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Hi Everyone,
Have any of you experienced doing a private transfer of funds in a large amount from outside into China? (In this case, from Canada, but I presume it’s similar in process/fee to other western countries)
The amount is large, WU/etc is out. It wont be under a company name. Any information on restrictions, fees, processing time…? I just don’t want to initiate a transfer overseas to have it ‘stuck’ somewhere here in a process mess.
Getting money into China is easy. Just do a wire transfer from one account to the other. Any bank branch can help you out.
I tried a wire transfer of 100EUR to my China Merchants bank account and had 92.50EUR left when it arrived here. Also the amount appeared on my account in Euro so I had to go to the bank to get the money exchanged to RMB, which caused some more loss.
I can’t remember how the costs got calculated but it were a couple of percentages and a fixed amount. (max 150EUR costs iirc)
You can ask for the international transfer fees at your Canadian bank.
Processing time was 2 days.
My problem is I need to transfer about 180k USD into China. I have enough time to do incremental daily 9.999k transfers via western union, but not sure that is the ideal way for this amount.
I guess I’ll have to hit up a bank (or several) to find best rates or whatever, worried that there’s restriction or high fees involved…or possibly some sort of customs paper/etc.
Just an idea but wouldn’t it be possible to open a bank account with a bank that has both offices in Canada as in China, and ship the money there? According to Google they have HSBC and Bank of China establishments in Canada.
Maybe this way you don’t even need to do a transfer.
Someone working at a real estate company (Dustin from Maxxelli maybe?) should know the easiest way as well.
That’s a _really_ good idea. I’ll update if it works out 😀 Thanks for the thought.
Quote:My problem is I need to transfer about 180k USD into China. I have enough time to do incremental daily 9.999k transfers via western union, but not sure that is the ideal way for this amount.I guess I’ll have to hit up a bank (or several) to find best rates or whatever, worried that there’s restriction or high fees involved…or possibly some sort of customs paper/etc.
Western Union is almost certainly not the ideal way to do that. You should get in touch with an accountant.
The restriction is currently set at $50k USD/calendar year. Any more than this and I believe that you’ll need to provide evidence as to what the money will be used for.
Good information Ben, do you know who you provide evidence to? Some bureau or all done at a bank?
I’ll visit HSBC this week and try to swing something like Vincent suggested, HSBC has several branches in my city in Canada so I’ll try to get a dual-currency account opened, transfer from Canada to HSBC Canada account, convert to RMB in the HSBC Canada account, and access here…….. here goes nothing 😀
Rick – Back when the limit was $10k it was a government bureau. However this ICBC page says that it “should be settled at the Bank”. If you manage to convert it to RMB before it enters the country then the limit shouldn’t be an issue. I doubt you can though.
I think HSBC has premier accounts that make doing things like this easier. Let us know how it goes.
Update:
Thanks Vincent & Ben for good information/ideas, both of which helped make this quicker.
Here’s some informative notes on how this worked:.
With HSBC Premier accounts (must have minimum assets in account, including stocks/cash/etc) it costs only $8.50 flat for any amount of money to transfer from Canada to China. From China to Canada the cost varies, but it’s not too bad.
Setting up HSBC accounts in both Canada and China works, but doesn’t really have much difference than if you’re using any bank to any other bank. You can open a dual-currency account in China, accept the money transfer to that account in foreign currency, and then work on the exchange to your RMB account. This exchange is restricted to $50k USD per person per annum, unless as Ben said, you can provide evidence as to why you’re exchanging a larger amount. Banks can provide a specific list of requirements, and may require slightly different documentation depending on what your reason is. Providing this documentation allows a quick and easy exchange of whatever said amount is to your RMB account.
Note: You can’t open dual-currency accounts overseas, ie my idea of exchanging into RMB on Canada side then wiring the full amount in RMB was impossible, since RMB isn’t an int’l floated currency.
Extra notes: If you routinely do bank transfers overseas to someone else, you can open a joint-account overseas (with a bank that’s on both sides, like HSBC) and access it here. This lets you do a deposit on this side with no wiring or transfer fee. Problem is you have to be there in person to open up ‘joint’ on that account.
@Rick in China
I am Dustin’s co-worker Vivian. I do not know if you have contacted him or not. If you contacted him, you might know that I was looking for a way to tranfer money out of China.
My husband Peter and me are purchasing a property in Netherlands, therefore we must transfter RMB out. It is possible but spending lots time.
We could exchange money by a fair rate which can benifit both of us if I saw this information earlier.
Right now we already have exchanged most part of it, only EU50,000 left.
Just for your information, Maxxelli has assisted some foreigners purchasing properties in Chengdu. The big amount money transferring and exchanging is indeed a problem. It was easy before but policy became strict since end of last year.
It is easy to transfer your money into any bank of China but it is not easy to exchange them to RMB and take out due to foreign currency control policy.
You must provide certain documents to show foreign currency bureau the purpose of this money – no matter buying property or opening a company.
By the way, HSBC has worst efficiency than any other banks.
It took us 4 weeks to open a HSBC Premier Account in Hong Kong through HSBC Chengdu, which was promised 3 working days only.
It cost RMB2000 too.
The worse thing is: now we finally have this account set up, but oversea online transfer is not allowed because it requests a code machine. No one told us about it even we asked and confirmed with bank staffs couple times.
It says this code machine will be sent to us within 7 working days, but I do not believe any more. I guess it will take 2 months.
It is a bad experience of us. We heard similar complains from other foreigners too.
Maybe OCBC or BEA or Standard Chartered Bank would be better?
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