A maintained cost tracker. One source of record, the World Bank's Remittance Prices Worldwide, refreshed each quarter, with the issue and quarter stated every time so the number is never mistaken for something newer than it is.
The recurring question
For a household sending money from Australia to family in Africa, what share is lost to fees and exchange margin, and is that share falling toward the global target?
The honest answer comes first
No institution publishes it. Remittance Prices Worldwide is the reference series, and it prices Australia as a sending country only into Asia, the Pacific and the Middle East. Among the Australian corridors it tracks are India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, China, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Lebanon, Fiji, Tonga, Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea. No African destination appears among them.
The Australian average below is therefore an average of corridors that contain no African country. It describes Australia's sending market. It does not price the lane to Africa, and we do not present it as though it does.
What is actually measured at the sending end
| Measure | Cost | Reference |
|---|---|---|
| Australia average, send US$200 | 5.23% | Q3 2025 (was 5.11% in Q1 2025) |
| Australia average, send US$500 | 3.51% | Q3 2025 |
| Global average, send US$200 | 6.36% | Q3 2025 (was 6.49% two quarters earlier) |
| Global flow-weighted average | 5.04% | Q3 2025 |
Across the corridors described above, Australia sends at about nine tenths of a percentage point below the global average. It is not the cheapest sending market, and we do not claim it is.
What is measured at the receiving end
The other half of the question is measured, and it is the more sobering half. Sub-Saharan Africa is the most expensive region in the world to send money to.
| Receiving region | Average cost, send US$200 |
|---|---|
| Sub-Saharan Africa | 8.46% |
| Europe & Central Asia | 6.80% |
| East Asia & Pacific | 5.83% |
| Latin America & Caribbean | 5.64% |
| South Asia | 5.30% |
| Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan & Pakistan | 5.11% |
Why the lane itself remains unpriced
The two halves point in opposite directions. Australia is a comparatively inexpensive place to send from. Africa is the most expensive place in the world to send to. Which of those forces prevails on the Australia to Africa lane is precisely what nobody has measured.
The direction can be reasoned about, but it should not be asserted. Corridors that combine a thin market, few providers and volatile currencies tend to price above the sending country's average, and African corridors from other sending markets do. On that reasoning we would expect the Australian lane to sit above Australia's 5.23 per cent rather than below it. That is an expectation, and it is offered as one, not as a measurement.
The target
- United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 10.c: reduce the transaction cost of migrant remittances to less than 3 per cent, and eliminate corridors costing more than 5 per cent, by 2030.
- At 6.36 per cent globally, and 8.46 per cent into sub-Saharan Africa, the world remains well short of both.
What we are doing about it
We have begun collecting the missing measurement. AMARI samples the mid-market reference rate for the Australian dollar against the naira, shilling, cedi and rand daily. That rate is the denominator against which any provider's margin is measured, and it is the half of the calculation that can be collected openly. Provider pricing cannot lawfully be gathered without each provider's permission, so the series is published as what it is, a reference rate rather than a retail price, and it will stay described that way until those permissions are in place.
Sources: World Bank Remittance Prices Worldwide, Issue 54 (Q3 2025), the latest full release as of mid-2026, for all cost figures, including the regional table and the finding that sub-Saharan Africa is the most expensive receiving region. Benchmark: cost of sending US$200 as a percentage of the amount sent. The Australian corridor list is as published by RPW and is treated as indicative of its coverage rather than exhaustive. Target from United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 10.c.