Remitly Review 2026: Fees, Features & Use Cases for India

With 3.4% of the global population comprising international migrants, it was only a given that applications like Remitly would establish a presence in the market for money transfer services. Remitly supports 100 currencies, enabling immigrants from 170 countries to send remittances to their families.

But does Remitly support making business payments? What is its fee structure, and how fast does it send money across borders? Let’s find out with the help of this article.

• Remitly is a U.S. based money transfer platform mostly used by immigrants and expats to send money to their families in different countries.
• Remitly supports delivery options such as bank deposits, cash pickups and UPI account transfers. Moreover, it has global coverage of 170 countries and supports 100 currencies. 
• Remitly charges a $1.99 USD transaction fee for transfers to India below $1000 USD. Its exchange rate depends on whether you choose Remitly Express or Remitly Economy.
• Standard Remitly app falls under RBI’s Liberal Remittance Scheme, while Remitly Business only allows U.S small businesses to make payments, making it unsuitable for Indian exporters. 
• Xflow serves as a fast and secure alternative for Remitly, allowing exporters to receive payments from 140+ countries, with mid-market linked FX rates and a transparent fee structure.

Remitly is a U.S. based digital payments platform for international money transfers. It is mostly used by expats and immigrants to send money to their loved ones, but it also supports U.S. based small businesses in making payments to freelancers, vendors, or contractors.

Remitly allows its users to make fast and reliable money transfers with reasonable exchange rates and a transparent fee structure. It supports a wide global network of 170 countries and enables receiving money as bank deposits, cash pickup, mobile wallets or in UPI accounts.

Remitly is one of the major companies in the global market for money transfer services. It owes its fame to the following features.

1. Multiple delivery options 

Remitly supports multiple methods of receiving money. Based on their recipients' location, it can be cash pick-ups, mobile wallets, debit card deposits, or bank deposits. Indians can receive Remitly money transfers through bank accounts, cash pickup or UPI accounts.

2. Global coverage

Remitly has wide global coverage, allowing users to send money across 170 countries in over 100 currencies. It connects senders to billions of bank accounts, mobile wallets and thousands of cash pickup locations.

3. On-time delivery

Before sending money, Remitly gives a specified time under which the money will be delivered to the recipient. It offers two transfer methods, Economy and Express. Remitly Economy takes 3-5 days to deliver and has a lower transaction fee, while Remitly Express offers quick transfers but with a higher fee.

Remitly allows senders and receivers to track the money. If it fails to send money within the stipulated time, users will be refunded the transaction fee.

4. 24/7 support

As a service that works across different time zones and countries, Remitly offers 24/7 customer support in 18 languages to its users.

Remitly allows transfers to India from 30+ countries. The sender can send money through bank accounts, credit cards, debit cards and other options depending on the sending country.

Recipients in India can receive these transfers via bank deposits, cash pickups or UPI.

Remitly charges two types of fees to its senders: the exchange rate fee and the transfer fee. As Remitly promises “no hidden fees”, these charges are revealed to the sender in the Transfer summary before sending money. 

1. Exchange rate fee

Remitly gives its customers a quoted exchange rate that is higher than the mid-market rate. These are the exchange rate fees that Remitly applies to its transfers. For new customers, Remitly offers a promotional FX rate on their first transfers.

Promotional FX rates are available upon meeting a certain transfer amount, which varies depending on the country of the recipient. For transfers made to India, promotional FX rates are only applied upon meeting the promotional cap of $6000 USD. If your transfer amount exceeds $6000 USD, then Remitly applies its non-promotional FX rates.

2. Transfer fee

Remitly also applies a transfer fee to the sender when the transfer amount is below a certain threshold. It applies a $1.99 USD transfer fee for every transaction below $1000 USD to India.

Remitly Economy and Remitly Express are transfer methods offered by it. They vary based on their fee structure and speed.

