Countries by Average transaction cost of sending remittances to a specific country (%)
Cuba ranks 1st with an average remittance transaction cost of 19.63%, the highest among all 104 countries measured. At the other extreme, Malawi (rank 104) records -49.69%, a value so far outside the normal range it flags as a data anomaly rather than a meaningful cost figure. The gap between these two endpoints spans nearly 70 percentage points, illustrating the extreme variance within this dataset.
Ranking 2023
Values shown in %.
| Rank | Country | % |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cuba | 19.63 |
| 2 | Benin | 17.35 |
| 3 | Angola | 12.78 |
| 4 | Syria | 10.71 |
| 5 | Sierra Leone | 10.34 |
| 6 | Tajikistan | 10.33 |
| 7 | Vanuatu | 9.49 |
| 8 | Eritrea | 9.16 |
| 9 | Afghanistan | 9.02 |
| 10 | Uganda | 8.86 |
| 11 | Botswana | 8.41 |
| 12 | Zambia | 8.13 |
| 13 | Guyana | 7.92 |
| 14 | Algeria | 7.83 |
| 15 | Bangladesh | 7.65 |
| 16 | Gambia | 6.76 |
| 17 | South Sudan | 6.47 |
| 18 | Somalia | 6.01 |
| 19 | Rwanda | 5.76 |
| 20 | Albania | 5.60 |
| 21 | Tunisia | 5.54 |
| 22 | Tanzania | 5.30 |
| 23 | Lebanon | 5.28 |
| 24 | Zimbabwe | 5.26 |
| 25 | Laos | 4.87 |
| 26 | Suriname | 4.84 |
| 27 | Haiti | 4.70 |
| 28 | Paraguay | 4.66 |
| 29 | Nigeria | 4.64 |
| 30 | Samoa | 4.59 |
| 31 | South Africa | 4.55 |
| 32 | Armenia | 4.36 |
| 33 | Kyrgyzstan | 4.22 |
| 34 | Morocco | 4.17 |
| 35 | Tonga | 4.10 |
| 36 | Myanmar | 4.04 |
| 37 | Bosnia and Herzegovina | 3.86 |
| 38 | Kenya | 3.86 |
| 39 | Mozambique | 3.79 |
| 40 | Jamaica | 3.59 |
| 41 | Peru | 3.57 |
| 42 | Bulgaria | 3.46 |
| 43 | Vietnam | 3.46 |
| 44 | Bolivia | 3.45 |
| 45 | Cabo Verde | 3.44 |
| 46 | Kosovo | 3.42 |
| 47 | Ethiopia | 3.41 |
| 48 | Jordan | 3.35 |
| 49 | Egypt | 3.30 |
| 50 | Fiji | 3.22 |
| 51 | Cameroon | 3.02 |
| 52 | Madagascar | 2.92 |
| 53 | Liberia | 2.83 |
| 54 | China | 2.83 |
| 55 | Yemen | 2.81 |
| 56 | Estonia | 2.75 |
| 57 | Sudan | 2.67 |
| 58 | Mexico | 2.65 |
| 59 | Honduras | 2.62 |
| 60 | Guatemala | 2.56 |
| 61 | Nepal | 2.53 |
| 62 | Dominican Republic | 2.52 |
| 63 | Panama | 2.49 |
| 64 | Indonesia | 2.44 |
| 65 | Colombia | 2.43 |
| 66 | Brazil | 2.42 |
| 67 | Türkiye | 2.34 |
| 68 | Nicaragua | 2.33 |
| 69 | Ecuador | 2.30 |
| 70 | Costa Rica | 2.26 |
| 71 | Sri Lanka | 2.19 |
| 72 | Pakistan | 2.14 |
| 73 | Cambodia | 2.12 |
| 74 | North Macedonia | 2.10 |
| 75 | Uzbekistan | 2.09 |
| 76 | Latvia | 2.08 |
| 77 | Togo | 2.06 |
| 78 | Thailand | 2.02 |
| 79 | Moldova | 2.01 |
| 80 | Ghana | 2.01 |
| 81 | El Salvador | 2.00 |
| 82 | DR Congo | 1.98 |
| 83 | Palestine | 1.97 |
| 84 | Serbia | 1.94 |
| 85 | Eswatini | 1.82 |
| 85 | Lesotho | 1.82 |
| 87 | India | 1.76 |
| 88 | Comoros | 1.74 |
| 89 | Mali | 1.73 |
| 90 | Philippines | 1.67 |
| 91 | Hungary | 1.61 |
| 92 | Lithuania | 1.40 |
| 93 | Azerbaijan | 1.33 |
| 94 | Belarus | 1.32 |
| 95 | Kazakhstan | 1.17 |
| 96 | Malaysia | 0.98 |
| 97 | Poland | 0.87 |
| 98 | Romania | 0.87 |
| 99 | Georgia | 0.85 |
| 100 | Côte d'Ivoire | 0.74 |
| 101 | Senegal | 0.72 |
| 102 | Ukraine | 0.72 |
| 103 | Croatia | 0.27 |
| 104 | Malawi | -49.69 |
Analysis
