Sending Money Within Africa Costs 3x More Than Sending It In [Study]

A Zimbabwean nurse in Johannesburg and a Zimbabwean nurse in London send money to the same family, in the same month, through the same kind of shop.

The one in London pays a fraction of what the one in Johannesburg pays.

We priced 50 remittance corridors from World Bank survey data to see how widespread that is. It is not an anomaly. Sending money between African countries costs a median of 11.06%. Sending it into Africa from outside costs 3.58%.

Rateweb analysis, 2026

We computed the total cost — fee plus exchange-rate margin — of every service in the World Bank's Remittance Prices Worldwide survey, across the 50 corridors with at least three surveyed services.

Finding Intra-African From outside Africa

Median corridor cost 11.06% 3.58%

Median cost of the cheapest service in each corridor 4.32% 1.56%

Median cost, money transfer operators only 7.33% 3.42%

Median cost, banks only 19.35% 6.12%

Share of surveyed services that are banks 51% 8%

Corridors 22 28

The gap is not explained by choosing badly. Comparing only each corridor's cheapest option — the best available decision in both cases — the intra-African figure is still nearly three times higher.

Source data: World Bank, Remittance Prices Worldwide, 2025 Q1 survey (CC BY 4.0), field-collected 10 February to 11 March 2025. Analysis by Rateweb; the World Bank does not endorse it.

Finding	Intra-African	From outside Africa
Median corridor cost	11.06%	3.58%
Median cost of the cheapest service in each corridor	4.32%	1.56%
Median cost, money transfer operators only	7.33%	3.42%
Median cost, banks only	19.35%	6.12%
Share of surveyed services that are banks	51%	8%
Corridors	22	28

Why this is worth measuring at all

The United Nations has a published target for this. Sustainable Development Goal target 10.c commits, in its own words, to "reduce to less than 3 per cent the transaction costs of migrant remittances and eliminate remittance corridors with costs higher than 5 per cent" by 2030.

That gives the numbers above a meaning they would not otherwise have.

Corridors into Africa from Europe and North America are, at a 3.58% median, close to the 3% target and mostly under the 5% ceiling. Corridors within Africa, at 11.06%, are more than double the level the target says should not exist at all.

Put plainly: the corridors that carry money between neighbouring African countries — often the smallest transfers, sent by the people who can least afford the cost — are the ones furthest from the goal.

What the money actually buys

Cost here is not the advertised fee. It is fee plus the exchange-rate margin, which is the World Bank's own model and the only one that reflects what the recipient gets.

That distinction is not academic. A provider can advertise zero fee and recover several percent in the rate, and most senders will never see it, because spotting a bad exchange rate requires knowing the mid-market rate at the moment of the transfer. In our earlier corridor work, the only zero-fee provider sending pounds to South Africa turned out to be the second most expensive service available.

Banks are the expensive channel, everywhere

Across all 50 corridors, the median bank service cost 14.46%. The median money transfer operator cost 4.41%.

That is not a small gap and it does not close anywhere. Banks were the dearer option on corridors into Africa (6.12% against 3.42%) and dramatically dearer within it (19.35% against 7.33%).

The compounding problem is that banks are also more present where they are most expensive. On corridors from outside Africa, banks are 8% of surveyed services. On intra-African corridors they are 51% — roughly half of what is available to somebody sending money to a neighbouring country is the channel that costs three times as much.

Somebody in London sending money to Accra is choosing between many operators. Somebody in Dar es Salaam sending money to Kampala is often choosing between banks.

The corridor that shows what that means

Tanzania to Uganda is the clearest case in the dataset, and we checked it service by service before using it, because the numbers look like a mistake.

They are not. Four banks on that corridor charge fees of 157,800 to 223,843 Tanzanian shillings on a transfer of 324,500 shillings — a fee approaching two thirds of the amount being sent, before any exchange-rate margin. Their total costs run from 70% to 91%.

On the same corridor, in the same survey, the two cash operators charge 7.5% and 8.4%.

So the corridor's median of 71.69% is real and it is also, in a sense, misleading: the corridor is not uniformly extortionate, it is bimodal. There is a reasonable option and a catastrophic one, and which one a person uses is mostly a question of what they know exists.

Who you pick matters more than where you send

This is the finding with the most immediate use to anybody reading this.

Across the corridors where we could measure it, the dearest service costs a median of six times the cheapest on the same corridor, same day, same destination. At the extremes it is far worse: 31 times on Germany to Nigeria, 29 times on Spain to Nigeria, 24 times on the United States to Ghana.

Read that against the headline. The gap between the average intra-African corridor and the average corridor from outside is roughly threefold. The gap between the best and worst option inside a single corridor is typically twice that.

