Why Did I Receive Less Money Than Was Sent? International Transfer Deductions Explained

Last checked 30 September 2026

Someone sends you $1,000 from abroad and your account shows $975. That does not automatically mean anyone made a mistake. An international bank transfer can lose money to the sending bank’s fee, to banks in the middle, to your own bank’s incoming fee, or to currency conversion. The job is to find out at which stage $1,000 became $975 — and the first question is whether $1,000 was ever actually sent.

This page is about bank transfers that travel through the Swift network. Money transfer apps usually quote a fixed amount the recipient will get before you pay, which removes most of the guesswork below.

Start with the numbers on the receipt

Before contacting any bank, get the sender’s transfer confirmation, not a screenshot of their account balance. Then compare two situations that both look like “I sent $1,000, you got $975” — the figures are illustrations:

Look for three things on the receipt: the amount sent, the currency it was sent in, and any fee shown separately. “I sent you $1,000” means nothing until you know which of those it refers to.

Banks in the middle can take a cut

The sending and receiving banks often have no direct relationship, so a Swift payment can pass through one or more correspondent or intermediary banks, and they can charge for handling it. An illustration:

The receipt says $1,000 and you see $975, and the $25 came from two different places. That is why “did my bank charge me?” rarely solves it on its own.

Swift payments carry a charges instruction, usually written OUR, SHA or BEN, stating who the sending bank intends to pay the fees — the sender, both sides, or the recipient. Choosing “OUR” does not guarantee the full amount arrives. Wise’s own documentation for Swift transfers says it “cannot guarantee the full amount of the transfer will reach the intended recipient, regardless of the type of instruction”, because “there is always a chance that a correspondent will remove a fee” — intermediary and receiving banks “can and may ignore or not support” the instruction.

Inside the EU, the rule is different

If both banks are in the EU and the payment is in an EU currency, EU law requires the banks and any intermediaries to “transfer the full amount of the payment transaction and refrain from deducting charges”. Each side pays its own bank’s charges. Your bank may take its fee from the incoming amount only if you agreed to that, and it must then show the full amount and the charge separately.

That protection stops at the EU’s edge. The same law excludes the full-amount rule for payments where only one bank is in the EU — Germany to Nigeria, say, or the United States to Germany — and for payments in currencies that are not an EU currency. For those, deductions along the way are allowed.

Your own bank may charge for receiving it

Some banks charge for an incoming international payment; others do not, and it can depend on the account, the currency and the route. This is the easiest deduction to pin down, because your bank can explain a fee it took itself. Check its price list, or ask.

Currency conversion can look like a fee

If $1,000 is sent to a euro account, someone converts it — the sending bank, or a bank further along, depending on how the payment was set up. An illustration: an online converter says $1,000 is worth €850; your account shows €828. That does not prove €22 was deducted. Your bank may simply have used its own customer rate, which can include a margin over the rate you looked up.

The useful question is: what amount arrived before conversion, and what rate was used? That separates a rate difference from a deduction. We explain why the rate usually costs more than the fee in transfer fee vs exchange rate.

Find out which currency was actually sent

This causes more confusion than anything else. If your account is in naira and the sender says “I sent $500”, did their bank send 500 US dollars for another bank to convert, or convert first and send a fixed naira amount? The receipt will say something like “Amount: 500 USD” or “Recipient receives: 780,000 NGN” — and those mean different things. If the sender was promised a specific amount in your currency, that is the figure to hold them to.

Watch for double conversion, too. If a payment arrives in a currency your account does not hold, it may be converted on arrival — and if it was already converted once on the way, you pay the margin twice. Before a large transfer, ask your bank which currencies the account can receive directly.

Ask your bank what arrived before it credited you

Start with your own bank, because you can contact it directly. If the sender’s receipt says $1,000 sent and your bank says $985 arrived, you know $15 went before the money reached you — and if your bank then charged $10, the whole $25 is accounted for. A short message is enough:

Hello. I received an international transfer, but the amount credited was lower than the sender says was sent. The sender says they sent [amount and currency] on [date]; I received [amount and currency]. The transfer reference is [reference]. Could you confirm: (1) the amount and currency that reached you before any deductions; (2) any fee you deducted; (3) whether you converted the payment, and if so the rate and the amount before conversion; (4) whether the payment information shows any deduction made before it reached you. Thank you.

Your bank may not see every fee taken earlier. Its answer still tells you whether the money went missing before or after it arrived.

If less arrived than was sent, the sender goes back to their bank

If your bank confirms only $970 arrived from a $1,000 payment, the sender should contact the sending bank with numbers, not a complaint: “Your confirmation shows $1,000 was sent. The recipient’s bank says $970 reached it before its own charges. Please identify any correspondent or intermediary deductions on this payment.” The sending bank can investigate the route. The sender should keep the receipt and the transaction reference. For a Swift payment, ask for the UETR too: it is one reference every bank in the chain can use to find the payment (see how to track an international bank transfer).

Small gap or large gap: different investigations

$500 sent and $495 received is almost certainly a fee somewhere. $5,000 sent and the equivalent of $4,300 received is not ordinary wire charges — check the currency, the amount actually sent, the rate and the route. Big differences are easiest to misread when two currencies are involved, because people estimate the “missing” amount with a rate the bank never used.

For the same reason, do not check Monday’s payment with Friday’s exchange rate. Use the rate applied to the transaction: ask your bank if it converted, or use the sender’s confirmation if their bank did.

The fastest way to find where the money went

Put the transfer in order:

What the sender paid → sending fee → amount actually sent → intermediary deductions → amount reaching your bank → your bank’s fee → conversion → amount credited

You will not have every number at first. Start with the sender’s receipt and your credit, then ask your bank what it received before its own deductions. Once those are known, the question stops being “where is my $30?” and becomes “at which step did $1,000 become $970?” — which someone can actually answer.

If the problem is that the money has not arrived at all, see why a money transfer takes longer than you were told. For a large first payment to a new account, a small test transfer first is worth its fee — see one large transfer or several small. To get the receiving details right in the first place, see what bank details you need to receive money from abroad.

How we checked this

Read on 30 September 2026: Wise’s developer documentation on Swift network transfers, for the OUR, SHA and BEN instruction and its statement that the full amount cannot be guaranteed on Swift; and the consolidated text of the EU Payment Services Directive (EU) 2015/2366, as amended on 8 April 2024 — Article 81 for the full-amount rule and the separately shown payee charge, Article 62(2) for each side paying its own bank’s charges, and Article 2(3) and (4) for the exclusion of non-EU currencies and of payments where only one bank is in the EU. All dollar and euro amounts in the tables are illustrations.

Sources

• Wise documentation: Swift network transfers
• EUR-Lex: Directive (EU) 2015/2366 on payment services, consolidated text of 8 April 2024

Afromium does not make test transfers and does not give legal or financial advice. This page explains where money can be deducted on an international bank transfer and how to trace it; your bank’s own terms and price list decide what it charges. Check with the banks involved about your particular payment.