It's payday. Three million won just appeared in your Korean bank account — a month of teaching English, working a factory shift, or grinding through whatever brought you to Seoul. Your family back home is waiting on rent, groceries, or just the reassurance of a regular transfer. You open your bank's overseas wire screen, and suddenly you're confronted with purpose codes, SWIFT codes, correspondent bank fees, and an exchange rate that's suspiciously worse than what Google told you it should be. Twenty minutes later, you've closed the app and made ramen instead.
Sound familiar? This is the sending-money-from-Korea experience for most foreigners, at least the first time. It doesn't have to be this complicated — but you do need to understand what's actually happening to your money before you send it.
So What Are Your Actual Options?
The three main routes foreigners use to send money home from Korea are: a direct bank wire (전신환 / SWIFT transfer), a fintech service like Wise, or a corridor-specific app like Remitly, SentBe, or Moin. Each has a different cost profile, different limits, and different levels of bureaucratic friction.
Bank wires are available at every major Korean bank — Shinhan (신한), KB Kookmin (국민), KEB Hana (하나), Woori (우리), IBK Industrial Bank (기업), NongHyup (농협). All of them can process international transfers for foreigners who have an ARC card. The advantage is relatively high per-transaction limits and no app required. The disadvantage is cost: banks charge a flat remittance fee of around ₩5,000–10,000, then apply an exchange rate that's typically 1.5–2.5% worse than the real mid-market rate. Add a SWIFT intermediary bank fee of $10–25 that your recipient's bank usually deducts from the amount in transit, and a $2,000 transfer can end up costing you $60–100 in effective fees. It's a lot.
Wise has changed the math significantly. It uses the mid-market exchange rate — the same rate you'd see on Google — and charges a transparent percentage fee, typically 0.4% to 1.5% depending on the currency pair. On a representative example from the Wise Korea calculator in February 2026: sending the equivalent of $1,000 USD in KRW costs about $13.83 in fees through Wise, versus an estimated $48.36 in effective exchange rate markup alone at a major bank. Wise also bypasses SWIFT entirely by using its own local banking networks, which means no surprise deductions on the recipient's end.
There's a catch: personal Wise accounts from Korea are capped at 7,190,000 KRW per transaction (roughly $5,000 USD at early 2026 rates). If you need to send more, you can split into multiple transfers — which Wise allows — or open a Wise Business account, which has no stated per-transaction limit. Wise also applies automatic volume discounts once you send more than the equivalent of $25,000 USD in a calendar month.
Remitly is worth a look if your destination is in Southeast Asia, South Asia, or Latin America. It offers two tiers — Economy (3–5 business days, lower fee) and Express (under two hours, higher fee) — and for corridors like KRW → PHP (Philippines) or KRW → INR (India), it can occasionally edge out Wise on rate. For USD, EUR, GBP, and JPY destinations, Wise is generally more competitive. Remitly requires a Korean bank account and ARC for identity verification. Check specific corridors and fees directly on remitly.com, as they vary and change frequently.
SentBe (센트비) and Moin (모인) are Korean-licensed fintech apps specifically designed for foreign workers in Korea, supporting corridors including the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Nepal. For those specific routes, they can beat Wise — worth downloading and comparing before each transfer if you send to Southeast Asia regularly. Western Union and MoneyGram are available at post offices and convenience stores but are expensive; best avoided unless it's an emergency.
What Does It Actually Cost, and How Do You Use Wise?
Setting up Wise from Korea is reasonably painless. You create an account — no Korean identity number needed, your foreign passport works — verify your identity by uploading passport photos, and link your Korean bank account by account number. Wise makes a small test deposit to confirm ownership.
When you initiate a transfer, Wise shows the exact fee and rate upfront before you confirm: no hidden markup, no surprise deductions. Instead of doing an international wire from your Korean bank, you make a simple domestic Korean bank transfer to Wise's Korean account. That means no SWIFT fees from your sending bank, no trip to a branch, no paperwork — the whole thing takes about five minutes on your phone. Wise converts the KRW and sends the funds through their local banking partner in the destination country. Typical arrival time is 1–2 business days for major currency corridors.
