Getting Paid from Another Country

[supermike]

Anyone got any advice on how to get payments for PHP work from another country? I'm looking for the most common and recommended way this is done. I checked over at PayPal and it was confusing to go through, but it appeared to be 9.3% from UK to USA. That's a bit steep.

[dreamscape]

I've got a PP Business account, and much of my work comes from the UK (I am US). The fee is not 9.3%. It is just the standard PP fee. All of my UK clients send me USD (PP gives you a currency option when sending money to someone), or I alternatively invoice them through PP and put USD as the currency. Alternatively, if someone were to send me GPB, PP would just convert that to USD since my account is a US account and take off the standard fee.

Where did you see it said it would cost you 9.3%?

[John Cartwright]

Last payment I received..

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Gross           Fee             Net Amount
$3,000.00 USD   -$87.60 USD     $2,912.40 USD

= 2.9%

[shiznatix]

Paypal is one way but why not just do a bank transfer? If the sums are large enough it only costs like ~$15 and if you use your LBAN number it will be in your bank account in like a day. Thats how I got my last couple of payments from the USA to Estonia when I moved back here.

Supidest thing though, to Help Fight Terrorism(tm) you have to supply a full address of the person you are sending it to. I just made one up and nobody was the wiser since I highly doubt any government has a database of every possible address in every possible city in the world.

[supermike]

I'd like to follow up on this now that I have some experience.

My client first tried the ordinary UK postal service, which then translates to the USA postal service when it comes to me. Well, it arrived rapidly in the USA, but the USA Customs held on to it for two whole weeks before releasing it. By the time that occurred, we had already abandoned that route and done a wire transfer. So don't do payments through ordinary postal services.

When my client moved to doing it through a wire transfer, it was for $8K. Now first of all I should never have done that. I mean, what happens if the client says he's wired it and I never received any of it, or I only receive like half of it? Sue him? Yeah, that will not work. So now I have a rule of thumb of two weeks or $2K, whichever comes first. If I've done 2 weeks worth of work, I need to get paid. If I make $2K, I need to get paid. Whichever comes first. And, if I've established a good relationship with a client, then yes, I might be flexible and get paid monthly, but very large payments with a foreign client are a tremendous risk -- especially in the PHP website building business.

Okay, so in the wire transfer, my client said he was charged $50 on his end, and by the time it transferred through all the banks to get to me, it was down about $35 less than the $8K. So, this should let you know what you might expect.

I had another client paypal me but he's in the USA. I was to be paid $75, but PayPal ate $3, leaving me with $72. (BTW, PayPal's TOS says you can't bill a higher rate to compensate for the PayPal rate.)

So I asked a guy in town who runs a Mexican restaurant here in the USA. He sends money to Mexico all the time. I asked how he does it. He says if he wants it there fast, he does a wire transfer. But if he wants it there in a week or so, then he sends it via FedEx as an ordinary check, and NEVER uses US Postal Service. He said he's NEVER had an issue either way except some occasional unexpected delay, but the money always arrives. He also says that the wire transfer fees usually only eat up about $50 out of the payment, at most, in his case.

As for risk with the wire transfer, I have a relative who works very high up in the bank I use. She said there are enough controls on wire transfers that there's no way possible anyone can yank money out of my account without me personally coming in with my driver's license and signing for it, and knowing my home telephone number and social security number.

[pervabo]

OK, so help me:

I have a company in Denmark. I need people to work for me in other countries and generate money. They get 50% of what they generate before taxes, so how do I do this so it's legal and easy?

How does a person in, say the US or UK, get the money to me? Wire or what?

Thanks for your help

P

[jraede]

Paypal is by far the easiest method...like John Cartwright said they charge something like 3%, which isn't that much in the grand scheme of things, and usually ends up being cheaper than a wire transfer or similar processes. I've been working for clients in the US from abroad for the past several months and I haven't had any problems.

[AssistMe]

Paypal is by far the easiest method...like John Cartwright said they charge something like 3%, which isn't that much in the grand scheme of things, and usually ends up being cheaper than a wire transfer or similar processes. I've been working for clients in the US from abroad for the past several months and I haven't had any problems.

Thanks for the advice, everyone! I know this is a late response, but I was doing animation work (non PHP work) for a guy in England. Clearly, with conversion rates and different types of currency, I would expect the process to be a little muddied. Now, I'm going to safely assume that paypal DOES the conversion, correct? If not, who do I go to? Also, how can I provide an invoice? Do I provide it to them in THEIR currency or in U.S.? Thanks, all!

[Benjamin]

Last payment I received..

Syntax: [ Download ] [ Hide ]

Syntax: [ Download ] [ Show ]

Gross           Fee             Net Amount
$3,000.00 USD   -$87.60 USD     $2,912.40 USD

= 2.9%

That's a little more than it cost me to hire a law firm the last time they froze funds. I'd just go with a merchant account, alertpay, bank wire, or some other payment method that is convenient for both parties.