The best ways to transfer money from Canada to India

When you’re transferring money between Canadian dollars (CAD) and Indian rupees (INR), you want to keep your currency exchange fees to an absolute minimum. We help you find the simplest, quickest and most secure ways to convert your money and send it to from Canada to India.

Whatever your needs, we’ll save you money. Whether you’re going on holiday in India, helping out your family and friends, taking care of daily expenses or something else, we’ll share the cheapest and best money transfer providers. That way, the person getting the rupees has more cash in their pockets, and that’s good for both of you.

You’re probably paying too much to send Canadian dollars to India

Canadian residents send around $3.5 billion CAD to India every year. Traditional banks, PayPal and some currency exchange businesses do charge unnecessarily high fees. Combined, on the total amount that Canada sends to India each year, these charges could mean up to $175,000,000 USD in unnecessary fees — or $875 each if 200,000 residents are converting their Canadian dollars to rupees.

How you get charged when you transfer between CAD and INR

There are three main ways you could be overpaying when you’re converting between Canadian and Indian money:

• Fixed fee — this is a fixed CAD fee that banks and some other providers charge to convert and transfer money to India. It could be as much as $40 CAD.
  
  

• Percentage fee — this is a commission that you pay on the total amount you transfer, so the less you send, the less you pay. These percentage fees can range between under half a percent to two percent or more.
  
  

• Difference to exchange rate — this is where a currency provider offers a worse exchange rate than the standard exchange rate. For example, the standard exchange rate states that $100 CAD is worth 5,380 INR, but a currency provider sends 5,310 rupees to the beneficiary.

When we compare money transfer providers, we take all the fees into account, and recommend the ones where your Canadian dollars go furthest. That keeps things simple and easy for you.

How to send money from India to Canada

Sending money to India is fast and simple.

Paying in and funding options in Canada

Canadian residents have a few ways to pay for a transfer. All specialist money transfer providers accept direct bank payments or transfers, and many also allow you to pay with your debit or credit card.

Money collection options in India

Almost 200 million Indian residents don’t have a bank account, this means cash pickup is a good option. We’ve shown these details below.

Using a FOREX provider for sending money from Canada to India

For higher-value transactions to India, you may choose to transfer funds using a foreign exchange (FOREX) broker, as you will receive personalized phone or email service and may be assigned a specialist account manager. A FOREX broker may offer multiple collection options for the person receiving the funds.

The fastest and cheapest providers for sending money to India from Canada

The fees you pay to send money to India can change, depending on how much you’re transferring. Because of this, we’ve compared money transfer specialists over four different amounts:

• Very low-value transfers of $100 CAD or less

• Low-value transfers of $500 CAD

• Medium-value transfers of $2,000 CAD

• High-value transfers of $10,000 CAD or more

Best money transfer providers for sending $100 Canadian dollars or less to India

*There may be an additional fee for funding a transaction using this method.

Best money transfer providers for sending $500 Canadian dollars to India

*There may be an additional fee for funding a transaction using this method.

Best money transfer providers for sending $2,000 Canadian dollars to India

*There may be an additional fee for funding a transaction using this method.

Best money transfer providers for sending $10,000 Canadian dollars or more to India

*There may be an additional fee for funding a transaction using this method.

We hope you’ve found this comparison useful. For the lowest money transfer fees, always use our currency comparison tool, and sign up for rate alerts so you can find the best times to send money from Canada to India.