This metric measures the cost of sending money across borders as a share of the amount sent. The World Bank World Development Indicators define it as follows: 'Average transaction cost of sending remittance to a specific country is the average of the total transaction cost in percentage of the amount sent for sending USD 200 charged by each single remittance service provider (RSP) included in the Remittance Prices Worldwide (RPW) database to a specific country.' The unit is percentage, and higher values indicate higher costs for senders. Coverage spans 104 countries using indicator code SI.RMT.COST.IB.ZS, with data anchored to 2023. Of these, 101 of 104 (97.1%) have data from the last seven years, and 100% of datapoints are classified as official-quality. Eight extreme outliers were identified at the 3-sigma threshold, and the dataset shows a value range of -49.69% to 19.63%, a spread of 139.5%.
The top of the ranking is dominated by countries where remittance corridors are limited, fragmented, or operate under constrained financial infrastructure. Cuba leads at 19.63% (rank 1), followed by Benin at 17.35% (rank 2) and Angola at 12.78% (rank 3). Syria ranks 4th at 10.71%, Sierra Leone 5th at 10.34%, and Tajikistan 6th at 10.33%. Vanuatu (rank 7, 9.49%), Eritrea (rank 8, 9.16%), Afghanistan (rank 9, 9.02%), and Uganda (rank 10, 8.86%) complete the top ten. These countries share the characteristic of having few competing remittance service providers listed in the RPW database, which pushes average costs upward.
The middle of the ranking spans a wide band. Countries such as Morocco (rank 34, 4.17%), Kenya (rank 38, 3.86%), and Vietnam (rank 43, 3.46%) sit near the global average range. Further down, large remittance-receiving economies appear with notably lower costs: India ranks 87th at 1.76%, the Philippines ranks 90th at 1.67%, and Mexico ranks 58th at 2.65%. At the bottom of the legitimate range, Croatia ranks 103rd at just 0.27%, and Ukraine ranks 102nd at 0.72%. A notable counterintuitive placement is Malawi at rank 104 with a value of -49.69%, which is a negative figure that falls well outside the plausible range for a cost percentage and is flagged as one of eight extreme outliers at the 3-sigma threshold.
Several limitations apply to this dataset. The metric is based on the cost of sending exactly USD 200, so it may not reflect costs for larger or smaller transfer amounts. Coverage depends entirely on which remittance service providers are enrolled in the Remittance Prices Worldwide database; corridors with few or no listed providers may be unrepresentative. Negative values such as Malawi's -49.69% cannot reflect a real transaction cost and likely indicate a data error or reporting anomaly. Year-on-year volatility is present, with an average year-over-year change of 34.6%. Consistency in the latest year (2023) covers 93 of 104 countries (89.4%), meaning some country values are carried from prior years.
Methodology
Data are drawn from the World Bank World Development Indicators, indicator code SI.RMT.COST.IB.ZS, for the reference year 2023. The metric is defined as: 'Average transaction cost of sending remittance to a specific country is the average of the total transaction cost in percentage of the amount sent for sending USD 200 charged by each single remittance service provider (RSP) included in the Remittance Prices Worldwide (RPW) database to a specific country.' Rankings cover 104 countries. Of these, 101 of 104 (97.1%) have data from within the last seven years, and 100% of datapoints meet the official data quality threshold. The dataset contains 8 extreme outliers identified at the 3-sigma threshold. The value range runs from -49.69% to 19.63%, representing a spread of 139.5%. Consistency for the latest year (2023) stands at 93 of 104 countries (89.4%). Higher values indicate higher average costs to the sender and rank higher in this dataset per the metric's configuration.