Sending euros anywhere in Europe from an Estonian account now costs between nothing and €0.38 and arrives in 10 seconds, at three in the morning on a Sunday. Sending anything else costs a visible €6–€7 and an invisible currency margin that not one Estonian bank publishes, and the invisible one is usually larger.
10 seconds in euro, and an unpublished margin in anything else
Since 9 October 2025 every Estonian bank must be able to send instant euro transfers, they must reach the payee in 10 seconds day or night, and — under Article 5b of the Instant Payments Regulation — they may not charge more for instant than for ordinary. Checking the payee's name against the account number is free and compulsory.
For a non-euro wire the published fee is €6–€7. The exchange margin is not published by any of the five banks. Compare against a provider that quotes the mid-market rate before you assume the wire fee is the cost.
Table of Contents
Instant payments, and what the rules actually say
| Obligation | In force in the euro area |
|---|---|
| Banks must be able to RECEIVE instant euro transfers | 9 January 2025 |
| Charge parity — instant may cost no more than ordinary | 9 January 2025 |
| Banks must be able to SEND instant euro transfers | 9 October 2025 |
| Verification of payee, free to the payer | 9 October 2025 |
| Daily sanctions screening of customers | In force; no separate euro-area date published |
| Extension to non-euro member states | January 2027 |
The name check warns you. It does not stop the payment.
This is the most misreported point on Estonian consumer sites. When the payee's name does not match the account number, the Estonian Banking Association's own wording is that the customer's attention is drawn to it — and then the customer decides. LHV says the same: the alert "does not prevent payment execution". Treat the mismatch warning as the last thing standing between you and an invoice-fraud transfer, because it is, and because nothing behind it will stop you.
Two more things changed with it, and both are worth knowing. Failed instant payments fall back to ordinary transfers automatically at LHV by default, which you can turn off. And you can set your own instant-payment limits — per transaction or per day — after which a payment reverts to ordinary SEPA. That is a genuinely useful anti-fraud setting that almost nobody switches on.
Is there still a €100,000 ceiling?
Two current Estonian sources disagree. The Banking Association said in September 2025 that the €100,000 ceiling is removed and banks may process larger amounts instantly. LHV's own announcement, two days earlier, still states €100,000 as its maximum instant payment. Both are live. The honest reading is that the regulatory ceiling is gone and any limit you meet is now your bank's, not the law's — so ask your bank rather than a comparison page.
What it actually costs
| LHV | Swedbank | SEB | Luminor | Coop Pank | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SEPA / European, online | €0 | €0.38 domestic, free on a plan | €0.25 | €0 | €0 |
| Instant SEPA | Same as ordinary | Same as ordinary | Same as ordinary | Same as ordinary | Same as ordinary |
| Non-SEPA wire, shared charges | €7 | €6 | €6 | €7 | €6 |
| Non-SEPA wire, you pay all charges | +€22 | €25 | €26 | Not listed | Not listed |
| Incoming international wire | €7 | €6, free if sender pays all | €5.75 | Not listed | €5.75 |
| FX margin on a transfer | Not published | Not published | Not published | Not published | Not published |
| FX margin on a card payment | 1% | Not published | 1.5% | 2% | 1% |
The instant row is not laziness. Article 5b makes charging a premium for instant unlawful, so at every Estonian provider instant and ordinary cost the same by operation of law. If you find a bank charging extra for instant, that is a complaint, not a price.
The last two rows are the whole point of this page
Every FX figure any Estonian bank publishes is a card margin. Not one of the five publishes a margin for a transfer. So on a wire to, say, a US dollar account, the €6 you can see is the small cost and the spread you cannot see is the large one. On €5,000, a margin of 2% is €100 — fifteen times the wire fee. Get the quote in the amount that will actually arrive, not the fee.
Effective dates differ by bank and these move: LHV 1 May 2026, Swedbank 1 December 2025 as updated 3 May 2026, SEB and Luminor 1 June 2026, Coop Pank 1 August 2026. Check the live price list before a large transfer — and see bank accounts for which of these will open an account for you in the first place.
