Sending money to South Africa — the G20's most expensive receiving market

The most expensive major economy to receive money into

South Africa sits among the G20 economies — a bloc that between them represent 85% of global GDP. It is also, by World Bank measurement, the most expensive of those economies to receive a remittance into. The average cost of sending money to South Africa was 6.95% in Q1 2025 (World Bank, Remittance Prices Worldwide Issue 53, 2025) — nearly double the 3% target set by the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and well above the global average of 6.49% in the same period (World Bank, Remittance Prices Worldwide, 2025).

Southern Africa as a sub-region averages 8.9% — the most expensive remittance-receiving sub-region in the world (World Bank, Remittance Prices Worldwide Issue 53, 2025). South Africa brings the sub-regional average down because it has more digital infrastructure than its neighbours. But 6.95% on a USD 200 send still means that every transfer loses nearly USD 14 before it arrives. On a GBP 400 monthly send from a family member in the UK or Australia, that is more than £27 per send — more than £330 per year — absorbed by the infrastructure between sender and recipient rather than arriving in Johannesburg or Cape Town or Durban.

Why South Africa costs more than it should

Several factors drive South Africa's high receiving cost. The correspondent-banking infrastructure connecting international senders to South African banks is thin relative to the volume it is asked to carry. De-risking by international banks — the withdrawal of correspondent-banking relationships with smaller or emerging-market institutions — has reduced the number of competitive routes into the South African banking system. Fewer routes means less competition, and less competition means higher costs per transfer.

Exchange-rate margins compound the fee problem. The rand is more volatile than most G20 currencies, and providers apply wider margins to protect against that volatility. The wider the margin, the larger the spread between the rate a sender sees and the rate at which the conversion actually settles — a gap that is rarely disclosed as a separate line item and is therefore easy to miss when comparing providers on quoted fees alone.

South Africa is the most expensive G20 economy to receive a remittance into, averaging 6.95% in Q1 2025. The Southern Africa sub-region as a whole averages 8.9% — the highest of any remittance-receiving sub-region in the world. Both figures are more than double the UN SDG target of 3%.

— World Bank, Remittance Prices Worldwide Issue 53, Q1 2025

Who is sending — and who is paying the price

The South African diaspora — concentrated in the UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the Netherlands — sends money home to family, to property it manages from abroad, to aging parents, to the South African household it has not yet left behind entirely. They are sending to a country with strong urban banking infrastructure and a population that is largely banked in the formal sense. The friction is not on the receiving side; it is in the international leg, in the route between the sender's country and the South African banking system.