The world’s lowest-cost remittance markets in 2024
Our consumer remittances dataset tracks the cost of sending money abroad across hundreds of corridors worldwide, allowing us to draw key insights for the industry and is used by nearly all the leading players in the space. Focusing on the 35 biggest remittance markets, we’ve identified which countries saw the lowest costs to send to in 2024, as well as how this ranking has changed over the years – with some countries seeing major shifts across the table.
Lowest-cost remittance markets in 2024
Similar to last year’s table, we ranked the largest 35 remittance destination markets in order of the lowest average cost of sending the equivalent of around $200 to each country. Croatia once again retained the top spot as the lowest-cost destination, having seen a major dip in send costs since the country adopted the euro in 2023, thereby bringing FX costs from many European send countries to zero.
It is worth noting that several countries higher up the list have a significant number of remittances handled by providers in a non-local currency. For example, the average cost of sending to Romania – where several of the providers we track have EUR as the receiving currency instead of RON – is brought down due to the presence of EUR-EUR transfers, which make up a significant portion of remittances to the country.
Having said this, a number of countries have made significant progress up the rankings this year. In particular, Bangladesh rose from being second-last on 2023’s ranking of the lowest-cost remittances providers to being 14th in 2024, with a number of providers in our dataset seeing prices fall throughout the year. The country saw a surge in remittances due to the country’s currency depreciating against the dollar throughout 2024. Policies introduced by the Bangladesh government – including a boosted cashback incentive for inbound remitters in late 2023 – have also boosted the use of formal remittances channels and decreased the prominence of informal money transfer methods.
Several countries in Latin America and the Caribbean saw significant rises up the rankings this year, with Haiti rising 13 places, Jamaica and the Dominican Republic rising six places and Peru rising eight places to become the sixth-lowest-cost market from the countries analysed. On the other hand, Mexico, El Salvador and Guatemala fell slightly in the rankings.
Highest-cost remittance markets in 2024
Inverting the table to look at the highest-cost destinations from our dataset reveals that there have been similar jumps towards higher-cost transfers in 2024. Ukraine saw a significant benefit from promotional cost savings in 2022 and 2023 as money transfer providers removed fees or added promotional pricing in light of the Russia/Ukraine war. However, as the war has progressed, some providers have begun to bring prices back up again, while the country’s central bank also reported that remittances fell in Q3 2024 versus the previous year, possibly prompted by the continued displacement of its population.
Similarly, Central Asian country the Kyrgyz Republic – which saw remittance costs rise significantly relative to others in the set – rose 15 places to become the fifth-highest-cost country from the dataset in 2024. The Kyrgyz Republic’s biggest banks severed ties with Russia following new US sanctions announced against the country in August 2024. This in turn has reduced the number of money transfer exchange methods between Russia and the country, which may have contributed to growing costs and could have major ramifications for the country’s economy.
Remittance costs over time
Examining how the ranking has changed across these markets over time gives a broader view of how the lowest-cost large remittances markets have changed since 2021, when remittances actually remained stable or even increased in some economies despite the Covid-19 pandemic. Countries like India and Bangladesh saw a surge of remittances during this period as growth in government incentives and digital innovation spurred the growth of low-cost money transfers.
Some countries have significantly shifted in the lowest-cost ranking over this period. Croatia, Hungary, Haiti, Romania and Poland have all risen significantly up the low-cost ranking in the period from 2021 to 2024, meaning that they are relatively less costly to send money to compared to other major receiving countries. Meanwhile, the Kyrgyz Republic, Ecuador, Bangladesh, Egypt and Mexico have fallen down the rankings by the highest amount in the same period.
Countries’ positioning in this ranking didn’t always move upwards or downwards as a result of a positive/negative change to their own pricing. Hungary, for example, actually saw its average transfer cost rise by around 0.03% versus 2023, but rose from sixth place in our 2023 lowest-cost ranking to fifth place in 2024 due to more significant price rises from Uzbekistan and Yemen, which pushed these two countries out of the top five, while Romania continued to see prices fall in 2024, moving it into fourth place.
Depending on how countries respond to initiatives such as the G20’s roadmap for cross-border payments – a key tenet of which is reducing the price of remittances – we could see further changes to this table in the future.