Beyond the banks
Wise
Mid-market rate, fee stated upfront:
- Publishes that it uses the mid-market rate — the one you can look up — with sending fees from 0.47%
- A discount tier above €22,000, though the discount itself is not published
- No per-corridor fee table exists: the fee is quoted live, so no static page can be cited for your route
- Its payments arm is Belgian-licensed, passported into Estonia — not an Estonian institution, which Estonian readers routinely assume
Revolut
Free in euro, priced in the app otherwise:
- SEPA and local transfers free on the standard plan
- Non-SEPA international transfer fees are not published — calculated in real time and shown in the app
- Currency exchange free up to €1,000 a month, then 1%
- A 1% weekend markup between Friday evening and Sunday evening New York time — which is most of a European weekend
- Its banking entity is licensed in Lithuania, not Estonia
Estonia licenses 9 payment institutions of its own, and it is worth saying plainly what they are not: merchant acquiring, card issuing, buy-now-pay-later and crowdfunding, plus one consumer-facing currency and transfer business that publishes a worked example rather than a fee schedule. There is no Estonian-licensed consumer remittance provider competing on published price with Wise or Revolut. If that matters to you — because you would rather be supervised locally — it is a real trade-off, and it costs money.
The three thresholds, which are not the same threshold
| Threshold | What triggers it | Who reports | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cash across an EU EXTERNAL border | €10,000 | Carrying it — in either direction | You, by declaration |
| Cash across an internal EU border | None at all | — | Nobody |
| Cash settlement of an obligation | €32,000 | Size, no suspicion needed — one payment or several related ones within a year | The business, to the Financial Intelligence Unit |
| A bank-to-bank transfer | No threshold exists | Suspicion, or a sanctions match | The bank, when it forms a suspicion |
Wiring €50,000 abroad triggers no automatic report
Say it plainly, because the forums do not. The €10,000 rule is a traveller and cash rule at an external border — Tallinn to Helsinki or Riga has no threshold and no form at all. The €32,000 rule is a cash rule for businesses. Neither is triggered by a transfer between bank accounts, of any size. What triggers a report on a transfer is suspicion, or a sanctions match — not the number.
"Cash" at the border is broader than banknotes: it includes bearer instruments such as travellers' cheques and promissory notes, coins with a gold content of at least 90%, and gold nuggets of at least 99.5%. You can file the declaration up to three days before you travel, which is the civilised way to do it. Customs may still act below the threshold where cash is connected to criminal activity.
Read those together and the shape of the risk becomes clear. Suspicion reports outnumber threshold reports roughly four to one, and 27 accounts in the whole of Estonia were frozen by the unit in a year. The chance that a large legitimate transfer is frozen is very small. The chance that it is delayed and questioned is not, and that is what to plan for.
What banks ask, and why
A bank asking where a large sum came from is discharging a statutory duty under the money laundering prevention rules, supervised by the financial supervisor. It is not discretion and it is not suspicion of you personally. Refusing to answer is the reliable way to get a payment held.
Have you told the bank before you send it?
A large transfer that arrives unannounced gets stopped for questions. The same transfer, flagged in advance with the paperwork attached, usually does not.
Can you show where the money came from BEFORE it reached your account?
That is what the file needs. A sale contract, a notarised deed, a tax return, an employment contract, a prior statement showing the funds' history, inheritance or gift documentation. Your own balance is not evidence of origin.
Is the destination account in your own name?
Transfers to yourself are the easiest case. Transfers to a third party in a higher-risk jurisdiction are the hardest, and worth a conversation first.
Did the payee name check match?
It does not block the payment. It is a warning, and after 9 October 2025 it is free and compulsory — which makes ignoring it a decision rather than an accident.
If the account is closed or refused
A basic payment account may only be closed on two grounds: evidence it is being used for money laundering, or 24 consecutive months with no transaction. The supervisor said so directly in March 2024 — basic payment accounts "may not be closed lightly", and refusal to open one is permitted only in exceptional circumstances. That gives you a specific ground for complaint, and complaints go to the financial supervisor.
