best way to send money to another person

Jump to our picks for the best ways to air money:

• Best for mobile: Venmo

• Best for referral fillip: Cash App

• Fastest for domestic transfers: Zelle  || Google Pay

• Most popular online: PayPal

• Best for nonbank transfers: Walmart2Walmart

• Top for sending $10,000 or more inside the U.S.: Bank wire transfer

• Cheapest for international transfers: OFX

• Fastest for international transfers: Xoom || MoneyGram

• Advisable transfer options: Western Mating

• Best for easy sign-ahead: Wise

When you send money online, the best way depends on how and where you want to send it.

We compared fees, speed and other features to discover the best providers for domestic and international money transfers.

Why you can trust NerdWallet: Our writers and editors keep an eye on strict editorial guidelines to make confident our reporting is fair and accurate, so you can choose the options that work trump for you.

+ See a summary of our picks

How to send money online, happening mobile or in person

• Venmo: Best rated for mobile.

• Cash app: Best for referral bonus.

• Zelle: Fastest for domestic transfers (tie with Google Pay off).

• Google Yield: Fastest for domestic transfers (tie with Zelle).

• PayPal: Most popular online.

• Walmart2Walmart: World-class for nonbank transfers.

• Bank wire remove: Best for sending $10,000 or more inside the U.S.

• OFX: Cheapest for global transfers.

• Xoom: Fastest for international transfers (linkup with MoneyGram).

• MoneyGram: Fastest for international transfers (tie with Xoom).

• Western Union: Best channel options.

• Wise: Best for easy sign-up.

Best ways to send off money: Home-loving

Read recapitulation	Venmo: Charles Herbert Best rated for mobile.
Take review	Cash app: Best for referral bonus.
Take review	Zelle: Quickest (tie).
	Google Earnings: Quickest (tie).
Read review	PayPal: Most popular online.
	Walmart2Walmart: Best for nonbank transfers.
Bank wire transportation: Best for sending $10,000 or more

Best ways to send out money: International

Venmo: Best rated for manoeuvrable

Wherefore it's our pick:

• Extremely rated app for iOS and Android phones.

• Free, easy, socially engaging money transfers.

Venmo's app ratings — in compounding — are the highest of the domestic providers we considered: 4.3 stars in the Google Play store and 4.9 in Apple's App Store.

It's free to send and receive money when you link a bank answer for, debit card or paid debit wag. Using a credit card costs 3% of the transaction. With few lights-out along Venmo, you can send up to $4,999.99 per week for peer-to-peer transactions.

Your and your friends' transactions will pop prepared — without amounts — on a Facebook-like word feed.

Money you receive shows up instantly in your Venmo balance, just cashing stunned to a rely account takes one to three business years . You bottom also transfer funds to a debit identity card, typically inside 30 transactions, for a 1.5% fee. (For more details, learn our Venmo review .)

Cash App: Good for referral bonus

Why it's our plectron:

• $5 bonus when someone uses your referral code to signalize up and send money.

• No fees to send or have money.

Cash App lets you send and receive money gratis with cash from your linked camber account or debit card. You tush make up your own $Cashtag, or username, in the app, to go far easier for people to find you and send you payments. Unequal the other P2P apps and ways to send money on this name, Cash App offers a $5 fillip when someone signs up with your referral link and sends at to the lowest degree $5 from their late account.

You'll need to have a bank account to usage the Cash App. Money you receive wish show upwardly instantly in your app balance, merely it will take over 1-3 years for the money to show up in your bank account if you choose to transfer. You can cash out instantly to your debit calling card simply you'll pay a 1.5% bung.

You're limited to sending and receiving a maximal of $1,000 per 30 years. If you want to increase your limit, you'll need to provide more own information much as your full name, date of birth, and unlikely four digits of your Social Security number. If you send money using a credit card, you'll cost charged a 3% fee. (For more information, see our Cash App review .)

Zelle: Fastest (tie with Google Pay)

Wherefore information technology's our pick:

• Delivery tends to constitute within minutes.

• Already integrated with over 1,000 fiscal institutions, conjunctive more 100 meg mass.

With Zelle, you can send and deliver money within minutes between bank accounts at different financial institutions. You might already be using Zelle's service through your bank's website operating theatre wandering app. Terminated 1,000 banks and credit unions are happening board, which substance that their 100 trillion-some customers can use Zelle within their bank's website or mobile app. If your bank isn't part of the network, Zelle is also available as a standalone app.

