Over the past three months, we compared 35 providers for transfers to Mexico from a wide range of sending countries and found that on average Remitly was most often the cheapest provider (in 40.7% of the searches).

But Remitly might not be available in the country you're sending money from, and it might not be the cheapest for your transfer to Mexico as the provider's pricing change depends from country to country and changes over time. This means it's always best to launch a live comparison to find the cheapest provider for your transfer.

Finding the Cheapest Way to Send Money to Mexico

The cheapest way to send money to Mexico is to make an international bank transfer to a local bank account in Mexico via a specialist money transfer provider, which you can pay by debit card or local bank transfer.

Services such as Wise, Global66, and WorldRemit are good examples of such solutions; they offer reasonable exchange rates very close to the mid-market rate and apply transparent and low fees. These solutions will be much cheaper than making an international bank transfer to Mexico with your bank or using PayPal, which comes with higher costs and take a considerable margin on the exchange rate when converting your money into Mexican pesos.

Fortunately, there are dozens of excellent options out there. Run a search on Monito's real-time comparison engine to compare them all and find the best way to send money to Mexico now:

Why It's Expensive to Send Money to Mexico

Millions of people send money back to Mexico every week. With over 12 million Mexicans living outside Mexico, mainly across the border in the United States, finding an easy and inexpensive way to send pesos back home to benefit family, friends, and others is critical. 

You may not know that traditional banks in the US, Mexico, and around the globe don't provide the best fees or exchange rates for converting money into pesos. People send almost USD 30 billion back home to Mexico in remittances yearly – on average, over USD 2,500 per sender. Our research shows that most people overspend by up to 5% on their transfers.

But what does that mean for you? Sadly, it means that if you're sending USD 2,500 back home to your family via your bank, around USD 125 gets lost in fees, meaning less money makes it to your loved ones. That USD 125 collectively becomes USD 1.5 billion in fees that don't make it to Mexico. We want to stop that and help you find money transfer providers that will provide you with transparent rates and fees and ensure more money gets from you to yours. 

Luckily, there are plenty of options for sending money back to Mexico. Monito details over 25 specialist money transfer providers and banks for converting your money into pesos and sending it home. We know there are many ways to transfer currency to Mexico, so we compare the most popular options side by side so you can make an informed choice. 

With over 12 million Mexicans living outside Mexico, mainly across the border in the United States, finding an easy and inexpensive way to send pesos back home to benefit family, friends, and others is critical.

What's the Best Way To Send Money to Mexico?

The best way to send money to Mexico depends on the country of the transfer's origin, as well as the sending and receiving methods. Below, we provide an overview of the best options based on cash pick-up and bank transfer.

Cash Pick-Up

Some banks mentioned earlier (including BBVA Bancomer, Bancoppel and Banco Azteca) enable you to pick up pesos in cash from their Mexico-wide branches. But if you don't mind if the pick-up location is not a bank per se, you have many more options: there are also many non-bank agent locations.

A key player in the non-bank space for cash pick-up is Grupo Elektra, more commonly just called Elektra. Elekta is one of Latin America's top non-bank providers of cash delivery services, and they work in tandem with many international money transfer services. Pagos Intermex is also a large remittance service that works with global providers. Intermex has over 250 branches and over 2 thousand collection points across Mexico.

Overall, if you send money for cash pick-up in Mexico, providers like Remitly, Xoom and WorldRemit are remarkably affordable options that tend to offer good deals for transfers to Mexico for cash receipt.

• Remitly provides cash pick-up from over 10 thousand agent locations,  including Elektra, Transfast sends cash to Elektra, and Xoom offers this option from nearly 15 thousand locations, including bank and non-bank locations like Walmart, BBVA Bancomer, Elektra, Pagos Intermex, and Telecomm Telegrafos.
• WorldRemit also offers the option to send money for cash collection at roughly 1700 local locations, including Banco Azteca, BBVA Bancomer, Bancoppel, Telecomm Telegrafos, Pagos Intermex, Chedraui and Farmapronto.
• MoneyGram also offers cash pick-up to Mexico via Elektra.

In addition, with over 30 thousand cash pick-up locations, Western Union offers one of the most extensive networks and high-speed service (cash is often available within minutes). Their network includes cash pick-up locations like Walmart and Bancoppel. But while they stand out in terms of the number of locations, they are not always the cheapest option.
Ria also provides transfers to more than 17 thousand cash pick-up spots across Mexico, but their prices are generally not a competitive choice. They work with major players, including BBVA Bancomer and Bancoppel.

While convenient, these options are seldom the best way to send cash for pick-up in Mexico. Instead, we recommend using Remitly, which charges considerably lower fees and sends the funds quickly over a savvy digital platform. You can learn more about Remitly in our dedicated review or visit their website directly to set up your transfer.

Bank Deposit

Below is a summary of some of Mexico's largest and most important banks. They offer international remittance services, although they're not usually the cheapest options on the market. When you send money to Mexico by bank transfer, your money will probably arrive in an account belonging to one of the following banks:

• Bancoppel
• Pagos Intermex
• Banco Santander
• Scotiabank Inverlat
• Banco Inversa

Information Needed To Send Money to a Bank Account in Mexico

The following pieces of information will be needed whenever you send money to a Mexican bank account from overseas:

• Recipient's Name: The name of the recipient's bank account holder.
• CLABE: CLABE (Clave Bancaria Estandarizada) is the standard format for Mexican bank account numbers. These numbers consist of 18 digits.
• CURP: CURP (Clave Única de Registro de Población) is an individual registration number for ordinary Mexicans.

Banks in Mexico do not use the IBAN system to identify bank accounts for international transactions, and SWIFT/BIC codes aren't widely used. This means that the only information you'll need to make a bank transfer to Mexico is the IFSC, which is used to identify a particular branch of all banks in Mexico, as well as the recipient's account number.