The 10 Most Expensive Countries to Send Money To (And What to Do Instead)
The global average cost of sending a remittance is 6.36 per cent of the amount, according to the World Bank's Remittance Prices Worldwide database. That average hides an enormous range. Sub-Saharan Africa, the most expensive region tracked, averages closer to nine per cent, and individual corridors within it can run far higher, sometimes above 20 per cent on a single route. The ten countries below are among the most expensive in the world to send money to, drawn from World Bank reporting and United Nations analysis. Nine of the ten sit in Sub-Saharan Africa, a direct reflection of the structural problems covered further down. Exact rankings shift each quarter, so treat these as “among the costliest” rather than a fixed order.
1. Angola
Angola is repeatedly singled out by the United Nations and the World Bank as one of the very highest-cost destinations, with some corridors into the country running as high as 20 per cent of the amount sent. A thin market of providers, currency-conversion friction involving the kwanza, and limited competition combine to keep costs punishing. For a family receiving support, losing a fifth of every transfer to fees is not a rounding error; it's a month's worth of a child's school costs.
2. Botswana
Botswana consistently appears alongside Angola near the top of the cost tables, again with some corridors reaching around 20 per cent. The World Bank has recorded its overall cost above seven per cent, and specific routes far higher. Part of the problem is infrastructural: Botswana's clearing systems have historically operated only during weekday working hours, which limits the speed and competitiveness of the services that move money into the country.
3. Namibia
Namibia completes the trio of southern African countries the UN names as reaching up to 20 per cent on some corridors. Its close economic ties to South Africa might suggest cheap, easy transfers, but shared geography doesn't guarantee low costs, and Namibia's remittance market stays expensive by any global standard, held up by limited competition and currency-conversion costs.
4. Sierra Leone
The World Bank's 2023 reporting placed Sierra Leone among the economies with the highest transaction costs of all, above seven per cent and often well beyond. As one of the poorer countries on this list, it faces the cruel arithmetic common to the region: the households that can least afford high fees are the ones paying the most, because the infrastructure that would drive costs down simply isn't there yet.
5. Uganda
Uganda is named by the World Bank among the highest-cost destinations, and it also anchors one of the single most expensive corridors ever recorded, the Tanzania-to-Uganda route, where a transfer has at times cost an extraordinary share of the amount sent. Uganda's mobile-money ecosystem is active, but interoperability gaps between systems keep cross-border costs stubbornly high.
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6. Zambia
Zambia rounds out the World Bank's named group of highest-cost economies, all above seven per cent in 2023. Like several neighbours, it shows how a country can have a working domestic mobile-money sector while still being expensive to reach from abroad, because the domestic rails and the cross-border ones don't connect cleanly.
7. Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe is expensive even on its busiest corridor. The World Bank has recorded the high-volume South Africa-to-Zimbabwe route at around 15 per cent despite substantial competition among providers. A history of currency instability adds conversion cost and risk that providers pass on to senders, keeping prices elevated even where volume alone might be expected to lower them.
8. Malawi
Malawi has climbed the cost tables recently. The South African Reserve Bank's corridor analysis found the South Africa-to-Malawi route becoming the costliest corridor for sending $500, after sitting below five per cent as recently as 2024. It's a reminder that these rankings aren't static; a corridor can deteriorate quickly when infrastructure or competition shifts.
9. Tanzania
Tanzania appears on this list both as an expensive destination and as the origin of some of the world's costliest intra-African corridors. Historical World Bank figures put the cost of sending from Tanzania as high as 27 per cent, and routes into the country carry high costs of their own. Limited interoperability between the region's mobile-money networks is a recurring culprit.
10. South Sudan
South Sudan closes the list as one of the hardest and most expensive countries in the world to move money into, a reflection of limited financial infrastructure, ongoing instability, and a thin market of providers willing to serve the corridor at all. Where competition is scarcest and infrastructure weakest, costs are highest, and South Sudan sits at that extreme.
Why These Corridors Cost So Much
The same handful of structural problems shows up behind almost every country on this list:
• Limited competition. Several of these corridors have only a few providers, and where a market is dominated by one or two large operators, there's little pressure to lower prices.
• Poor interoperability. Mobile-money systems that work smoothly within a country often don't connect across borders, forcing transfers through slower, costlier routes.
• Cash-based delivery. Corridors that rely on physical agent networks to hand over cash carry higher operating costs than digital-to-digital transfers, and those costs reach the sender.
• Thin currency markets. Converting into a currency that trades in low volumes widens the exchange-rate margin, because providers face more risk and less liquidity.
What to Do Instead
For a corridor this expensive, it's worth checking whether a digital-first route, including a Bitcoin transfer, costs meaningfully less for that specific destination. The honest caveat: a cheaper channel only helps if the recipient can actually receive and use it, so a compatible wallet and a comfortable recipient matter as much as the sending side. Where both are in place, an EvoMone Lightning transfer, at a flat 0.5% fee with no correspondent-bank deductions, can undercut a 15-to-20-per cent traditional corridor dramatically. Where they're not, a traditional provider may still be the practical choice, and it's worth comparing honestly rather than assuming.
How to Check the Real Cost for Your Corridor
• Look up your specific corridor on the World Bank's Remittance Prices Worldwide site rather than relying on a regional average.
• Compare at least two or three provider types, a bank, a money transfer operator, and a digital option, for the same amount and destination.
• Confirm what the recipient can actually use: a mobile-money account, a bank account, or a crypto wallet, which determines which cheaper options are even available to them.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is Sub-Saharan Africa consistently the most expensive region?
A combination of limited provider competition, weak interoperability between mobile-money systems, reliance on cash-based delivery, and thin currency markets. These are structural, long-standing factors, which is why the region's costs have stayed stubbornly high even as global averages have fallen.
Does a high average mean every provider in that corridor is expensive?
No. An average spans the full range of providers, and some options within even the costliest corridors are far cheaper than others. Comparing specific providers for your specific corridor matters more than the regional headline number.
Is Bitcoin always cheaper for these expensive corridors?
It can be, sometimes dramatically, but only where the recipient is set up to receive and use it. Availability and recipient readiness vary widely across these countries, so it isn't a guaranteed fix for every one of them today.
The Bottom Line
The most expensive corridors in the world share a set of structural problems, thin competition, weak interoperability, and cash dependency that no single provider can fully solve alone. But senders aren't powerless. Checking current, corridor-specific costs before sending and considering a digital-first route where the recipient is ready for one is the most reliable way to avoid handing over a fifth of a transfer that a family was counting on in full.
Visit evomone.com/send-bitcoin to check whether a cheaper route is available for your corridor.
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