What is the cheapest way to send money to the Philippines?

On the World Bank US→Philippines corridor, re-read 2026-08-08 from data collected 4–21 August 2025, the lowest total cost on a USD 200 transfer is MoneyGram to a mobile wallet at 0.58% ($1.16) — a $0 fee with a 0.58% exchange-rate margin. The lowest bank-account product is MoneyGram at 1.20%, and the lowest cash-pickup product is Walmart2World at 1.10%. Total cost is the fee plus the FX margin, combined. That corridor data is about a year old, so the figure for a specific amount is the one quoted on the provider's own page that day.

Is Wise cheaper than Western Union for sending to the Philippines?

It depends on the amount. On the World Bank US→Philippines corridor (data collected 4–21 August 2025, re-read 2026-08-08), Wise's one listed product — bank-transfer funded to a bank account — carries a total cost of 4.06% on USD 200 and 1.96% on USD 500, at an exchange-rate margin of 0.00% (reference rate 56.99, rate charged 56.99). Western Union's comparable bank-account product is 3.46% and 2.86% at those amounts, at a 2.46% margin. Western Union is lower at USD 200; Wise is lower at USD 500. Wise's cost sits in a flat fee, Western Union's mostly in the rate.

Does a faster transfer cost more?

Not on this corridor as collected. On the World Bank US→Philippines data (4–21 August 2025, re-read 2026-08-08), the "less than one hour" band holds 30 products spanning 0.58% to 9.99% total cost, and the "3 to 5 days" band holds 14 spanning 0.58% to 8.44%. MoneyGram lists two mobile-wallet products at the same 0.58% total cost, one in the fastest band and one in the slowest. Cost and speed move independently across firms here, so a slower product is not reliably a cheaper one.

Does the first-time promo rate make a service the cheapest?

It changes the first transfer only. Remitly's own page, checked 2026-08-08, posts "Get a special rate and no fees on your first transfer with Remitly", limited to new customers, one per customer, applying to the first 1,000.00 USD sent. That is a provider-posted offer, not a World Bank corridor figure — the corridor prices Remitly's six standard cash products between 3.25% and 8.44% on USD 200 (data collected 4–21 August 2025). A comparison made on a promo transfer is not the comparison that applies to the transfers after it.

Cheapest way to send money to the Philippines (USD→PHP)

Q: What is the fee to send $1,000 to the Philippines?

The World Bank prices the US→Philippines corridor at USD 200 and USD 500 only, so it carries no $1,000 figure and none is cited here. One dated provider figure exists: Wise's own page, checked 2026-08-08, posts the cost of sending 1,000 USD as $8.26 by direct debit, $12.65 by bank transfer, $41.64 by debit card and $58.44 by credit card. Those are self-stated by Wise, not independently verified, and they show how far the funding method moves the number at a single provider. Confirm the figure for an exact amount on the provider's page.

There is no single “cheapest” service to the Philippines. It moves with the amount, the funding method, how the recipient collects, and the day’s rate. What is fixed is how to compare them: total cost is the fee plus the FX margin, the gap between the rate given and the market reference rate. That is the World Bank’s own definition, and it is the only basis the table below is ordered by.

World Bank US→PH corridor — ordered by total cost at USD 200 Posted terms — see sources

Product (firm · funding → receiving method)	Total cost, USD 200	Total cost, USD 500	FX margin	RPW speed band
MoneyGram · bank transfer → mobile wallet	0.58% ($1.16)	0.58% ($2.90)	0.58%	3 to 5 days
Walmart2World · debit card → cash pickup	1.10% ($2.19)	−0.10% (−$0.51)	−1.90%	Less than one hour
MoneyGram · bank transfer → bank account	1.20% ($2.40)	0.96% ($4.80)	0.80%	3 to 5 days
Remitly · bank transfer → cash pickup	3.25% ($6.49)	2.35% ($11.74)	0.00%	3 to 5 days
Western Union · bank transfer → bank account	3.46% ($6.91)	2.86% ($14.29)	2.46%	3 to 5 days
Wise · bank transfer → bank account	4.06% ($8.12)	1.96% ($9.82)	0.00%	3 to 5 days
Western Union · debit card → cash pickup	4.46% ($8.91)	3.46% ($17.29)	2.46%	Less than one hour

World Bank Remittance Prices Worldwide, US→Philippines corridor, re-read 2026-08-08. The published data was collected 4–21 August 2025, so these are the terms those products carried a year ago, not today's quotes. The corridor prices USD 200 and USD 500 only. A firm is listed once per product, so the same brand appears more than once at different costs. Selected rows: the corridor's cheapest product overall, its cheapest bank-account and cash products, and the three brands most searched on this query. Ordered by total cost at USD 200, never by payout or brand.