Which means: the structural problem is real and you cannot fix it, but the choice problem is larger and you can. Nobody sending money can change what their corridor costs on average. Everybody sending money can avoid being in the expensive half of it.

One corridor was excluded, and it is worth explaining why

United Arab Emirates to Sudan reports three services at around minus 27% — which would mean the sender gains money by transferring it.

That is not a bargain. A negative cost arises when a provider's exchange rate beats the benchmark the survey compares it against, and a margin near −31% across multiple providers is a sign that the benchmark rate and the rate people actually transact at have come apart. That happens in economies under severe stress, where an official rate and a market rate diverge.

We excluded the corridor rather than publishing a number that would tell somebody sending money to Sudan that they were being paid to do it. Every other corridor in the survey with at least three services is included, whatever it said.

Smaller negatives elsewhere — a provider at −0.98% on the UK to Ghana corridor, for instance — are left in. Those are consistent with ordinary promotional pricing rather than a broken benchmark.

What this study cannot tell you

It does not explain the gap. There are several plausible mechanisms — correspondent banking relationships that route regional payments through institutions outside the region, currency convertibility, transfer volumes, how many operators compete for a given route. This dataset can measure the difference; it cannot say which of those causes it, and we are not going to pick whichever explanation reads best.

The amount bands are not identical across corridors. The survey holds each corridor's amount constant in local currency so the series stays comparable over time, which means the smaller band is a similar but not identical value everywhere. That affects comparisons between corridors at the margin. It does not affect the bank-versus-operator comparison, which is made within corridors.

It is a snapshot, and it is roughly eighteen months old. The survey was field-collected between 10 February and 11 March 2025. Providers reprice, run promotions, and enter and leave corridors. Treat every figure here as a benchmark for judging a live quote rather than as a live quote.

Medians, not averages, throughout. One bank charging 90% would drag any average into fiction. Where we report a corridor's cost we mean the median service on it.

How to use this if you are the one sending

The practical version is short.

Ask what arrives, not what it costs. Put the same amount into three providers and write down three received figures in the destination currency. The biggest one wins. That single question compares the fee and the exchange-rate margin simultaneously, and no marketing can reframe it.

Check whether a bank is your default. If you are sending within Africa, there is roughly a one-in-two chance the obvious option is the expensive channel. It is worth ten minutes finding out what else serves your route.

Judge any quote against these medians. If you are sending from outside Africa and being quoted more than about 5%, you are in the expensive half. If you are sending within Africa, the honest benchmark is worse — but the cheapest service on a median intra-African corridor was 4.32%, so a double-digit quote is not the only option available to you.

Our send-money cost checker prices every provider in the survey against whatever amount you enter, corridor by corridor.

How does this affect YOUR Money OS?

For anybody sending money home monthly, the difference between the cheapest and the median provider on their corridor is one of the largest recurring savings available to them — and unlike most savings, it costs nothing but one afternoon of comparison.

Check my free OS score

FAQ

How much does it cost to send money within Africa? A median of 11.06% of the amount sent, across the 22 intra-African corridors in the World Bank's survey with at least three services. The cheapest service on a median corridor cost 4.32%.

Why is sending money within Africa more expensive than sending it from Europe? The measurement is clear — 11.06% against 3.58% — but the cause is not something this data can settle. Correspondent banking, currency convertibility, volumes and competition are all plausible contributors.

Is it just that people in Africa use banks more? That is part of it and not all of it. Banks are 51% of surveyed intra-African services against 8% elsewhere, and banks are the expensive channel. But comparing operators to operators the gap is still 7.33% against 3.42%, and comparing each corridor's cheapest option it is 4.32% against 1.56%.

What is the UN target for remittance costs? SDG target 10.c commits to reducing remittance transaction costs to less than 3% and eliminating corridors costing more than 5% by 2030. Corridors into Africa from outside are close to that. Intra-African corridors are more than double the level the target says should not exist.

Are banks or money transfer operators cheaper? Money transfer operators, on every grouping we tested. Across all 50 corridors the median bank cost 14.46% and the median operator 4.41%.

How much does the choice of provider matter? More than the corridor does. The dearest service on a corridor costs a median of six times the cheapest one on that same corridor, reaching 31 times on Germany to Nigeria.

Where does this data come from? The World Bank's Remittance Prices Worldwide survey, 2025 Q1, field-collected 10 February to 11 March 2025 and licensed CC BY 4.0. The analysis, and any errors in it, are ours.

Cost data: The World Bank, Remittance Prices Worldwide, 2025 Q1 survey, available at remittanceprices.worldbank.org and licensed CC BY 4.0. Rateweb is not affiliated with, and this analysis is not endorsed by, the World Bank. Target 10.c quoted from the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.