International Money Transfer Regulations in the UK

The regulators: who oversees international money transfers

The companies that deal with your money are watched by real bodies with real powers to fine them, restrict them, or shut them down, but you mostly only need to know one name, FCA.

The rules the regulators enforce

Three sets of rules do most of the work in the UK, and it's the regulators above, chiefly the FCA, that enforce them.

You don't need to memorise these, but you'll see them referenced across this page:

• Payment Services Regulations 2017: the main rulebook for sending and moving money.

• Electronic Money Regulations 2011: the rules for e-money companies, which covers most app-based providers.

• Money Laundering Regulations 2017: the anti-crime rules behind the ID checks you're asked to complete when signing up.

The international transfers side

Two things sit in the background of any cross-border transfer.

The UK's anti-money-laundering rules follow global standards set by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the international body most countries align to.

The payout side is regulated in the destination country, not by the UK.

Once your money lands, the receiving provider answers to that country's regulator.

Your UK protections cover the sending side.

Authorised vs registered

If you take one thing from this page, make it this.

Every legitimate money transfer provider in the UK sits in one of two categories with the FCA: authorised or registered.

Operating without either is a criminal offence, so any real provider will be one or the other.

The two words look similar and sound interchangeable, but they are not.

The gap between them is the difference between your money being protected by law and it not being protected at all.

Here's how they compare.

Safeguarding: how your money is kept safe

So if money transfer firms aren't covered by the FSCS (more on that in a second), what actually protects your money? A system called safeguarding.

What safeguarding means

Safeguarding is a simple idea, a company has to keep your money completely separate from its own.

When you load funds into a transfer app or hand cash to a provider, that money can't be used to run the business and can't be grabbed by the firm's creditors if it goes under.

It's ring-fenced and held for you.

In practice, firms do this one of two ways:

A separate account:

Your money sits in a dedicated "segregated" account at a major bank, kept apart from the firm's own cash.

This is how the vast majority of companies do it.

Insurance or a guarantee:

Less common, but some companies cover customer funds with an insurance policy or bank guarantee instead.

Either way the point is the same, if the firm fails, that pot of money is legally yours, not part of the wreckage to be divided among everyone the firm owes.

This is not the same as FSCS protection!

When you keep money in a UK bank, the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) guarantees up to £120,000 per person, per bank.

If the bank collapses, that government-backed scheme pays you back.

Money held with a money transfer or e-money firm does not get this. No FSCS cover, no £120,000 guarantee, no government backstop.

Your protection is safeguarding instead (explained above). Your own money, ring-fenced and returned to you, rather than a compensation scheme topping you up.

The two aren't better or worse, just different:

• FSCS is a guarantee with a cap, backed by the state, even if the money is gone.

• Safeguarding has no cap, because it's your actual money coming back, but it's only as good as the firm's record-keeping.

If a failed firm kept messy accounts or dipped into the funds, there can be a shortfall, and getting your money back can take time.

What changed in May 2026

That "only as good as the firm's records" weakness is exactly what regulators are trying to fix.

In May 2026 the FCA brought in the biggest overhaul of safeguarding in over a decade (the rules are known as PS25/12), after a run of companies failed with shortfalls in customer money, leaving people out of pocket or waiting months to be repaid.

The new rules tighten things a lot. Stricter record-keeping, regular checks that the ring-fenced pot actually matches what customers are owed, annual safeguarding audits, and closer FCA monitoring so problems get caught early rather than after a collapse.

The aim is fewer shortfalls, and customers getting their money back faster when companies fail.

If FSCS-level protection matters to you

If you want the full government guarantee, use a provider that holds a UK banking licence, where deposits are FSCS-protected, rather than a pure e-money firm.

For most people sending money abroad it's a non-issue, the funds only sit in the app briefly on their way out.

The risk is highest if you keep large balances in an e-money app for a long time, which these services aren't built for anyway.

What happens if a provider fails

Payment companies do occasionally fail.

It's rare among the large, established names, but it happens, and safeguarding is the reason your money isn't simply gone when it does.

Here’s what happens if things go wrong.

The return process

When a firm collapses, an administrator (an insolvency specialist) takes over.

Your money isn't part of the firm's own assets, it's in the ring-fenced pool set aside for customers.

That pool is treated separately, and customers have first call on it, ahead of the firm's ordinary creditors.

The administrator works out who is owed what, then returns the money from that pool.

That's the theory, and it's a real protection. However, this is true on paper, and doesn’t always work this way.

