Paying a freelancer in the US from EU

I am currently working a lot with a freelancer from the US. I am based in Germany. Now we are currently finishing our first project and I need to pay him.

I would like to avoid cost of paypal if possible. Are there any other options which are less expensive?

Employees Payroll

asked Aug 2 '13 at 23:22

Christian
3,590 points

2 Answers

for the EU (maybe also US not sure please check) payments you may be better off using www.transferwise.com services. They are great.

answered Dec 10 '13 at 05:36

Max
11 points

Thanks! It looks interesting, will check it out in detail. – Christian 11 years ago

I think that the PayPal is still one of the cheapest solutions. If you use bank transfer, the bank will charge you for the transfer in different currency (I assume your bank account is in EUR, his in USD) and will use the exchange rate that suits the best... the bank.

I did this recently (paid from Belgium a Czech freelancer) via bank transfer and the exchange rate + all the fees cost something like 7% of the amount...

answered Aug 2 '13 at 23:32

Geronimo
61 points

I really didn't consider exchange rates... thanks. – Christian 11 years ago
Some more research showed that options from my Bank are even more expensive and Bitcoins are to geeky. Well, Bitcoins would have been nice, but its really to early for that. – Christian 11 years ago