Remitly Economy

Remitly Economy is a slow yet cheaper method of cross-border money transfers. It applies a favourable exchange rate, which is slightly lower than the mid-market rate, but it takes approximately 3-5 days to deliver the money to the recipient. 

Remitly Express

Remitly Express is a faster way to make cross-border money transfers. It can deliver the money to the recipient within a few minutes, but the exchange rate applied to Express transfers is lower than the one applied to Economy transfers, making them more expensive.

Remitly limits how much money can be sent in 24 hours, 30 days and 180 days. These limits depend on the location of the sender and receiver, the payout option and verification details provided by the sender.

To access higher transfer limits, a sender can make a request to Remitly. They would be required to share additional details to verify their identity and answer certain questions about their sending activity. The additional details include

1. Name, date of birth and address.
2. Passport, Social Security number or any other government-issued identity document
3. Secondary supporting documents like utility bills
4. Bank statements or pay stubs 
5. Reasons for sending money, source of income and current occupation

Remitly was designed for immigrants and expats to send money to their family members or friends across borders. In India, it operates under the Liberalised Remittance Scheme (LRS), and therefore should strictly be used for receiving remittances from family and friends.

While Remitly business can be used for receiving commercial payments, only small businesses in the U.S, Canada and the United Kingdom can make payments through it. Therefore, it is not suitable for B2C Indian exporters or B2B businesses that have clients outside of these countries.

Like Remitly, there are other money service platforms that are famous for person-to-person transfers across the globe. Xoom, Wise and Western Union are some examples of them. The table below shows how they compare to Remitly.

While Remitly is famous among its users for quick and easy cross-border transfers, many users raise common issues and complaints.

Many Remitly users have complained that their transfers have not gone through. Even after raising complaints with its customer support, they were left stranded for days, with the money neither received by the recipient nor refunded to the sender.  

Although Remitly is a renowned money transfer platform, it comes with certain limitations that make it unsuitable for Indian Freelancers and Business exporters to receive money.

The first and foremost issue is that the standard Remitly app is designed for immigrants to send money for family support, gifts or education expenses. This means that it operates under the RBI’s Liberalised Remittance Scheme (LRS) and does not support making business payments.

Although Remitly Business has now allowed small businesses to pay their vendors, contractors or freelancers, this service is limited to businesses in the United States of America, Canada and the United Kingdom. An Indian exporter with customers outside of the U.S will not be able to receive money through Remitly.

And even if you are an exporter that exclusively does business in the U.K., U.S. or Canada, issues like transfer limits, 3-5 days of delivery time, and an exchange rate above the mid-market rate would still end up affecting your business operations and cutting into your profits.

Instead of limiting yourself to the U.S. market with Remitly’s business service, choose Xflow’s payment platform to receive fast cross-border payments, with transparent pricing and FX rates linked to mid-market rates.

Xflow is a fast and secure cross-border payment solution that enables Indian businesses and freelancers to receive payments from 140+ countries. It supports 25+ currencies, including USD, EUR, GBP, AUD, CAD, etc. 

Key Features

1. Receive instant payments in virtual accounts that get settled in your bank account in 1 business day.
2. Offers transparent pricing directly linked to the mid-market rate and charges a nominal fee at the time of withdrawal. 
3. Generates eFIRA for international transactions within 24 hours.
4. Has ISO 27001 and SOC-2 certifications, making it a secure and reliable platform for receiving international payments.
5. An extensive API framework that provides you with multiple avenues to monetise your cross-border payment transactions.

Remitly has established its presence in the global market for money service business, but it is not suitable for everyone. It mainly focuses on allowing immigrants to send remittances to their families. Although the Remittly business allows making payments to freelancers, contractors or vendors, it can only be used by small businesses in the U.S.

For business exporters and freelancers in India, it is better to use Xflow for receiving cross-border payments. It enables you to receive instant payments in your virtual accounts from 140+ countries, with mid-market FX rates and a transparent fee structure.