Skrill Money Transfer Review: Is it safe? How does it work? What are the rates?

Skrill offers a cheap & transparent way to send money abroad! But is it the cheapest or available for the currencies you'd like to exchange? You can use Monito's live comparison tool to compare all services and find out if Skrill is the cheapest available option to send money abroad.

There is no way to avoid Skrill fees entirely, but they can be minimized.

• Compare Skrill fees and exchange rates with alternatives with Monito's comparison widget for international money transfers. Comparison sites like Monito help you figure out the math and make sure you find the best deal in just a few clicks.
• Avoid credit card charges - Skrill or the card issuer may charge additional costs on your transactions.
• Always use Skrill price estimator before continuing with your transaction to check the transfer fees and exchange rates.
• Consider sending money with another money transfer operator with lower fees and better exchange rates. Compare your options, and more money will arrive.

Skrill has been in business since 2001. The company is fully authorized and regulated by various regulators around the world, including the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the UK and the U.S. Department of Treasure’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). Skrill's Credibility and Security score is 6.8/10 though, as the company has quite a significant number of negative reviews on TrustPilot.

On Monito you can always find the secure and well-reviewed money transfer providers to send your money abroad safely.

The best option to check international money transfer fees is to use Monito's live comparison widget and discover if Skrill cost to send money abroad is the lowest available right now. The tool lets you quickly calculate how much you’ll pay and shows you exactly how much the beneficiary will receive, based on the exchange rate offered by Skrill.

Skrill fees vary depending on the amount you’re sending, the countries that you’re transferring money between, how you’re paying for the transfer, and how the beneficiary is accessing the funds you’re transferring.

Skrill allows you to send money from your Skrill wallet directly to another Skrill wallet, the so-called “Skrill to Skrill” service. All you need is the recipient’s email address, and the money will be transferred instantly. 

However, the fees and exchange rates offered for the Skrill to Skrill service are extremely poor and we cannot recommend it as a way to send money internationally.

Depending on your preferred withdrawal option, processing times for withdrawals are as follows:

• Skrill Card withdrawals: Instant at ATM locations
• Bank wire withdrawals: two to five business days
• Visa withdrawals: Up to seven days

Skrill provides a reloadable, prepaid card that can be used to shop online or in store at millions of locations around the world. It is directly linked to a Skrill wallet and provides instant access to funds. The card can also be used to withdraw cash instantly at 1.9 million ATMs. The Skrill card is only available to residents of authorized European Economic Area (EEA) countries.

Skrill offers a cash incentive for inviting other people to use the Skrill wallet. Here’s what they say: “Tell your friends about Skrill and we’ll pay you for it. For a whole year we’ll put 10% of the fees they generate from paying or sending money into your Skrill account. There are two ways to share Skrill with your friends:

• Use your personalized invite link in My account › Settings › Referrals
• Select ‘Use my referral ID for this payment’ whenever you send a payment to a friend who doesn’t have a Skrill account yet”

Skrill does charge fees in several different ways, and they can really add up. Note that the specific fees you will pay are determined by the country you’re in, where you’re sending money and how you’re funding the transfer.

Uploading funds to a Skrill account or wallet

You can fund your Skrill account or wallet by uploading funds using local payment options or global options like Visa, MasterCard, or AMEX. Uploading funds to Skrill is immediate.

These funds can cost anything between zero and 7.5 percent of the amount you’re adding, just to fund your Skrill account. These fees are based on where you’re located and the payment option you use to fund your account. These are much higher than fees we have seen elsewhere, and are much more expensive than you’d get from a specialized currency transfer provider, who do not charge funding fees as there’s no need to upload funds.

Withdrawing funds from a Skrill account or wallet

Skrill charges a fixed fee to withdraw funds from their services. These funds do vary by country, here are some examples:

• The United States: currently free 
• The United Kingdom: £4.76 fixed fee to a domestic or international bank account, 7.5 percent fee to a Visa card
• Australia: $8.07 AUD fixed fee via global payment methods

Using your Skrill wallet to pay online at a retailer that accepts Skrill is free.

Sending money to a Skrill wallet

Skrill also charges an additional fee for sending money to other Skrill account holders:

• If you are sending money to another Skrill account, there’s a fee of 1.45 percent of the total amount, with a minimum fee
• There’s no fee to receive money, but you will pay when you withdraw it

Note that Skrill says these fees are capped at 20 EUR on one part of it’s website, and are capped at $10 on another part of its website. Because these fees are inconsistent, we strongly recommend checking how much you will pay when you use the Skrill wallet service.

Inactivity fees

If you do not log into or use your Skrill account at least once a year, you will be charged an inactivity fee of 5 euros a month, or your local currency equivalent.

Skrill to Skrill fees are among the most expensive we have seen for money transfers. You can pay much, much less in fees by using the Skrill Money Transfer service.

About fees levied by banks

Certain fees may be levied by banks when you are transferring money. These fees are outside the control of Skrill. Circumstances where banks may charge additional fees include:

• Wire transfers into or out of sender or beneficiary accounts
• Transfers that are sent via SWIFT or certain other banking protocols
• Beneficiary banks charging a fee to receive a transfer
• Intermediary banks charging fees to process money in transit

These fees could mean that the beneficiary receives less money than stated by Skrill due to circumstances beyond their control. If you want to understand what these extra fees are likely to be, please contact your bank and the beneficiary's bank.

Skrill to Skrill exchange rates are much worse than for the Skrill Money Transfer service. They state that they provide exchange rates at 3.99 percent below the interbank, baseline rate. 

*The interbank rate is also known as the mid-market or standard exchange rate, which is the midpoint between the buying and the selling prices of the two currencies.

Skrill’s wallet does not score well on Trustpilot. They are rated at one star out of five, have a TrustScore of 1.2 out of 10, and 78 percent of users rated them as poor or bad.

A lot of complaints are from users whose accounts were suddenly closed due to opaque compliance reasons. Some others have difficulties to log into their Skrill account and don’t receive answers from Skrill customer support. The charges for inactive account also upset quite a few users. Users in Bangladesh did report that Skrill was a good money transfer experience.

All Skrill users have a payment and withdrawal limit dependent on the verification level of their Skrill account. These limits are displayed in the account when submitting payment or withdrawal requests.

Skrill applies a limit on the amount of funds you can deposit via credit or debit cards in any 60-day period. For example, if your card deposit limit is $1,000, the maximum amount you can deposit for the last 60 days should not exceed $1,000. If you initially have a limit of $1,000 and on 1 July you deposit $750, your remaining limit for deposits will be $250.

Once 60 days from the deposit have passed, on 30 September, the portion of your deposit limit you used on 1 July would become available again for you to deposit. You can view the remaining transaction limits at any time – go to the Account Limits section in your account, located in Settings. You can also increase your limits there.

Skrill allows you to upload funds in the following currencies: BRL, CAD, CHF, CZK, DKK, EUR, GBP, HKD, JPY, NOK, PLN, SEK, SGD, TWD, USD, ZAR, AUD, TRY, HUF.  Skrill allows wallet holders to receive the following currencies: EUR, AUD, BDT, EUR, INR, IDR, KES, MYR, NPR, PLN, PHP, LKR, THB, VND, GBP.