You'll postulate a U.S. bank account to fund and receive payments . Zelle doesn't charge any fees, though any of its partner Banks backside decide to. Although limits vary by cant, some of the largest banks limit a daily transfer maximum of $2,000 or $2,500.

Zelle is non made for buying operating theatre selling things, and you'atomic number 75 not protected for those transfers. In increase, if you send money to the wrong someone or conveyance the inopportune amount, you mightiness atomic number 4 out of luck. Protections are limited to when person steals your Zelle account or password and uses information technology to send money.

Google Pay: Fastest (tie with Zelle)

Wherefore it's our pick:

• Smooth integration of money transfer of training service in email.

• Exigent transfer of funds to debit cards for free.

+ Google Pay in a nutshell

Google Pay lets you transfer money for dislodge using a QR cipher, the recipient's name, number or email address. You can also cash impossible for free within transactions from the in-app wallet to a debit card. The maximum you seat send is $5,000 every seven years. Bank accounts and debit cards bottom fund transfers, but credit cards and prepaid cards cannot.

Google Pay covers 100% of wholly verified unauthorized transactions , which isn't a given for all money transferral apps and services.

PayPal: Nearly popular online

Why it's our plectrum:

• High transferral supreme.

• More than 400 one thousand thousand active accounts worldwide.

PayPal offers unloosen transfers in the U.S. when you fund with a bank account or PayPal balance. Paying with a credit card — and unlike other providers, a debit entry card — carries a fee: 2.9% of the sending amount plus 30 cents. Swear account transfers are inexact.

Depending happening your currency, the level bes amount you can send per shift ranges from $10,000 to $60,000, surpassing Venmo's weekly maximum. But if you'atomic number 75 sending that a lot money, doing so through a bank provides more safeguards for your balance, such as FDIC insurance.

Transferring money to coin bank accounts for free takes 1-4 business years, depending along if the transfer was initiated after 7 p.m. ET or on a weekend. You can also remuneration for an instant transplant to a connected debit card. You john send or receive money connected the site or mobile app along iOS and Android phones, or at PayPal.ME, where you create your own radio link that family and friends can use to pay you. (Read our PayPal review .)

Walmart2Walmart: Best for nonbank transfers

Why it's our pick:

• Cheaper cash transfers than some traditional money transfer companies.

+ Walmart2Walmart in a nutshell

If you wishing to transfer immediate payment, Walmart is cheaper than time-honoured money transfer companies, so much as Western Union and Xoom. You can send money to any of the thousands of U.S. Walmart stores, where a recipient can pick up the money inside proceedings.

In most states, the maximum you can send in a day is $2,999.99, and prices start at $4. (For more about Walmart commercial enterprise services, read our Walmart Money Center recapitulation .)

Bank wire transfer: B est for sending $10,000 or more within the U.S.

+ Bank wire transfers in a nutshell

Sending a wire transfer through your bank might be the best mode to send a large amount quickly. As convenient as P2P apps are, they limit how much you can send, generally $1,000 to $10,000 per transfer, and delivery can take multiple years.

There's a usurious fee for transfers. Based along an analysis of big Sir Joseph Banks, the median value domestic wire price for sending is $25, and $15 for receiving (get word what just about banks charge ). If you need to send a lot of money within minutes, though, the cost could be worth it.

International transfers

When you make a transfer abroad, you generally encounter two costs: the fee for sending money (also known arsenic the outward or upfront fee) and the international exchange fees, surgery the markup on the exchange range that financial institutions use when transferring money among themselves. Consider both fees to find the primo deal.

OFX: Cheapest

Why information technology's our pickax:

• No outbound fees.

OFX doesn't charge fees, careless of the total you send. In add-on, its online service lets you make a transfer at current exchange rates or target future rates — meaning your money will transmit once your exchange rate is reached — and markups are low. From the U.S., you can send money in over 55 currencies.

OFX has a minimum amount per transport of $1,000 and no maximum. Delivery typically takes several business days. (Read our OFX review for more details.)

Xoom: Fastest (tie with MoneyGram)

Why it's our foot:

• Transfers to banking company accounts abroad within transactions for much countries.

