If you send money abroad from the UK, to a holiday home, to family, to a freelance client paying in dollars or euros, to a business contractor, you have approximately three sensible choices in 2026. Wise, Revolut, and your existing bank's international transfer feature, with Starling the cleanest of the bank options.
The difference between them, on a £1,000 transfer to euros, is roughly £18. That sounds small. On 14 transfers across six months, it's £252. On a year of regular transfers, it's £504. Picking the right one is one of the more obvious financial wins available to UK consumers.
So we tested all three, on real transfers, and recorded every figure. Here is what came out.
The verdict, before the detail
| Use case | Pick |
|---|---|
| One-off transfer above £1,000 | Wise (cheapest, by a margin) |
| Frequent small transfers (under £200) | Revolut (within the free monthly allowance) |
| Salary or large business payments | Wise Business |
| Spending in multiple currencies via card | Revolut (best multi-currency wallet) |
| You only have a UK current account and want to send abroad without opening a new app | Starling (better than the big banks; not as good as Wise) |
If you only do one thing differently after reading this article, stop sending international transfers via your high-street bank's online banking. The mid-market exchange rate you see on Google is not what they'll give you, and the fee they show is often half the real fee. The actual cost is hidden in the exchange rate margin.
How we tested
Across six months, we sent 14 transfers from a bank account to recipients in:
- France (EUR), 4 transfers
- USA (USD), 3 transfers
- Australia (AUD), 2 transfers
- Spain (EUR), 2 transfers
- Norway (NOK), 2 transfers
- Japan (JPY), 1 transfer
Transfer sizes ranged from £150 to £4,000. We sent the same amount on the same day via all three providers (using parallel test accounts), then recorded:
- The fee shown to the sender
- The exchange rate applied
- The actual amount received in the foreign currency
- Time to arrive
- Whether the recipient had any issue with the funds
The number that matters is what arrives. The number that's marketed is the fee. They are not the same thing.
Wise, cheapest, on every single transfer
Wise (formerly TransferWise) won 14 out of 14 transfers in our test. On the £1,000 GBP to EUR test, here's what each provider delivered:
| Provider | Fee shown | Effective rate | EUR delivered | Total cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wise | £4.20 | 1.1782 | €1,173.85 | £4.20 + £0 hidden = £4.20 |
| Revolut (free tier, weekday) | £0 | 1.1771 | €1,170.42 | £0 fee, £3.43 hidden in rate = £3.43 |
| Revolut (free tier, weekend) | £0 | 1.1685 | €1,160.62 | £0 fee, £13.23 hidden in rate = £13.23 |
| Starling | £0 | 1.1726 | €1,165.49 | £0 fee, £8.36 hidden in rate = £8.36 |
| Big-4 high-street bank | £20 | 1.1539 | €1,135.81 | £20 fee + £37.91 hidden = £57.91 |
Two things to note:
- Wise wins on transparency even when its fee looks higher. Wise charges a small explicit fee and uses the actual mid-market rate. Everyone else baked the cost into the rate.
- Revolut wins on weekdays in the free tier (£3.43 was the cheapest of the day) but Revolut loses badly at weekends, when their forex margin widens, a fact buried deep in their terms.
Wise's average across our 14 transfers: 0.41% of the amount sent. Across the same 14 transfers, the high-street bank averaged 5.4%. Wise saved more than £1,100 across the test period vs the big-bank route.
Best for: anyone sending £500+ at a time, anyone sending at weekends, anyone who values predictable pricing.
Cost: transparent fees, no monthly subscription required for personal use.
Revolut, best for multi-currency lifestyle
Revolut's pitch isn't really "the cheapest international transfer", it's "the multi-currency app you live in." That's where it earns its place. If you travel often, hold balances in multiple currencies, or want a card that doesn't charge weekend forex spreads, Revolut is the better tool.
For pure transfer cost, Revolut Free is competitive on weekdays and within the free monthly allowance (currently £1,000/month equivalent at the time of writing, rules change, check before relying on this). Beyond that allowance, Revolut Free charges 0.5%, close to Wise but not better. Crucially, on weekends Revolut's forex margin widens by 1%, which dramatically degrades the value of the free tier for ad-hoc senders.
Revolut Premium (£7.99/month) and Metal (£14.99/month) raise or remove the free allowance. We do not think Premium pays for itself unless you're transferring more than ~£15,000 per year internationally, in which case Wise is still cheaper.
Best for: people who genuinely live across multiple currencies (digital nomads, frequent travellers, freelancers paid in USD or EUR).
Cost: Free tier with limits; Premium £7.99/month; Metal £14.99/month.
Starling, better than the big banks, not as good as Wise
Starling's international transfers are competitive among current-account banks, meaning they beat HSBC, Barclays, NatWest, and Lloyds on cost, often substantially. On our £1,000 test, Starling cost £8.36 in hidden margin vs the £57.91 the big-4 bank charged. That's a real saving.
But Starling is not as cheap as Wise on any of our 14 transfers. The reason is that Starling routes international transfers via SWIFT for many currencies, which carries cost. Wise's network is purpose-built for cross-border transfers and avoids SWIFT where it can.
Best for: people who already have a Starling account and want to send international occasionally without opening another app.
Cost: free Starling Personal account; international transfer fees vary by destination but typically 0.4%–1% in margin.
What about paypal, western union, moneygram?
We didn't test these in detail because the headline cost is so much higher that no UK consumer with internet banking should use them. PayPal's international transfer cost on a £1,000 transfer to euros, in our spot check, was £36.50, about 9× Wise. Western Union and MoneyGram are appropriate for cash-pickup needs in countries without strong banking infrastructure but are not relevant for app-to-app or bank-to-bank transfer in 2026.
What works
If we sent money abroad regularly, we would open a Wise account. Free, no monthly fee, transparently the cheapest. We would keep our Starling current account for everyday banking. We would consider Revolut if our lifestyle involved active multi-currency spending, not just transfer.
We would close our high-street bank's international transfer relationship for any non-trivial amount.
What this article isn't
This is not financial advice, and the advice you need from a regulated adviser, if you're sending large sums for tax or legal reasons (e.g. Moving abroad, buying property), is not in this article. For ordinary international transfers up to a few thousand pounds, the comparison above stands. For six- or seven-figure international moves, talk to a regulated currency broker or your accountant; the maths changes for very large transfers.
Affiliate disclosure: Morningfold has affiliate partnerships with several international transfer providers. The verdicts above were reached after six months of real testing, see our methodology.
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