Cheapest Way to Transfer Money From Australia To Ireland

The cheapest way to transfer money from Australia To Ireland(Or the other way round).

This article was updated in 2020

I get a lot of queries daily on my Facebook page from people who have moved or are moving to Australia, the most common question I get is what is the cheapest way to transfer money from Australia to Ireland?

And today I am going to cover everything you need to know so you don’t need to pay crazy bank fees!

So here’s the deal:

You have just moved to Australia and are looking for the cheapest way to transfer money to your new Australian bank account.
Or you have been in Australia for a few months and needed to send money from Australia to Ireland/UK.

So you might be thinking:

Sure I will just transfer from my Irish bank account to my new Australian one easy!

But

What you might not realise is banks actually charge you 4-6%+ on the exchange rate plus many have “sending” or “receiving fees.”

Well, we have some good news!

There’s never been a better way to send money to Australia.

With CurrencyFair or OFX(Ozforex) sending Euros to Australia is up to 8 times cheaper!

Register here and reserve your ten transfers for free with CurrencyFair

Register here and reserve your free transfers for life with OFX over $1000

You can read the money transfer guide here, but you will still get all the information you need in this article.

Here are the facts for transferring money from Australia to Ireland

The cheapest way to send money from Australia

We don’t recommend doing direct transfers between your bank accounts. Please… please don’t do direct bank transfers.
Avoid PayPal, avoid banks. They will charge excessive fees for the transfer and rip you off with their forex rate.
Especially if you have just arrived in Australia and are looking to transfer money from your Irish account.
Why? It varies depending on how much you are looking to transfer, but you can expect to pay anywhere from AU$30 – $70+ in charges!
Not only will you be paying this but you will also get a very standard exchange rate, meaning that you will be losing out in even more $s or €s.
Banks can take anywhere from 4%+-6% on the exchange rate(and they don’t even tell you this!).
If you make typically five transfers over the course of your stay of two years, it will cost you easily over AU$400 – $500 in unnecessary extra charges(crazy!).

The extra costs go up or down depending on how much money you are sending to Ireland or Australia.

Here is what happened to me:

When I landed in Perth, I transferred my hard earned €3000 to my new Australian bank account(Commonwealth Bank account) via online banking.

Easy right?

I received the money in 3 -4 days which was great!

But this is crazy.

Including the charges and low exchange rate, I lost out in over AUD 150+ on my bank transfer! It was def not the cheapest way to transfer money from Australia to Ireland!

The funny thing is I didn’t realise this until months after when my friend Ian told me about CurrencyFair and Ozforex(Now called OFX).

There’s never been a better way to send money to Ireland from Australia:

So I reached out to both CurrencyFair and OFX and have secured the following deals for all Irish Around Oz readers.

With OFX you can get free transfers for LIFE(wow) over $1000 if you sign up using this link -> IrishAroundOz.com/Ozforexbonus

With CurrencyFair you can get your first transfer for FREE with this link -> IrishAroundOz.com/FreeTransfer

Okay now you are probably wondering

Okay great! But why should I use them versus a bank??

Here’s the bottom line:

Both CurrencyFair and OFX use local banks, so there is no fee at the receiving end. Or for sending it to Australia!
CurrencyFair makes sending money to or from Australia simple, cheap and speedy.
Banks charge upwards of 4-6% whereas CurrencyFair and OFX charge less than 0.35%.
Meaning if you are sending money from Australia to Ireland you can save up to 8 times as much!
CurrencyFair is an Irish company, regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland under the European Communities (Payments Services) Regulations 2009. So it is 100% safe, and we use them all the time.
OFX(Ozforex) have been offering bank-beating rates since 1998! You also get a dedicated broker, so it’s great for those larger trades of $5k+.
Making these two some of the cheapest ways to transfer money from Australia to Ireland.

Register here and reserve your first ten transfers for free with CurrencyFair

Register here and reserve your free transfers for life with OFX over $1000

What companies are the cheapest way to send money to Ireland:

The following have been the most recommended time and time again, ever since originally posting this article in 2013.

Most recommended: CurrencyFair

OFX(Previously known as Ozforex), who offer fast & secure, international money transfers and better FX rates than your bank. If you sign up with them here, you get no transaction fees over $1000AU for life, for all Irish Around Oz readers. Great deal and you get a personal broker!

TransferWise – Another great option when sending money to Europe. They offer up to 90% savings when transferring money abroad.

Personally, Irish Around Oz uses CurrencyFair and sometimes OFX when we are doing larger trades; it is up to you on which service you decide best fits you and what you are looking for.

If you are transferring money to any country besides Ireland, the above will also be perfect for some of the best and cheapest ways to transfer money from Australia.
Interested in finding out how much money you would have saved if had you used them in the past? CurrencyFair has a calculator that you can check out here.

CurrencyFair have their HQ is based in Dublin, but they also have offices in NSW and the UK.

How many times will you send money from Ireland to Australia?

Good question, the amount will vary from person to person.

But why not get find the cheapest way to transfer money from Ireland to Australia.

Imagine if you made even ten transfers a year which is the average amount over two years for Irish people in Oz.

You would save yourself a fortune by using one of these services.

So although you might think it’s just easier to transfer money through your online banking think again.

Why pay the bank?

By using CurrencyFair, you can easily Save 90% on international transfer fees!

What does that mean?

They charge less than 0.35% on the exchange rate compared to 4-6% with Paypal and banks.

Don’t make my mistake and get the cheapest way to transfer money from Australia to Ireland.

How does CurrencyFair work?

Watch this short video explaining exactly how it works

The video below will help you get a clearer understanding of what it is CurrencyFair do and why they offer one of the cheapest ways to transfer money from Australia.

Hope you enjoyed this article and saved yourself some money.

Share this on Facebook, Twitter or with any friends you know of.

Just share the link IrishAroundOz.com/Money with them to bring them to this article.

At the end of the day if you can save money while transferring it why not do it.

Lastly, secure your free transfers and savings even if you are not transferring money today:

The cheapest way to transfer money from Australia to Ireland:

CurrencyFair

OFX(Previously OzForex)

TransferWise. A lot of people love Transferwise, but they often work out more expensive than Currencyfair.

There you have it, some of the cheapest ways to transfer money from Australia to Ireland.

Whichever international money transfer company you decide to choose from we only recommend services that we have personally used or have come highly recommended by other ex-pats in Australia.

We have many additional resources you will find useful on our resources page.

We also just created this video of a real transfer from my Australian account(Commonwealth Bank) to my Irish account(Bank of Ireland) with CurrencyFair.