What an Overseas Client Actually Costs You
Disclosure: No tool on this page pays us anything. We have no arrangement with Stripe or PayPal. We also have not costed Wise or Payoneer — the two names most often recommended for this exact problem — because their pricing pages redirected us to a Japanese version we could not use. That is a real gap in this article and it is stated up front rather than buried.
A client in another country pays the same invoice and you receive less of it. How much less is not a rounding error: on $3,000 it ranges from $45 to $87, depending on two surcharges most people never see itemised. One of the two is avoidable, and the escape hatch that rescues domestic invoices does not work here at all.
The answer
Budget 4.4% to 5.8%, not 2.9%. And invoice in your own currency — that alone is worth 1%.
- 🌎International card surcharge: +1.5% at both Stripe and PayPal. Unavoidable if the card was issued abroad.
- 💰Currency conversion: +1% at Stripe. This one is avoidable — bill in the currency your account holds.
- ❌The bank-transfer trick does not work across a border. ACH is a US rail. The route that turns a $5,000 fee from $165 into $5 domestically is simply not available.
- ✅Cheapest verified route: your own Stripe account through free invoicing software, billed in USD — 4.4% + 30¢.
Jump to: The two surcharges Six routes, one invoice The 1% you can avoid What we have not costed Which one are you?
Two surcharges, stacked on the ordinary rate
Neither Stripe nor PayPal hides these. Both publish them. What neither does is show you the total, because the total depends on facts about your client that the pricing page does not know.
| Surcharge | Stripe | PayPal | Avoidable? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Card issued outside your country | +1.5% | +1.50% | No |
| Currency conversion required | +1% | Spread, not published as a rate | Often yes |
| Invoicing software fee | +0.4% (Stripe Invoicing) | — | Yes |
| The vendor’s own button | — | +0.5% (PayPal vs card) | Partly — you can ask |
Four lines, and only one of them is genuinely fixed. That is the useful news buried in an unpleasant subject: most of the overseas premium is configuration rather than geography.
Six routes, one $3,000 invoice
| Route | Rate | On $3,000 | Over domestic |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stripe, domestic card | 2.90% + 30¢ | $87.30 | — |
| Stripe, overseas, billed in USD | 4.40% + 30¢ | $132.30 | +$45.00 |
| PayPal, overseas, paid by card | 4.49% + 49¢ | $135.19 | +$47.89 |
| PayPal, overseas, PayPal button | 4.99% + 49¢ | $150.19 | +$62.89 |
| Stripe, overseas + conversion | 5.40% + 30¢ | $162.30 | +$75.00 |
| Stripe Invoicing, overseas + conversion | 5.80% + 30¢ | $174.30 | +$87.00 |
The 1% you can decide not to pay
Stripe charges an extra 1% if currency conversion is required. Conversion is required when the invoice is denominated in a currency your Stripe balance does not hold. It is not required when you invoice in your own currency and let the client’s bank do the converting.
What that one decision is worth:
$500 invoice → $5.00 · $1,000 → $10.00 · $3,000 → $30.00 · $10,000 → $100.00
Same client, same work, same day. The difference is which currency symbol is at the top of the document.
There is a fairness question inside this, and it is worth being straight about: billing in your own currency does not make the conversion free, it moves it to the client. Their bank will apply its own rate, and a client who ends up paying more than they expected is a client who negotiates harder next time. For small invoices that is a poor trade. For large ones, where 1% is $100, having the conversation is usually better than absorbing it silently.
What does not work
On Square, Stripe and PayPal alike, the single biggest saving available to a domestic business is asking to be paid by bank transfer — a $5,000 invoice falling from $165 to somewhere between $5 and $50. None of that is available across a border. ACH is a United States rail; it does not reach a client in Berlin or São Paulo.
That is the real reason overseas invoices are expensive. It is not that the surcharges are large — 1.5% is not outrageous. It is that the cheap escape route closes, and you are left choosing between cards at 4.4% and cards at 5.8%.
What we have not costed, and should have
Wise and Payoneer. Both exist precisely for this problem — local receiving account details in several countries, so an overseas client makes a domestic transfer in their own country and you receive it as a foreign-currency balance. That structure sidesteps the card rails entirely and is the obvious candidate for beating every figure on this page. We could not read either company’s US pricing from where we are: Wise redirected us to a Japanese page and the receiving-fees URL returned an error. Rather than quote figures we have not seen, we are telling you the gap exists. If you invoice abroad regularly, that is the page to read next, and it is not this one.
PayPal’s conversion spread. PayPal applies a currency conversion spread on top of the percentages above. It is not published as a single rate and we did not establish it. The PayPal figures here are therefore best case.
Country. All figures are the US schedules for a US-based recipient. The direction of an international payment matters: what a US freelancer pays to receive from Germany is not what a German freelancer pays to receive from the US.
Which one are you?
Which one are you?
💵 I invoice overseas clients for large amounts
Bill in your own currency and use your own Stripe account through free invoicing software. That is 4.4% + 30¢ — the cheapest verified route here. And read up on Wise or Payoneer before you accept 4.4% as the floor; we could not cost them, but the structure suggests they beat it.
💳 My overseas clients pay with the PayPal button
That is 4.99% + 49¢ — the second most expensive route on this page. Asking them to use a card instead saves 0.5%. On $3,000 that is $15 for one sentence in an email.
🧾 Small invoices, many countries
The percentages hurt less than you think and the fixed fee hurts more. At $200 the 49¢ is a quarter of a percent on its own. Consolidate into fewer, larger invoices before you optimise the processor.
🛠️ I am using Stripe Invoicing for overseas work
This is the most expensive configuration on the page — 5.8% + 30¢. Switch the invoice-making to Zoho Invoice or Invoice Ninja, keep the same Stripe account, and drop 0.4% immediately. Nothing else changes.
🏠 Actually most of my clients are domestic
Then this page is not your problem — ask for bank transfer and your $3,000 invoice costs $5 to $30 instead of $87. See Stripe vs PayPal for the domestic arithmetic, which is far more favourable.
The thing that actually decides it
Not the processor. The two cheapest overseas routes on this page are $2.89 apart on a $3,000 invoice — Stripe and PayPal have converged, and choosing between them is not where your money is.
Your money is in three decisions that cost nothing to make: invoice in your own currency (worth 1%), do not pay a percentage for invoice software (worth 0.4%), and ask for a card rather than the PayPal button (worth 0.5%). Together that is nearly two percentage points, which on the same $3,000 invoice is $57 — more than the entire annual cost of most tools reviewed on this site.
And then find out about Wise and Payoneer, because we could not, and the structure of what they do suggests the number on this page is not the floor.
Related: Stripe vs PayPal for a business of one — the domestic arithmetic. Is Stripe Invoicing actually free?, Is PayPal Invoicing actually free? and Best invoicing software for a business of one.