What is the total cost of sending $$ overseas using Paypal?

[pengyou]

I need to send about US$1,000 per month back to my bank account in the U.S. and am looking at different options to do so. What is the total cost of using Paypay to do this? and what ARE the charges I will incur? I am assuming that using my visa/debit card is going to cost me NT$7...then Paypal...is there a cost for the money exchange from $NT to $US? Will my bank account receive this as a foreign exchange or will it receive it as an electronic payment/ deposit?

[Adam_CLO]

As far as the process goes, you would need to set up two Paypal accounts using two email addresses. One would be linked to your Taiwanese bank account (NT) and the other to your US account (USD). To send money, you would login to your Taiwanese Paypal account and send $1000 USD to your US Paypal account. That money (or the equivalent in NT) would then be withdrawn from your Taiwan account and deposited into your US Paypal account. You would then manually withdraw the $1000 USD from your Paypal account, at which point it would be deposited in your US bank account. While the transfer from one Paypal account to another is instant, the deposit to your account usually takes 3 to 5 business days.

Regarding fees, according to Paypal's site there is no charge if the funds are being withdrawn from a bank account. If you're using a debit / credit card then they will charge 2.9% of the amount plus $0.30, so for $1000 USD that would be $29.30.

I expect they are also making money on the exchange rate from NT to USD.

[pengyou]

Thanks! What about sending money to China? I have a bank account in a Chinese bank...is there some way I can accomplish this with paypal?

[creztor]

Don't forget an exchange rate "cut". I believe doing a T/T "may" be cheaper for sums of $1k or hire. The reason I say this is Paypal uses it's own exchange rate and it is skewed in their favor big time, at least if you start talking about considerable sizes of money. You are going to find the same fees/costs for sending money to any other country, be it China or the USA, at least using Paypal.

[pengyou]

So if I had a dual currency account in Taiwan - actually had rmb in the account, there would be no exchange needed...is that right?

[creztor]

You'll have to ask Paypal.