Provider fees and exchange-rate margins from the World Bank's Remittance
Prices Worldwide survey, 2025 Q1. A benchmark for
judging a live quote, not a quote.
Almost nobody who sends money home decides on an amount twice.
You pick a number early — when you first have income to spare, or when
something at home goes wrong — and then it becomes the number. It gets sent
every month, for years, and it feels like a constant.
It is not a constant. It is quietly falling, and here is by how much.
Rateweb analysis, 2026
R3,000 a month sent to South Africa, held flat, measured against South
African inflation at the 2015–2025 average of 4.86% a year:
After
You still send
It still buys
3 years
R3,000
R2,602
5 years
R3,000
R2,366
10 years
R3,000
R1,866
To keep the same help arriving, the amount has to rise:
After
You would need to send
3 years
R3,459
5 years
R3,803
10 years
R4,822
Inflation from Statistics South Africa, CPI headline series. Analysis by
Rateweb.
Why the argument at home is arithmetic, not ingratitude
There is a conversation that happens in a lot of families, and it goes badly
because both people are right.
The person sending has not reduced anything. They have sent the same amount
every month for years, often while their own costs rose. From where they stand,
the commitment is unchanged.
The person receiving is telling the truth when they say it does not go as far.
After ten years it genuinely buys a third less. Nothing was reduced and the
help still shrank.
Naming that as inflation rather than as attitude defuses most of it. It is
not that anyone became less generous or more demanding. A fixed number in a
currency that loses roughly 5% a year is a number that falls in real terms,
every year, without anybody deciding anything.
If you want the help to hold its value, it has to rise at roughly the rate of
inflation. If you cannot raise it, that is a legitimate constraint — but it is
worth both people understanding that holding it flat is a gradual reduction,
rather than pretending otherwise.
What the transfer takes on the way
The second leak is the one you can actually fix, and at small amounts it is
proportionally worse.
On R36,000 a year — R3,000 a month — through the UK to South Africa
corridor:
Provider
Cost per year
Cheapest in the survey (2.09%)
R752
Corridor median, smaller band (5.71%)
R2,056
Dearest in the survey (12.75%)
R4,590
Choosing the median rather than the cheapest costs R1,303 a year. The
dearest costs nearly R4,600 — more than a month and a half of the support
itself, spent on moving it.
Two things make small regular transfers especially expensive.
You pay the fixed fee every time. Twelve transfers a year means twelve
fees. That is why the corridor median nearly halves between the small and
large amount bands — the fee spreads across more money.
Small amounts sit in the worst part of the pricing curve. Providers with a
flat fee look terrible at R3,000 and excellent at R30,000. The provider that
is right for you at this size may be the wrong one if the amount grows.
The cheapest change available is not switching provider. It is sending
quarterly instead of monthly — four fees a year rather than twelve, on an
amount that sits higher up the pricing curve.
On paper it is unambiguous. In practice there is a real objection, and it is
usually decisive: a household living month to month cannot hold three months
of money. Sending a quarter's support in January means it has to last until
April, and if it does not, the shortfall lands in March with no mechanism to
fix it.
So the honest version is conditional. Quarterly works where the recipient can
budget across months, or where the money is for something lumpy anyway —
school fees, insurance, a bond instalment. Monthly is right where the money is
groceries and electricity.
A middle option that often works: quarterly for the predictable part,
monthly for the rest. You cut most of the fees without asking anyone to
stretch a grocery budget across ninety days.
Setting the number, and why it only ever goes up
Support amounts ratchet. They rise when something goes wrong and they almost
never fall when it is resolved, because nobody wants to be the person who
raised it.
Three habits make that less likely.
Separate the standing amount from emergencies, out loud. A monthly figure
and a one-off for a specific crisis are different things. Sending an extra
R5,000 for a funeral is generous; silently becoming an R8,000-a-month sender
because of it is a decision nobody actually made.
Attach a review to the calendar, not to a crisis. "We look at this every
January" is a normal sentence when said in advance and an accusation when said
in the middle of an argument. It also gives you the natural moment to raise it
for inflation, which most people never do.
Decide what it is for. "Help with things" expands indefinitely. "The
electricity and the school fees" has a size, and when those change you both
know why the number changed.
None of this is about sending less. It is about the number being a decision you
made rather than a residue of the last emergency.
Before you increase it, check it is affordable at your end
The quiet risk for the sender is that the commitment survives a change in their
own circumstances.
A support figure set when you were earning well and living cheaply becomes very
different after a rent rise, a job change or a child. Because it is monthly and
automatic, it is also one of the last things people review.
Put it in your budget as its own line rather than treating it as whatever is
left over. Our budget planner will hold it alongside everything
else, and seeing it beside your rent is usually more clarifying than knowing
the number in the abstract.
And keep a buffer of your own. People who send everything spare have
nothing when their own emergency arrives — and the most expensive outcome is
borrowing at credit-card rates to keep a support payment going.
Tax: check, do not assume
Whether money you send is deductible, whether money your family receives is
taxable, and whether either is treated as a gift depends on the rules in both
countries — and they differ sharply between the places our readers send
from.
We are not answering it here, because it was not sourced and the rules are not
the same in Britain, the United States, Australia or the EU. If the amounts
are substantial, it is worth asking once rather than assuming for years.
The same applies to exchange control on larger sums. Your bank will tell you
what it needs.
The short version
Index it or accept it is falling. A flat amount is a shrinking amount —
about a third gone in ten years.
Fix the transfer cost once. It is worth R1,303 a year on R36,000 and takes
one afternoon.
Batch where the household can absorb it, monthly where it cannot, and
consider splitting the two.
Review on a date, not in an argument, and keep the standing amount separate
from emergencies.
How does this affect YOUR Money OS?
Support sent home is usually one of the largest recurring items in a
household's budget and one of the least examined — the amount is rarely
revisited and the transfer cost almost never is.
How much should I send home to family?
There is no correct figure, but there is a correct method: decide what it is
for, put it in your own budget as its own line, keep a buffer for your own
emergencies, and review it on a fixed date rather than during a crisis.
Why does the money I send never seem to be enough?
Because a flat amount falls in real terms. At South African inflation of around
4.86% a year, R3,000 buys about R2,366 after five years and R1,866 after ten.
Nothing was reduced; the help shrank anyway.
How much would I need to send to keep the same help arriving?
Rising with inflation, R3,000 becomes about R3,459 after three years, R3,803
after five and R4,822 after ten.
Is it cheaper to send money monthly or quarterly?
Quarterly, clearly — four fees a year instead of twelve, on amounts that sit
better on the pricing curve. But it only works if the household can budget
across months; where the money is groceries and electricity, monthly is right.
How much does sending R3,000 a month cost me in fees?
On the UK corridor, roughly R752 a year at the cheapest surveyed provider,
R2,056 at the median, and R4,590 at the dearest — the last being more than a
month and a half of the support itself.
Do I pay tax on money I send to family?
It depends on the rules in both countries and we have not sourced them — the
treatment differs between Britain, the United States, Australia and the EU. If
the amounts are substantial, ask once rather than assuming for years.
How do I reduce what I send without a row?
Raise it as a scheduled review rather than in the middle of a crisis, be
specific about what the money covers, and separate the standing amount from
one-off emergencies so a single crisis does not permanently reset the figure.