One practical note: Wise locks in an exchange rate for a set window after you create a transfer. Fund it promptly, or the rate resets and you have to start over. If you've had a transfer expire, you already know how annoying this is.
What About Walking Into a Korean Bank Branch?
Sometimes a bank wire is your best option — maybe you're sending a larger amount that exceeds Wise's per-transaction limit, or your employer's payroll setup makes a branch visit easier anyway. The process is manageable, but plan for at least one in-person visit, especially for your first international transfer. Most banks require this before enabling repeat transfers online.
Bring your passport, ARC card (외국인등록증), and the recipient's full bank details: account number or IBAN, bank name, full bank address, and the SWIFT/BIC code. You'll also need to select a purpose code (외환거래 목적코드) — a mandatory classification for why you're sending the money. The most common code for foreign workers is T02 (remittance of work income / salary remittance). For family living expense support, C20 applies. The bank teller will usually guide you through the options, but having a recent pay stub ready to match your T02 declaration avoids any friction.
For transfers over USD 10,000 equivalent, banks typically require income documentation — an employment contract and recent pay stubs are standard. Over USD 30,000 per transaction, expect more scrutiny and possibly more paperwork. If a teller refuses to process your wire, ask for a manager or try a different branch; some branches have considerably more experience handling foreign customer transactions than others. Your ARC number (외국인등록번호) serves as the substitute for the Korean Resident Registration Number (주민등록번호) in all banking contexts — insist on this if you hit resistance.
One more thing: when sending a bank wire, ask about "OUR" versus "SHA" fee options. Under "SHA" (shared), intermediary bank fees get deducted from the transferred amount in transit, meaning your recipient gets slightly less than the stated amount. Under "OUR," you pay all fees upfront at the sending end — costs a bit more, but guarantees the recipient receives the full amount. Wise sidesteps this entirely by not using SWIFT.
How Much Can You Send, and Do You Have to Tell Anyone?
For most foreign workers sending legitimate post-tax salary income, Korea's foreign exchange regulations are genuinely not restrictive. Foreigners with an ARC on E-class, H-2, or F-class visas can remit earned income abroad without special permissions — this is money you legally earned and paid Korean income tax on.
The threshold to know: cumulative international transfers exceeding the equivalent of approximately USD 50,000 per year must be reported to the Korea Customs Service (관세청). A single transaction over roughly USD 10,000 also typically triggers a purpose declaration at the bank — which is why your purpose code needs to match your documentation. There is no Korean tax on the act of sending money abroad. Your income is taxed in Korea; once it's yours after tax, it's yours to send home.
Be aware that the recipient's country may have its own reporting requirements. Receiving over USD 10,000 in a US bank account, for example, is reportable to FinCEN — that's the recipient's obligation, not yours. If you're sending large lump sums to family members rather than standard salary remittances, check whether those could trigger gift tax considerations under your home country's rules.
The exact customs reporting threshold and purpose code list are worth verifying directly — check with the Bank of Korea (한국은행), your bank's foreign exchange desk, or a Korean tax professional (세무사) rather than relying solely on any single blog post, since thresholds can be updated.
The Short Version
For regular monthly salary transfers to USD, EUR, GBP, JPY, or AUD accounts, Wise is almost certainly your cheapest and simplest option. For Southeast Asian corridors, compare with SentBe or Moin before each transfer — the gap can be meaningful. For large transfers that exceed Wise's per-transaction limit, or when documentation requirements push you toward a bank visit anyway, bank wires are perfectly functional — just expect higher total costs and budget time for the branch visit. Always check the mid-market rate on Google or xe.com before transferring so you know exactly what spread you're giving up. And once you've done your first overseas wire from Korea, the second one is genuinely much less stressful.