It can take time.

Returning safeguarded funds isn't instant. Historically it has taken months, and in the worst cases years, before customers saw their money.

You might not get all of it back.

And there are two reasons for it.

First, the cost of running the distribution can come out of the pool itself.

Second, and more seriously, if the firm didn't safeguard properly, the pool can be smaller than what customers are actually owed.

The FCA found that among payment firms that failed between 2018 and 2023, customers faced an average shortfall of around 65% between what they were owed and what had been safeguarded, and for e-money companies it was worse.

In those cases, people got back a fraction of their money.

AML, ID checks and sanctions

If you've ever been asked to upload your passport to a money transfer app, or had a payment paused midway through sending money abroad, this is why.

It isn't the firm being difficult, it's the law, and the same law applies to everyone.

The rules come from the Money Laundering Regulations 2017.

They require any firm moving your money to know who you are and be reasonably confident the money is legitimate.

That shows up in three ways you'll actually notice:

Why a transfer gets held

Most delays come from an automated system flagging something for a human to review, these can be things like:

• A name that resembles one on a sanctions list (false matches are common, especially with common names)

• An unusually large amount

• A brand-new recipient

• A higher-risk destination

• Incomplete recipient details

• Etc.

Above a certain threshold, transfers legally have to carry full and accurate sender and recipient information, so a single wrong digit or a blank field is a surprisingly common cause of a stalled or rejected payment.

Most flags clear quickly once you confirm the details.

Why they sometimes won't explain

Occasionally a company is vague about why something is held, which can be very annoying. We get a lot of reviews from people complaining about exactly this.

However, sometimes, companies are required to be vague.

If a firm suspects a transfer is linked to crime, it may have to report it to the National Crime Agency, and the law forbids it from tipping you off that it has done so.

So an unhelpful-sounding answer isn't always unhelpful staff.

That said, this is a rare exception. The overwhelming majority of holds are routine checks that clear on their own or with a quick reply from you.

Fraud protection and APP reimbursement

The protection many have heard about, doesn't really apply when you're sending money abroad.

What APP fraud is

APP stands for Authorised Push Payment.

It's the kind of fraud where you are tricked into authorising a payment yourself. You're deceived about who you're really paying, or why.

Think of a fake "your account's been compromised, move your money to this safe account" call, a phishing invoice from a supplier whose email was hacked, a romance or investment scammer, or a too-good-to-be-true deal, etc.

Because you approved the payment, it isn't "unauthorised" fraud like a stolen card.

You sent it, which is what historically made it so hard to get back.

The mandatory reimbursement scheme

Since October 2024, the UK has had a mandatory reimbursement scheme for APP fraud.

If you're tricked into sending money, your bank or provider has to refund you, up to £120,000 per claim, with the cost split evenly between the firm that sent the money and the one that received it.

It replaced an older voluntary code, and it's been working really well. Fraud losses over the affected system fell by around a fifth in its first year.

But there’s a condition, called the consumer standard of caution.

If you ignored clear warnings or acted with what's judged to be gross negligence, a provider can reduce or refuse the payout.

Vulnerable customers are protected from that exception, and companies can also apply a small excess, up to £100 per claim.

But… it doesn't cover international transfers

The mandatory scheme covers UK domestic bank transfers made over Faster Payments and CHAPS.

It explicitly does not cover international payments.

The regulator's own rules list them as out of scope, and in practice a large share of the fraud claims that get turned down are the cross-border ones.

So the moment your money is heading abroad, the automatic legal right to a refund falls away.

Two other things it doesn't cover are civil disputes (you paid a genuine business and the goods never arrived, which is a dispute, not fraud) and payments between your own accounts.

What protection you actually have when sending money abroad

Not nothing, but less, and none of it is a guaranteed refund:

The provider's own fraud checks and warnings.

Good providers screen for scam patterns and warn you before a risky payment. That's prevention, not compensation.

Card protections are limited here.

If you funded a transfer by card, chargeback and Section 75 exist, but they're built for purchases that went wrong, not for money you were talked into sending to a fraudster.

Don't count on them to rescue an international transfer.

Recovery gets very hard once it lands.

After the money reaches an account abroad, getting it back usually depends on the provider recalling it (often unsuccessfully) and on foreign authorities.

You need to be fast with this, report it the moment you suspect something.

You can still complain, and escalate.

Even without the mandatory scheme, you can complain to the provider and take it to the Financial Ombudsman, which will judge whether the firm did enough to protect you.