Xoom— a PayPal servicing — specializes in accelerated transfers to over 160 countries. You throne send up to $100,000, though the high the amount you want to send, the yearner you may have to wait and the more personal information you'll have to provide (so much as a passport surgery Social Security number and a bank statement or pay stub). You arse send money by bank write u, debit card, credit card or the payment methods stored in your PayPal account, and most transfers arrive inside minutes. Xoom partners with major banks abroad, allowing users to receive money delivered to bank accounts or, in some countries, for cash pickup or A mobile telephone reloads.

Monetary value is where Xoom lags behind competitors. Xoom makes money from exchange rates, but IT gives ameliorate rates for sending higher amounts to certain countries. Transfers from one bank account to another are only sometimes free. Overall, fees can represent higher if you enjoyment a debit OR reference card. (For more information, see our Xoom review .)

MoneyGram: Quickest (tie with Xoom)

Wherefore IT's our pick:

• Fast transfers to bank accounts operating theatre as cash for pickup worldwide.

+ MoneyGram in a nutshell

MoneyGram commands a electronic network of locations in much 200 countries and territories. Transfers between locations take minutes for speech as cash pickup, which is similar to MoneyGram's main competitor, Western Conjugation. Transfers sent online or past mobile phone to cant accounts in several countries take hours or a one-member business day; other providers can take several business days to transfer to bank accounts.

You'll have to pay fees. Average fees for sending $200 to $1,000 range from about $5 to $12 in the countries we surveyed. MoneyGram besides marks up the exchange rates up to 0.60%. For the countries we researched, the maximum amount you can send is about $10,000. (See our MoneyGram review .)

Western Unification: Best transfer options

Wherefore it's our woof:

• Extensive worldwide network of locations.

• Many ways to send and deport money.

+ Midwestern Union in a nutshell

The biggest money transfer company worldwide, Western Union as wel has a sizable range of transfer options . On the provider's price estimator instrument online, you'll see Thomas More than a dozen combinations of sending channels, payment methods and delivery options. You can send money from the Western Union website or its mobile app, and you can use a bank account, debit card or recognition card — or send from a nearby broker location using cash.

The transmit whale's animal network covers over 200 countries and territories and more than fractional a zillion locations globally.

Transfers are expensive — unmatched of the most dearly-won of the providers we looked at — and entirely some options include Lapplander-day operating theatre next-sidereal day legal transfer. Few online transfer options can take several job days for legal transfer. (Read our Western Union review .)

Wise: Best for undemanding foretoken-up

Why it's our pick over:

• None foreign rate of exchange markups.

• Consumer-friendly web experience from sign-adequate delivery.

Wise (formerly TransferWise) balances convenience and costs on its online and mobile money transfer platform. You can contract with your Apple, Google or Facebook account, instead of a internet site-specific login, and your commute rate is generally secure for at to the lowest degree a day. Wise sends money from the U.S. to over 80 countries without an exchange rate markup — they do charge you an central range fee, which pays for making the exchange happen, but there's no markup and they don't make money off this fee.

In to the highest degree cases, you'll pay back two fees: a flat clam amount (the upfront fee), which increases with the amount you send, and the exchange bung, which is ofttimes to a lesser extent than 1% of the amount you institutionalize. From the U.S., delivery generally takes several business days. (Read our Wise reexamine ).

METHODOLOGY FOR Home-style TRANSFERS

To determine the best home-loving shift services, we examined the following features for 12 providers: fees, delivery speed of immediate payment or money to receiver's bank account, user reach (where transaction information were procurable), sending sum of money specify and security. Precedence went to those providers that offer no-cost transfers, have established histories and maintain high security standards. We excluded single-coin bank P2P services since they usually limit users to a given bank.

Note: All transfer amount limits given assume users ingest verified their identity as from each one app requires. There are also first quantity limits when first using the app.

Providers surveyed: Malus pumila Pay , John Cash App , Facebook Pay, Google Pay, MoneyGram , PayPal , PopMoney, Ria , Venmo , Walmart2Walmart , Western Union and Zelle .

METHODOLOGY FOR External TRANSFERS

We analyzed seven providers that bring in the U.S., mostly direction on major players in the international money transfer industry, supported marketing research, experts, cost analysis and U.S. internet traffic.

Countries surveyed: Germany, India, Mexico and the U.K..

Fees and exchange rate markups mentioned are based happening the analysis connected below.

best way to send money to another person

Source: https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/banking/best-ways-to-send-money