Sending money from the UK to the Philippines: fees and FX margin compared (2026)

Sending GBP 120 from the UK to the Philippines cost an average of 3.33%, or £3.99, in fee plus exchange-rate margin in the World Bank’s newest survey of the corridor (Remittance Prices Worldwide, Third Quarter 2025, data collected August 8 to September 1, 2025). At GBP 300 the average was 2.00%, or £6.00. The 38 products it priced ran from 0.44% to 10.82% at GBP 120, so the firm and the payout method move the cost much further than the average does. The table takes each firm’s lowest-cost product and orders them by total cost at GBP 120, the survey’s own measure.

What the survey measures, and what it leaves out

The World Bank prices this corridor at two amounts only: GBP 120 and GBP 300, its USD 200 and USD 500 bands. There is no £500 or £1,000 column, so no figure for those amounts appears anywhere on this page. Total cost is “the fee charged to the sender plus the exchange rate margin”, and the margin is the percentage gap between the market reference rate and the rate the firm actually applies. A firm can post a £0.00 fee and still carry a cost, because the margin sits inside the rate.

Each survey row is one product: a firm, a way of paying in (bank transfer, debit card, credit card or cash), a place to send from (online, a bank branch or an agent) and a way the money is collected in the Philippines. That is why Western Union has seven rows at GBP 120 and Paysend has one. The table above keeps only each firm’s lowest row; the spread inside a single firm can be wide, and Western Union’s own rows ran from 3.13% to 10.82%.

The newest round was collected in August 2025, so in October 2026 it is more than a year old. The round before it, First Quarter 2025 (collected January 9 to March 7, 2025), put the averages at 3.42% at GBP 120 and 1.95% at GBP 300. Between the two rounds the average fee at GBP 120 fell from £3.09 to £2.79 and the average margin rose from 0.85% to 1.00%, so the GBP 120 total eased only from 3.42% to 3.33%.

Fee or margin: where each firm puts its cost

The two lowest rows carry no fee at all. MoneyGram’s mobile-wallet product and WorldRemit’s both charged £0.00, so the margin was the entire cost. Wise is the reverse. Its row carries a margin of 0.01%, close to the reference rate, and the cost comes almost wholly from a £1.32 fee. PNB’s row had the same shape with a bigger fee, £5.50 against a 0.06% margin.

Four firms charged the same £1.99 fee on their lowest row: Ria, Remitly, Western Union and Xoom. Their totals still ran from 1.86% to 4.47% at GBP 120, and the whole difference is the margin, from Ria’s 0.20% to Xoom’s 2.81%. A fee comparison alone would have ranked those four as equal.

Across the corridor the fee did most of the work at the smaller amount. At GBP 120 the average fee of £2.79 was about 70% of the average £3.99 total; at GBP 300 the £2.99 fee was about half of the £6.00 total (derived from the survey’s averages). A flat fee shrinks as a share when the amount rises, and a margin does not. PNB’s row falls from 4.64% to 1.89% between the two amounts. MoneyGram’s wallet row, with no fee, stays at 0.44%.

The order also changes at GBP 300. Paysend’s 0.64% comes in below Wise’s 0.81%, and Western Union’s lowest row at GBP 300 is a different product from the one in the table: bank transfer to a bank account, next day, with a £0.99 fee and a 1.80% total.

Cost by payout: GCash, bank account or cash pickup

Wallet payouts had the lowest median, but the group is small: five products from two firms, MoneyGram and WorldRemit. The bank-account and cash groups overlap heavily. Wise’s bank-account row at 1.11% sits below most cash rows, while iRemit’s bank-account row at 8.76% sits above nearly all of them. A median describes the survey, and any one firm can land well away from it.

For a GCash payout the wallet’s own limits apply on top of the transfer. GCash’s Help Center, with limits updated effective October 1, 2026, lists a monthly incoming limit of PHP 5,000 for a Basic profile and PHP 1,000,000 for a Fully Verified adult, with the count resetting on the 1st of the following month. Western Union’s UK GCash page states a different monthly figure, up to PHP 100,000 received, and up to £5,000 per transfer from the UK. The full set of GCash payout terms, provider by provider, is on sending money to GCash from abroad.