What “total cost” actually is

A remittance has two prices, and only one of them is shown in big type. The first is the transfer fee, the flat charge the service names up front. The second is the FX margin: the World Bank measures it as the percentage difference between the market reference rate and the rate the firm actually applies. A service can post a $0 fee and still cost more than one that charges $8, because the margin is inside the rate.

The corridor’s cheapest row is the mechanism in miniature. MoneyGram’s mobile wallet product carries a $0.00 fee and a 0.58% margin (reference rate 56.95, rate charged 56.62), for a total cost of 0.58%, or $1.16 on $200. Wise sits at the other end of the same mechanism: a 0.00% margin (reference 56.99, charged 56.99) and an $8.12 fee, for 4.06% on the same $200. One firm’s cost is entirely in the rate, the other’s entirely in the fee, and only the combined number compares them.

Walmart2World shows the third case. Its recorded rate was better than the reference rate, a −1.90% margin, which offsets part of a $5.99 fee at $200 and more than all of an $8.99 fee at $500 — where the total cost lands at −0.10%. A negative margin is uncommon and it was one collected observation, not a standing offer.

The providers, by posted terms

What the corridor records, from data collected 4–21 August 2025 and re-read 2026-08-08. Provider pages are self-stated and are labelled as such.

Wise

The corridor lists exactly one Wise product: bank-transfer funded, paid out to a bank account, in the 3 to 5 days band. Its exchange-rate margin is 0.00%, which is the corridor confirming what Wise posts about itself: “We use the mid-market exchange rate — the fairest rate — and always show your fees upfront” (wise.com, checked 2026-08-08). The whole cost is therefore the fee, $8.12 on USD 200 (4.06%) and $9.82 on USD 500 (1.96%).

Because that cost is a near-flat fee, the percentage falls steeply as the amount rises. It also means Wise is not the low-cost row at small amounts: among the 15 bank-account products the corridor priced, Wise ranked 11th at USD 200 and 7th at USD 500. Wise’s own page posts figures for a larger amount the corridor does not price — the cost of sending 1,000 USD as $8.26 by direct debit, $12.65 by bank transfer, $41.64 by debit card and $58.44 by credit card (checked 2026-08-08, self-stated). Wise posts local bank account transfers only, with no cash pickup or GCash payout.

Remitly

The corridor priced six Remitly products, all of them cash pickup, and all six in the 3 to 5 days band. Their total cost ran from 3.25% on USD 200 (a $6.49 fee at a 0.00% margin) to 8.44% (a $10.99 fee at a 2.94% margin); at USD 500 the range was 2.35% to 6.94%. No Remitly bank-deposit or wallet product appears in the corridor data, though Remitly’s own page posts cash pickup, bank deposit, mobile wallet (GCash, Maya, PayMaya), home delivery and debit card deposit (checked 2026-08-08).

Two figures widely quoted for Remitly are carried by neither source, so no number appears here for either. Remitly posts no “Economy” tier, so confirm current tier names and prices with Remitly. It names Express as a speed option (“may consider using Express with a debit or credit card, where available”) but posts no delivery timeframe and no price for it, so no Express figure is cited here. One caveat Remitly does post: “Get a special rate and no fees on your first transfer”, for new customers, one per customer, applying to the first 1,000.00 USD sent. That offer sits outside the standard pricing above.

Western Union

Western Union appears across both bank-account and cash products. Its FX margin is 2.46% on card-, debit- and bank-funded products (reference 57.02, rate charged 55.61) and 1.06% on the cash-funded one. That is wider than Wise’s 0.00%, which the corridor confirms directly. Its bank-account product runs 3.46% at USD 200 and 2.86% at USD 500 on a $1.99 fee — the lowest Western Union fee the corridor recorded, which is why the total cost sits mostly in the rate. Its cash products run 4.46%–5.06% at USD 200 and 2.66%–5.36% at USD 500, with the card- and cash-funded versions in the less than one hour band.

On network size, the corridor records a disbursing network coverage field of High, Medium or Low, and publishes no ranking of which network is largest. Western Union’s cash coverage is High, the same band as Johnny Air Cargo, M.Lhuillier, MoneyGram, Pangea, Remitly, Ria, Walmart2World, WorldRemit and Xoom. Confirm branch and agent reach for a specific town with the provider.

