Every year, Africans working abroad send tens of billions of dollars home — money that pays school fees, builds houses and keeps small businesses alive. And every year, Africa pays more than any other region on earth for the privilege. Sending $200 to Sub-Saharan Africa cost 8.46% of the amount on average in the third quarter of 2025, according to the World Bank’s Remittance Prices Worldwide database. That is $16.92 gone before the money arrives — the highest average of any region in the world, and nearly triple the target the United Nations set for 2030.
The global average, for comparison, is 6.36% — $12.72 on a $200 transfer. Sending to South Asia costs 5.30%. The gap is not small and it is not new: Sub-Saharan Africa has been the most expensive region to send money to for as long as the World Bank has tracked it. The flows are enormous. The World Bank’s Migration and Development Brief put formal remittances to Sub-Saharan Africa at $54 billion in 2023, with Nigeria alone receiving about $19.5 billion — more than a third of the region’s total.
What $200 actually costs
The headline average hides a wide spread, and the spread is where the money is lost. World Bank figures for the third quarter of 2025, for sending $200:
Through a bank: 14.99% — $29.98 lost
Sub-Saharan Africa average: 8.46% — $16.92 lost
Global average: 6.36% — $12.72 lost
Through an international money transfer operator: 5.52% — $11.04 lost
Through a digital-only operator: 3.54% — $7.08 lost
Choose a digital-only service instead of a bank and $22.90 more of that $200 reaches the family. Scale that up and the waste is staggering — as an illustration only. The 8.46% figure is the average for $200 transfers, not a measured total across all flows, and the $54 billion is a 2023 total priced at third-quarter 2025 rates. But if that $200 average applied to the whole $54 billion, the cost would be about $4.57 billion a year. At the UN’s 3% target it would be $1.62 billion. The difference — roughly $2.95 billion a year — is money that never reaches African households. Thirteen corridors still charge more than 20% to send $200; nine of them are in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Why Africa pays most
Four forces keep the price high. First, competition is thin: in many corridors a handful of providers set the price, and banks — the most expensive channel — still handle a large share of transfers. Second, cash rules. Sending money that is collected in cash, or paid out in cash, costs far more than a transfer that stays digital end to end. Third, exchange-rate margins hide inside the headline fee: the “total cost” the World Bank measures includes both the upfront fee and the gap between the rate the provider offers and the real market rate. Fourth, regulation and compliance costs are passed straight to the sender, and small, fragmented markets give providers little reason to cut prices.
The cheapest channel is also the most African one. GSMA’s State of the Industry Report 2026 found that mobile money moved $45 billion in international remittances in 2025, up 23% on the year, with Sub-Saharan Africa accounting for about three-quarters of the value. GSMA put the benchmark cost of a cross-border mobile money remittance at 3.5% in 2024 — against a 6.4% global average across all methods. That is why the phone, not the bank branch, is the real competition to high fees. Our comparison of Africa’s biggest mobile money markets shows how the rails already exist; the remittance business is now running on them.
What is actually changing
The most promising fix is African-built. The Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS), launched in Accra in January 2022, lets a payer in one African country pay a recipient in another in their own local currencies, without converting through dollars first. It now operates in 32 African countries with more than 280 commercial banks connected, settles payments in under 120 seconds, and says it cuts cross-border payment costs by 85–90% against traditional routes. Transaction volumes grew roughly 1,000% in 2026.
But PAPSS is not a fix for diaspora remittances — and that distinction matters. It moves money within Africa. A payment from London, Toronto or New York to Lagos still travels through SWIFT or a money transfer operator, at the prices in the table above. What PAPSS does is prove that the cost problem is solvable: when payments skip correspondent banks and double currency conversions, the price collapses. The same logic, applied to the corridors from Europe and North America into Africa, is where the next $3 billion sits.
For senders, the practical advice is simple and it is in the data: avoid banks, compare the total cost including the exchange rate rather than the advertised fee, and use a digital service that pays into a mobile money wallet where the recipient already keeps their money. For the small businesses and families that depend on these flows, that choice is worth about $23 on every $200 sent. For more on how small transfers reach people without bank accounts, see our explainer on how microfinance works in Africa.
What to watch
The UN target — under 3% by 2030, with no corridor above 5% — is four years away, and at 6.36% globally and 8.46% for Sub-Saharan Africa, the world is not on track. Three things will decide whether it gets there: the next World Bank price release, covering fourth-quarter 2025 data, which is already overdue; whether regulators in sending countries force providers to show the total cost, fee plus exchange rate, before a transfer; and whether mobile money wallets keep taking share from cash payout. If the digital-only price of 3.54% becomes the norm rather than the exception, the target is reachable. If banks keep the market, it is not.
Frequently asked questions
Why is sending money to Africa so expensive?
Thin competition, cash-based payout, hidden exchange-rate margins and compliance costs. Sub-Saharan Africa averaged 8.46% to send $200 in the third quarter of 2025 — the highest of any region.
What is the cheapest way to send money to Africa?
Digital-only money transfer operators averaged 3.54% in the third quarter of 2025, and mobile money remittances averaged about 3.5% in 2024 — against 14.99% through a bank. Always compare the total cost, fee plus exchange rate.
What is the UN’s 3% remittance target?
Under Sustainable Development Goal 10.c, the average cost of sending remittances should fall below 3% by 2030, with no corridor above 5%. The global average in the third quarter of 2025 was 6.36%.
