When a cross-border payment arrives short, the usual explanation is that every intermediary bank on the way took a fee of its own. "Typically, each intermediary bank can charge anywhere between 15-50 USD per transaction", says a widely read guide, and the fees "can stack up quickly" when there is more than one. Meow, whose business-banking platform Stifel Bank plans to offer its venture and fund clients from early 2027, tells its customers that it has no knowledge of what intermediary banks charge, and that the fee is typically 10 to 35 dollars on an international dollar wire. Measured figures are scarce: a BIS working paper published in October 2026 notes that transaction-level data on these wire transfers is not publicly available, and the FSB found in its 2024 report that "it is unknown at what stage that fee was actually collected". We measured both: how much was taken, and which bank took it.
We took a sample of cross-border payments in US dollars and euros sent in 2025 and 2026, and compared the amount sent with the amount the beneficiary's bank confirmed it had credited, in the same currency, leaving currency conversions aside. Payments rejected on the way are left out. Of 5,527 dollar payments analyzed, 3,626 arrived whole and 1,901 arrived short by a dollar or more. Most of the short ones were cut once, by one bank: the first after the sender's own.
The median cut was 26.76 dollars. A quarter of the short payments lost 51 dollars or more, and one in ten lost 77 or more. The most common amounts were round ones: 10 dollars (245 payments), 20 (118) and 25 (94). Against the 15 to 50 dollars usually quoted for each bank, 835 of the 1,901 cuts fell inside that range, 575 below it and 491 above it.
US dollar payments that arrived short, by the amount taken
Under 15 dollars: 575 payments
15 to 50 dollars: 835 payments
Over 50 dollars: 491 payments
It was a fee per payment, not a share of it. Payments under 10,000 dollars lost a median of 20 dollars, 0.58% of the amount. Payments of 100,000 dollars or more lost a median of 25, under 0.01%. The smaller the payment, the larger the cut in proportion.
Whether a payment lost anything at all was decided mostly by the charge code its sender chose (field 71A of the payment message, ChrgBr in the ISO 20022 pacs.008 message). Where the payment's instruction stated it, 68 of 72 payments sent SHA arrived short, by a median of 50 dollars, against 7 of 151 sent OUR, by a median of 10. Our article on paying a supplier abroad measures how often the full amount arrives under each code.
The fees did not stack. On 766 short dollar payments where every bank that handled the payment reported the amount it passed on, 658 lost money at one bank only, 105 at two and 3 at three. Stacking needs a long chain, and long chains are the exception: the FSB counts zero or one intermediary between the sending and the receiving bank on more than 84% of wholesale payments.
Short US dollar payments, by the number of banks that took a cut
One bank: 658 payments
Two banks: 105 payments
Three banks: 3 payments
The bank that took the cut was usually the first one after the sender's own: the bank the sending bank holds its account with for that currency. Where the bank that took a cut is identified on the payment's chain, that first bank took 422 of 602 cuts and 79% of the money, with a median of 25.69 dollars. A later intermediary took 51 cuts. The beneficiary's own bank took 127 as it credited the payment, mostly small ones, with a median of 7.70 dollars.
So a short payment usually carries one bank's price, and that price is set by the bank the sending bank routes the currency through. The question worth putting to a bank before a payment goes is not how many banks will handle it, but which bank it sends that currency through, and whether that bank takes its fee out of the payment.
Of 1,156 euro payments analyzed, 96 arrived short by a euro or more. None of the 59 sent OUR did. When a euro payment was cut, the median was 35 euros, and one in ten lost 110 euros or more; the most common cut was 20 euros (14 payments). On 57 short euro payments where every bank reported, 42 were cut by one bank, 12 by two and 3 by three.
Sending OUR makes the sending bank pay the banks it has an arrangement with, so the first bank's fee is no longer taken out of the payment. A guaranteed OUR, which some banks sell for dollar payments, extends that to every bank on the way. Both are covered, with bank tariffs, in our article on supplier payments. Where SHA is the only option, the amount to add on top of an invoice is one fee, not one per bank: a median of 50 dollars on the dollar payments sent SHA here.
The route of a payment, and what the bank it passes through typically takes, can be checked before it is sent in our payment planning tool.
Correspondent banking data, settlement instructions and payment cost intelligence for cross-border treasury operations.