What this means for $200, $500, $1,000

The corridor prices USD 200 and USD 500, and nothing else. There is no $1,000 column, which is why no $1,000 corridor figure appears anywhere on this page. The pattern the two priced amounts do show is consistent: where a cost is mostly a flat fee, the percentage drops as the amount rises. Wise moves from 4.06% to 1.96% between $200 and $500 while its fee moves only from $8.12 to $9.82. Where the cost is mostly margin, the percentage barely moves: Western Union’s bank-account margin stays at 2.46% at both amounts.

It also matters where the money is lost. A transfer can cost on the send side (the fee paid out of pocket), on the receive side (the FX margin, which the recipient absorbs as fewer pesos than the reference rate would have given, plus any payout fee collected at the counter), or on both. A “free” transfer with a wide margin has moved the loss to the recipient, not removed it.

The table below is an illustrative example, not posted or quoted rates. It holds one fee and one margin fixed across three amounts so the shape is visible.

Illustrative example — where the cost lands and how it scales with amount (not real provider rates) Illustrative example — not posted rates

Amount sent	Send-side fee (example)	Receive-side FX loss (example)	Total cost (USD)	Total cost (%)
$200	$2.00	$1.00	$3.00	1.5%
$500	$2.00	$2.50	$4.50	0.9%
$1,000	$2.00	$5.00	$7.00	0.7%

Example only — assumes a hypothetical $2 send-side flat fee and a 0.5% FX margin (the receive-side loss, before any agent or bank payout fee) held constant to show how cost scales and where it lands. These are not any provider's posted or quoted figures. Real fees and margins move daily and differ by product; quote your exact amount on the provider's own page before sending.

Delivery method changes the range

How the recipient collects sets the cost range more than the brand does. Across the 58 products the corridor priced at USD 200:

Mobile wallet: 6 products, 0.58% to 3.58%. The narrowest range and the corridor’s cheapest single product.
Bank account: 15 products, 1.20% to 5.80%.
Cash pickup: 36 products, 1.10% to 9.99%. The widest range by far, so the spread between two cash products can exceed the spread between methods.
Transfer to own account: 1 product, Citibank, at 17.50%.

The recipient’s situation decides which of those ranges applies, and the range is wide enough inside each method that the method alone does not settle it.

Speed and cost move independently

The corridor’s speed field is standardized into six bands. Sorting the USD 200 products by band shows no cost ordering:

Less than one hour: 30 products, 0.58% to 9.99%.
Same day: 3 products, 3.00% to 4.14%.
Next day: 6 products, 3.00% to 6.01%.
2 days: 5 products, 3.00% to 17.50%.
3 to 5 days: 14 products, 0.58% to 8.44%.

The fastest and the slowest band open at the same 0.58%: MoneyGram lists two mobile-wallet products at identical total cost, one in each. Paying more does not reliably buy speed on this corridor, and waiting longer does not reliably save money. Arrival bands by method are covered in full on how long a remittance takes.

Why this is anchored to the World Bank corridor

Every figure here is read from the World Bank Remittance Prices Worldwide US→Philippines corridor, the impartial cross-provider tracker, with provider pages carried only as each firm’s own posted claim about itself. A provider page is built to present that provider’s pricing favourably, and first-time promo rates distort the first number a sender ever sees.

The anchor has one honest limit worth stating plainly: the corridor’s published US→PH data was collected 4–21 August 2025. It was re-read on 2026-08-08 and had not been refreshed. Every corridor figure on this page is about a year old — a record of what those products charged, not a quote. Fees and margins move daily. Where a claim could not be confirmed against the corridor at this re-read, it says “confirm with the provider” rather than carrying a number.

How to read this

This is information, not advice. What the sourced data supports:

Total cost, not the headline fee, is the comparison. The corridor’s cheapest product charges a $0 fee; the one with a 0.00% margin is mid-table.
The amount changes the ranking. Western Union’s bank-account product was cheaper than Wise’s at USD 200 and dearer at USD 500.
Speed does not track cost on this corridor, and the cost range inside one delivery method is wider than the gap between methods.

Because the corridor data is a year old and rates move daily, quoting the exact amount on two or three services on the same day and comparing the pesos the recipient actually receives is how the hidden half of the cost becomes visible.

For how long each method takes to arrive, see how long a remittance takes. For why apps, banks and padala centers price the same transfer differently, see apps vs banks vs padala centers.