Cutting your risks

Be wary of anyone creating urgency ("send it today or you'll lose it"), anyone telling you to move money abroad to "keep it safe", romance or investment contacts who eventually ask for a transfer, and a supplier or landlord whose bank details suddenly change.

Slow down, and verify the request through a channel you already trust, not the number or link in the message itself.

This area is changing

The scheme is under review.

The regulator is due to consult at the end of 2026 on parts of it, and responsibility is moving from the PSR to the FCA.

The cap, the split and the caution rules could all be revisited, so treat the specifics above as current for now.

Sending large amounts: limits, reporting and tax

Sending a large sum abroad often feels like it should require some special permission. No, it doesn't.

It's perfectly legal, and there's no UK cap on how much you can send.

What you'll actually run into is provider limits, more checks, and, in a few specific situations, a reporting duty or a tax question.

Is there a limit?

There's no legal limit on how much you can send out of the UK.

The limits you'll meet are the provider's own, such as caps per transfer, per day, per month or per year that vary by provider, by how fully verified your account is, by how you're paying, and by the destination.

For a large one-off transfer, say a property purchase, a specialist currency broker usually handles big sums more comfortably than an app built around smaller, frequent payments.

Do you have to report it?

For a normal electronic transfer, no.

You don't personally report anything. The company does its own monitoring and reporting behind the scenes, your only job is to answer questions if they're asked.

The only time you have to report is if you physically carry over £10,000 or more across the border. But this has nothing to do with international money transfers.

What about tax?

Sending money abroad isn't taxed in itself. There's no tax simply for moving your own money across a border.

What can be taxed is the money behind the transfer, depending on what it is and your circumstances.

A large gift can bring inheritance-tax rules into play for the person giving it.

Moving income or investment gains, for example the proceeds of selling a property overseas, may be taxable.

This is general information, not tax advice. If a transfer might have tax implications, check the guidance on GOV.UK, HMRC, or speak to a qualified accountant or tax adviser.

How to check a provider is FCA authorised

You can verify any provider yourself in a couple of minutes, for free, using the FCA's own website.

It's the single most useful check you can do before trusting a company with your money.

Red flags to look out for

You’ve looked up the firm, here are the red flags to look out for:

• The firm isn't on the register at all, or shows as "no longer authorised".

• It's on the register, but without permission for payment services or e-money, for example a firm registered only for anti-money-laundering checks.

• The website has contact details that don't match the register.

• You’re asked to act fast, urgently, or given an offer that sounds too good to be true.

• A company that brushes off your questions or discourages you from checking the FCA registrar.

An unauthorised firm means none of the protections on this page apply… no safeguarding guarantee, no access to the Financial Ombudsman, no realistic recourse if it disappears with your money.

Don't send anything.

If you can't find a company, or something doesn't add up, call the FCA on 0800 111 6768 and report suspected scams to them.

Complaints and the Financial Ombudsman

If a provider gets something wrong, there's a clear and free process to put it right, and you don't need a lawyer or a paid claims company to use it.

Step 1: Complain to the provider

Always start here.

The Ombudsman won't look at a complaint the firm hasn't had a chance to fix first, so give it that chance first.

Put it in writing, and say clearly that it's a formal complaint so it gets logged as one.

Keep it factual, include what happened, when, and what outcome you want (a refund, a fee reversed, a correction, an apology).

For a money transfer or payment complaint, the firm has to send a written "final response" within 15 business days, or up to 35 in exceptional cases.

That's quicker than the 8-week limit that applies to most other financial complaints.

Keep a record of everything as you go, the dates, reference numbers, screenshots, and any replies.

Step 2: Take it to the Financial Ombudsman

If the final response doesn't satisfy you, or the deadline passes without one, you can refer the complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS).

It's free and independent, and you don't need a claims-management company to do it for you.

Don't pay one, the service is free either way.

You have 6 months from the date of the firm's final response to refer to it. If you miss it, the FOS usually can't help, so don't drag it out.

Once this is done, FOS weighs what's fair and reasonable, not just whether the firm stuck to the letter of its terms, and it asks both sides for evidence.

An investigator gives a view first, if either side disagrees, it goes to an ombudsman for a final decision.

If you accept that decision, it's binding on the firm and can order it to put things right, including a refund, compensation, or a fee waiver.

If you don't accept it, you're still free to take the matter to court instead.

If you’re still not satisfied, FOS is the end of the free route.

Beyond that point it is only the court left, and is outside of the scope of this guide.