How are you sending money to yourself in Germany from the US?

Not from the USA (where I never lived long-term), but from other countries I used just normal bank transfer. It is easy, quick and not overly expensive (at least for larger amounts - don't send just a few hundred Euros!).

I suggest setting up an online presence  with your US bank . That way you have access to your account and you can transfer  funds to your German account.  You could also get your US bank to issue a debit  card back by  your bank account  and when you need money you can go to any atm to withdraw money .  You could also request you bank to send you a cashier's  check  for $ amount , but will then be converted to Euro. If you opt  for a cashier  check, deposit it  by Targobank  ( of course you  must have an account).  Forget Deutsch Bank or Commerz , who don't  like dealing with US banking issues. Wire transfer is also easy, but can be costly, but not always.  It depends  on your bank. I am a pro at moving money from the US to Germany. If you have questions message me  via Facebook.

For me ?


Private Transfers : Cheapest is Paypal / PayPal friends. 0 cent transfer fees. + the added advantage that money is immediately (2 minutes later) available for whoever receives it. Way back the transfer fees of ca >30€ for a larger transaction and still having the transfer to "hold" 2 days in a bank was a total mystery for me in this modern day and age->with computers handling the transaction.  Especially when I am often transferring to a family member or even to my own foreign bank account  it is cheaper with Paypal.

Business Transfers : For business Transfers (ie trusted payments to 3rd parties) the story is different. Paypal charges 2,9% which is exorbitant. I compared DKB with Transferwise and DKB was cheaper. For DKB 0 € transferring out in € and 0€ receiving in €. For incoming transfers in a foreign currency the charge is only 0.1%. Withdrawal charges in foreign country with ATM is 0€. Payment in € or foreign currency is 0€.

So on service fees in any direction DKB wins hands on, without a doubt.

DKB is seated in Germany, whereas Transferwise is on the other side of the English channel and who knows what strange Finance agreements that premier will come up after the fish debacle on Christmas Day, >2020. So the money is also safe in DKB if you are European: For DKB the monitoring of the bank is done by ECB and for Transferwise its an authority in England.
DKB underwrites Visa, whereas Transferwise underwrites Mastercard. Apart from the fact that Visa market cap is slightly larger than Master, they are all well accepted in Europe and the US.

I'm with 3 banks (accountholder) and happy with DKB since 5 years for general international transfers.

Other than that, the traditional banks do no offer similar conditions.

PS. I differentiate between retail private payments and retail private to business payments. Retail private is transfer to people you know and which you have close if something needs to be undone, ie stuff not delivered.

Private to Business payments are people/business that you don't know and where transaction security is required. I'm excluding wire transfers (B2B) since this is a thread for retail banking.

JohannesM wrote:

For me ?


Private Transfers : Cheapest is Paypal / PayPal friends. 0 cent transfer fees. + the added advantage that money is immediately (2 minutes later) available for whoever receives it. Way back the transfer fees of ca >30€ for a larger transaction and still having the transfer to "hold" 2 days in a bank was a total mystery for me in this modern day and age->with computers handling the transaction.  Especially when I am often transferring to a family member or even to my own foreign bank account  it is cheaper with Paypal.

Business Transfers : For business Transfers (ie trusted payments to 3rd parties) the story is different. Paypal charges 2,9% which is exorbitant. I compared DKB with Transferwise and DKB was cheaper. For DKB 0 € transferring out in € and 0€ receiving in €. For incoming transfers in a foreign currency the charge is only 0.1%. Withdrawal charges in foreign country with ATM is 0€. Payment in € or foreign currency is 0€.

So on service fees in any direction DKB wins hands on, without a doubt.

DKB is seated in Germany, whereas Transferwise is on the other side of the English channel and who knows what strange Finance agreements that premier will come up after the fish debacle on Christmas Day, >2020. So the money is also safe in DKB if you are European: For DKB the monitoring of the bank is done by ECB and for Transferwise its an authority in England.
DKB underwrites Visa, whereas Transferwise underwrites Mastercard. Apart from the fact that Visa market cap is slightly larger than Master, they are all well accepted in Europe and the US.

I'm with 3 banks (accountholder) and happy with DKB since 5 years for general international transfers.

Other than that, the traditional banks do no offer similar conditions.

PS. I differentiate between retail private payments and retail private to business payments. Retail private is transfer to people you know and which you have close if something needs to be undone, ie stuff not delivered.

Private to Business payments are people/business that you don't know and where transaction security is required. I'm excluding wire transfers (B2B) since this is a thread for retail banking.

As of last month, Transferwise was rebranded and now called Wise.

The good thing about Wise is if you travel to different countries with different currencies.

PayPal is a rip off, they give you a really bad exchange rate.
No fee, but this rate makes it more in expensive in end.
XE trade is easily the best way to move money
Least expensive by far.

PayPal rate is a rip off, XE trade is your best deal.

A few money transfer companies are already mentioned. The thing is that one usually needs a bank account in Germany to receive money and this is now complicated for Americans. Commerzbank for example only allows a basic giro account but not a depot for investments. Some German banks won't take American clients at all. But direct bank transfer works from the States, the cost totally depends on the bank. Some have high fees others possibly no fee but in all such matters one should also look at the exchange rate offered. Plenty of services trick people with low or no fee but bad rates.

I came here back in the day so I'd converted all of my money into traveller's checks, opened a bank account here and deposited them. But I somehow feel this is probably an obsolete way of dealing with things now...

I think as others have said, it's probably just easiest to open a bank account here and use bank transfers to do it. I'm not sure about American banks (no experience there unfortunately), but from a Canadian bank it's fairly uncomplicated to send a direct transfer to an EU bank account.