What each provider’s UK page posts

None of these pages posts a fee for a stated pound amount that matches the survey’s GBP 120 or GBP 300, which is why the survey table, not this one, carries the cost comparison. Remitly’s posted promotional rate applies only to a new customer’s first GBP 1,000.00 sent.

How long a UK transfer takes, and which rules apply

Of the 38 products priced at GBP 120 in the Q3 2025 survey, 23 sat in the survey’s “less than one hour” band, 7 in same day, 6 in next day and 2 in “6 days or more” (both iRemit). All five mobile-wallet products were in the under-an-hour band.

The UK has a statutory clock for payments, but it does not reach the Philippines. Under regulation 86(1) of the Payment Services Regulations 2017, a payer’s provider credits the payee’s provider by the end of the next business day, and regulation 85 limits that to payments such as sterling transfers made wholly within the UK. For a transfer where the provider of either the sender or the recipient, but not both, is in the UK, regulation 63(3) applies the rules only to the UK part of the transaction and switches off regulation 86(1) to (3) entirely. So the arrival time on a transfer to the Philippines is the provider’s own term, such as Remitly’s posted refund of fees on a late delivery.

Paying in is a separate leg. A bank transfer from a UK account into a provider’s UK account is a sterling payment made within the UK, and since October 30, 2024 regulation 86(2A) to (2D) has let the sending bank hold such a payment where it suspects fraud, for no longer than the end of the fourth business day after it was received.

Regulation 2 defines a business day as one on which the provider “is open for business as required for the execution of a payment transaction”, so a day on which the provider is closed, such as a bank holiday, is not a business day. Over the 2026 Christmas period GOV.UK lists Friday, December 25 (Christmas Day), Monday, December 28 (Boxing Day, substitute day) and Friday, January 1, 2027 (New Year’s Day) for England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Scotland adds Monday, November 30 (St Andrew’s Day) and Monday, January 4, 2027 (2nd January, substitute day). Faster Payments itself runs every day. The Philippine side has its own closures, set out on December remittance timing and holidays.

Checking a UK money transfer firm on the FCA register

Remitly, WorldRemit and LemFi each name the regulated entity and its FCA number on their UK pages. Remitly’s, for example, states that Remitly U.K., Ltd “is authorised as an Electronic Money Institution by the Financial Conduct Authority, FCA Register No. 1047222.”

Authorisation is not the same as compensation cover. The FCA’s compensation page lists “money held with e-money institutions, authorised payment institutions and small payment institutions” among the things the Financial Services Compensation Scheme does not cover.

How much the UK sends home, in BSP figures

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas attributes USD 1.647 billion of 2025 cash remittances to the United Kingdom (preliminary; USD 1.622 billion in 2024). Of the 2025 figure, USD 1.259 billion is land-based and USD 388 million sea-based, the line that carries seafarers’ remittances. That is about 4.6% of the USD 35.634 billion national total (derived). For January to August 2026 the UK figure is USD 1.117 billion, against USD 1.107 billion in the same months of 2025 (BSP Table 11, checked 2026-10-19).

BSP’s own note on that table limits what the UK row means. Remittances routed through correspondent banks, mostly in the US, and money couriers’ remittances are lodged under the country where the main office sits, “which, in many cases is in the US.” The UK row is BSP’s attribution of where the money came from, so some money sent from the UK is counted elsewhere. The national picture, country by country, is on how much OFWs send home.

Related pages

• The cheapest way to send money home: the same survey for the US corridor, product by product.
• Sending money from Canada, the UK and the UAE: what differs between the three corridors.
• Exchange rate vs fees on a remittance: why a £0 fee and a wide margin can cost more.
• UK Christmas shipping cut-off 2026: balikbayan box dates from the UK, for families sending a box as well as money.