Who Bears the Charges
Three standard instructions decide who pays each fee, and the default one puts the middle on you.
Still yours, and statedTaken, never statedUnit changes; scale restarts
Three steps from instruction to arrival. The last figure either side sees in the original currency.
The three standard charge instructions, read against who actually ends up paying
Charges shared, each side paying its own bank
You, mostlyLands as: The sender pays their fee from their own account; you pay your receiving fee and everything taken in transit, which is the larger half
Ask for instead: Charges to the sender, which is one field on the same form
All charges to the sender
The payerLands as: Every fee in the chain is billed back to the sender, and the figure instructed is the figure that arrives
Ask for instead: Nothing: this is the term to ask for, and it is frequently granted
All charges to the beneficiary
You, entirelyLands as: Each institution deducts from the money as it passes, including your own bank on arrival
Ask for instead: Charges to the sender; this instruction has no advantage to you at all
No instruction given, so the system default applies
YouLands as: The default on most corridors is the shared option, chosen by software rather than by anybody
Ask for instead: Ask what their system defaults to, because they will usually not know
A consumer service with no charge option at all
YouLands as: The service quotes a sent amount and a rate, and the deductions are inside the rate rather than itemised
Ask for instead: A quote for the landed amount, which some services will give and others will not
Charges agreed in the contract but not matched by the instruction
Nobody checked, so youLands as: The contract says one thing, the payment file says another, and the payment file is what happens
Ask for instead: A copy of one payment confirmation, once, to see which instruction is actually used
Six arrangements, and in five of them the cost lands on the person who did not choose the route. One person's own arrangement, read against six months of payments; what any bank or service offers, and what each code is called, differ by institution and by country.
Three standard instructions decide who pays each fee in an international transfer. The default one splits them in a way that puts the whole middle of the journey on you.
The payment record in “Who Bears the Charges” becomes more useful when the work behind it is equally clear. A distributed team considering review the linked platform information for does microsoft teams track your activity can connect approved time and projects with invoices or payroll inputs, while keeping exchange rates, fees and accounting decisions in the responsible financial system.
Most payers have never looked at which one their system sends, because it is a field with a sensible-sounding name that was set once.
The questions in “Who Bears the Charges” can also be checked against Mastercard payment resources. Use the outside resource to identify what evidence to request rather than assuming one provider sees the whole payment chain.
The three instructions
Charges shared, charges to the sender, charges to the beneficiary. Every bank has them, most payment files carry one, and the words differ between institutions while the three meanings do not.
Knowing the three exist is most of what this note is for:
- Charges shared: each party pays its own bank, and the middle comes out of the money.
- Charges to the sender: every fee in the chain is billed back to them.
- Charges to the beneficiary: each institution deducts as the money passes, including theirs.
The rest is deciding which one you want.
The codes themselves are worth learning once, because they appear on confirmations and in payment files and nobody expands them. Three letters, three meanings, and the whole of this note.
What shared actually means
Not that the cost is halved. It means each party pays its own bank, and every institution in between deducts from the money as it passes.
That middle region is where the correspondent deductions live, and under this instruction they come out of your money. It is the default on most corridors.
What charges to the sender means
Every fee in the chain is billed back to the sender's account, and the amount instructed is the amount credited.
It is the instruction that makes an agreed figure actually arrive. Senders sometimes believe it is expensive; on most routes it costs them a modest flat fee.
It is also the term most likely to be already available in their banking software as a tick box. Whether anybody has ever ticked it is a separate question.
What charges to the beneficiary means
Each institution takes its cut from the money in transit, including the sender's own bank. It exists for cases where the recipient has agreed to carry everything.
Nothing about it benefits you. If you find it on your payments, it was set in error or inherited from a template.
Finding out which one you are on
Ask the payer for one payment confirmation and look for the field. It is usually a three-letter code or a line in plain words.
This is a five-minute request that answers a question people spend months speculating about. Most payers will send it without comment.
What to ask for
Charges to the sender, named in the contract and matched in the payment instruction. Both halves matter: a contract term with a payment file that still says shared changes nothing.
Ask the payer to confirm the instruction once, in writing, after the first payment under the new term.
Why payers agree
The cost to them is small, usually a flat fee per payment, and it removes a recurring conversation about shortfalls that costs their finance team more time than the fee.
Framing it that way works better than framing it as fairness. It is also true.
Where it does not apply
Payment services and fintech platforms frequently have no charge instruction at all. They quote a sent amount and a rate, and the margin is inside the rate rather than itemised as a fee.
For those the equivalent question is whether they will quote the landed amount. Some will.
Local transfers inside a currency area
Where both accounts are in the same payment area, charges are typically shared by regulation and the fees are small.
That is the cheap case and it is worth knowing when it applies, because it changes which of the terms in this collection are worth negotiating at all.
The instruction and the contract disagreeing
Common. The contract was drafted once and the payment file is generated by a system nobody edited.
The payment file wins, every month, until somebody checks. One confirmation, read once, settles whether you have the term you negotiated.
Keeping it after people change
The finance person who set the instruction leaves, a system is replaced, and the default comes back without anybody deciding anything.
Check the first payment after any change at their end. The failure is silent and the fix is a message.
The same applies when a payer moves bank. A new institution means a new default, and the term you agreed two years ago travels with the contract rather than with the payment file.
What no instruction reaches
A conversion margin. Charge instructions govern fees, and the margin inside an exchange rate is not a fee in the sense the field means.
That is why a payment can arrive short under charges-to-sender and why the two questions have separate notes here. Settling one and assuming it covers the other is the commonest mistake in this part of the subject.