The numbers give this some proportion: 123,314 account applications in 2023, 2,785 refused and 31,883 closed — the closure count having halved from 65,048 the year before. Closure is common enough to plan around and refusal is rare.
Receiving money, and gifts
No tax
Three things that are simply not income:
- Moving your own money between accounts you own. It is the same property, so it is not a gain
- Gifts received by an individual. Estonia has no gift tax and no inheritance tax
- An inheritance, for the same reason
But watch these
Two asymmetries:
- A gift from a person is untaxed. A gift from an Estonian company is taxed at 22%/78 — at the company's end
- Whatever income arose inside your foreign account — interest, dividends, gains — is declarable in Estonia whether or not you move it here. See the tax return
Not taxable is not the same as not questioned
A €60,000 gift arriving from abroad generates no tax and no entry on your return — and it will still draw a source-of-funds enquiry, because the tax system and the money-laundering system are independent of each other. Conflating them is the commonest editorial error on this subject. Have the documentation ready even though you owe nothing.
Thinking the name check will stop a bad payment
It warns and lets you proceed. That is by design and it is stated by both the Banking Association and the banks.
Comparing wire fees instead of arrival amounts
The published fee is the small number. The unpublished FX margin is the large one, and no Estonian bank discloses it for transfers.
Believing €10,000 applies to transfers
It is a cash-and-border rule, and only at an EU external border. There is no threshold for a bank transfer at all.
Paying extra for an instant payment
Charging more for instant than for ordinary has been unlawful in the euro area since 9 January 2025.
Sending a large sum without warning the bank
The freeze risk is tiny; the delay-and-question risk is real, and a phone call beforehand removes most of it.
Assuming Wise and Revolut are Estonian
Wise's payments arm is licensed in Belgium and Revolut's bank in Lithuania. Both passport in legitimately — but if local supervision matters to you, know which supervisor.
FAQ
How much does it cost to send money abroad from Estonia?
A euro transfer anywhere in the single euro payments area costs between nothing and €0.38 online and arrives in 10 seconds — LHV, Luminor and Coop Pank charge €0, SEB €0.25, Swedbank €0.38 domestically and nothing on a service plan. A non-euro wire costs €6–€7 with shared charges, or €22–€26 if you pay all charges. The exchange margin on a transfer is not published by any Estonian bank and is usually the larger cost.
Do Estonian banks report large transfers to the authorities?
Not automatically, and not by size. There is no euro threshold at which a bank-to-bank transfer is reported. A report is made when the bank forms a suspicion of money laundering or terrorist financing, or when a sanctions match arises. The €32,000 threshold that circulates online is a rule about settling an obligation in CASH, and the €10,000 figure is a traveller's declaration for carrying cash across an EU external border — neither applies to a transfer.
How long does a transfer from Estonia take?
A euro transfer within the single euro payments area must reach the payee's account in 10 seconds, any time of day, any day of the week — Estonian banks have been required to send instant transfers since 9 October 2025. Non-euro wires take the usual correspondent banking time and can be sent urgently or as an express payment for a higher fee.
Is money I transfer to Estonia from my own foreign account taxable?
No. Moving your own money between accounts you own is not income — it is the same property. What is declarable is any income that arose in the foreign account, such as interest, dividends or gains, and that has to go on the Estonian return whether or not you bring the money here. Gifts and inheritances received by a private individual are also untaxed, since Estonia has neither a gift tax nor an inheritance tax — though a gift made by an Estonian company is taxed at the company's end.
Can an Estonian bank close my account?
A basic payment account may only be closed on two grounds: evidence that it is being used for money laundering, or 24 consecutive months with no transaction. The financial supervisor stated in March 2024 that basic payment accounts may not be closed lightly and that refusal to open one is permitted only in exceptional circumstances. In 2023 there were 123314 applications, 2785 refusals and 31883 closures — the closures having roughly halved from the previous year.
Related guides
Why You Can Trust This Guide
Sending money out of Estonia?
The fee is rarely the expensive part. The exchange-rate margin is, and it is not shown as a charge — which is why a transfer advertised as free can cost more than one that is not.