Hi all,
What is currently the best way to exchange large amounts of cash from USD into a Euro currency Portuguese bank? What method gives one the best rate and lowest fees? I have a WISE account…should I use that as a middleman?
Thanks!
Lots of postings here relating, but in short and to give you brief answer, we used Wise and were very satisfied with the fees and the exchange rate which tracks well to the midmarket rates. For the larger amounts, there will likely be some KYC (know your customer) compliance hoops for paperwork, but you can expect that everywhere. I liked the fact that when you move USD up to Wise it earns decent rate. You choose the timing of when you need/want to convert to Euro - and its instant. Then, you choose when to move it the PT bank. All very nice. Your big savings is likely using Wise or one of the similar services and probably avoiding banks for the service. We found the banks to be exceptionally expensive.
Indeed, please use the search function and you’ll find many postings about this.
We bought our PT house using Wise for forex (not all in one go, mind you). I tried other companies (OFX, Currencies Direct, etc.) that advertise in the expat media… none of them could beat Wise’s rates, even when they asked their supervisors for a better rate. That was over 2 years ago, so of course try your own price comparisons now.