
| 98 | Sierra Leone | 10.3% | 2023 |
| 99 | Angola | 12.8% | 2023 |
| 100 | Benin | 17.4% | 2020 |
| 101 | Cuba | 19.6% | 2023 |
Tajikistan is the starkest case of a mismatch between need and cost: it is simultaneously the single most remittance-dependent economy in the world at 47.9% of GDP, and one of the most expensive corridors to send money into, at 10.3%. Households there are paying some of the highest fees in the dataset on money they depend on most.
Regional patterns
Averaging cost data across all economies with a region assignment reveals a clear geographic hierarchy:
| Region | Countries with data | Average cost | Cheapest | Most expensive |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Europe & Central Asia | 24 | 2.5% | Croatia (0.3%) | Tajikistan (10.3%) |
| East Asia & Pacific | 13 | 3.5% | Malaysia (1.0%) | Vanuatu (9.5%) |
| South Asia | 4 | 3.5% | India (1.8%) | Bangladesh (7.7%) |
| Latin America & Caribbean | 18 | 4.1% | El Salvador (2.0%) | Cuba (19.6%) |
| Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan & Pakistan | 10 | 4.5% | Palestine (2.0%) | Afghanistan (9.0%) |
| Sub-Saharan Africa | 32 | 5.2% | Senegal / Côte d’Ivoire (0.7%) | Benin (17.4%) |
Sub-Saharan Africa has both the cheapest corridor overall in this dataset (Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire) and the highest regional average — a wide internal spread that reflects uneven mobile money infrastructure. Where mobile money platforms have matured, costs have collapsed; where they haven’t, remittances still move through expensive money-transfer operators and informal channels. For the fuller picture of that infrastructure gap, see our global mobile money report.
Where the big volume corridors sit
The world’s largest remittance-receiving economies by dollar volume are, reassuringly, clustered near the cheap end: India (1.8%, and the largest recipient globally at $137.7 billion), Philippines (1.7%), Pakistan (2.1%), and Mexico (2.7%). High transaction volumes attract competition among money transfer operators and banks, pushing costs down for the corridors that matter most in absolute dollar terms.
The exception is Bangladesh, the sixth-largest recipient by dollar volume but one of the most expensive corridors at 7.7% — up sharply from 3.8% in 2016. That reversal, against the broader trend of falling costs on major corridors, is unusual enough to be worth watching.
Sources & method
All figures come from FinStatGlobe’s derived country datasets, built on the World Bank World Development Indicators average remittance transaction cost indicator (SI.RMT.COST.IB.ZS), which measures the cost of sending $200 (or the local equivalent) through the cheapest available formal channel, sampled by the World Bank’s Remittance Prices Worldwide survey. The dataset covers 101 receiving economies; most report 2023 as their latest year, though a handful (Georgia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Azerbaijan, Latvia, Estonia, Malawi) carry 2020 or 2021 as their most recent observation because more recent surveys were not conducted or published for those corridors. Regional groupings follow World Bank region classifications. For full indicator definitions and update cadence, see the methodology page.