How hard for US customers make payments to non-resident freelancer by wire transfer?
"Can you tell me please, is it really hard to make international wire transfer for payment my job and can i resolve this problem without using third party services? This is mostly a barrier, the form at times is quite complicated. For Russia, one has to enter ""Purpose of remittance"" ... at times select intermediate banks, give BIC and other details. This can become unnerving to people who are not used to it.  The other option you can try is set-up a credit card gateway and get funds via cards." For most major banks, wire transfers are simple, if expensive, to arrange.  For example, I can initiate an international wire transfer from my online banking portal. I would look for an alternative wire transfer service that will charge less. I use ofx, but note that they don't do transfers to roubles. The rate adjusts by amount being transferred and there is a $15 fee for under $5000. Upside is it is bank-to-bank. 2 days tops. "You are right in insisting upon a proper B2B contract in any business relationship. You wish to reduce your risk and be compensated fairly. In addition to the cost and complexity of international wire transfers, the US companies may also be considering the fact that as an international contractor in a relatively hard-to-reach jurisdiction, payments to you place the company at higher risk than payments to a domestic contractor. By insisting upon PayPal or similar transmitters, they are reducing their internal complexity and reducing their financial exposure to unfulfilled/disputed contract terms. Therefore, wire payments are ""hard"" in an internal business sense, as well as in a remittance transfer reporting sense. The internal business procedure will likely be the hardest to overcome--changing risk management is harder than filling out forms."
Do I need to declare it to IRS? The account? No. You do need to file a form W8-BEN with the bank though and make sure you maintain the correct information on it (it has your address there, so if you move - update it). Your account may be frozen until the form is provided, especially if it has activity on it. The 2-nd and 3-rd scenario would come as a result of some freelancing   activity done while I am out of the US (definitely would qualify for   Non-Resident Alien status). This you do have to report to the IRS. I'm guessing the payer is in the US, and would not know that you're a foreigner. In this case you're liable for taxes (if the payer knows you're a foreigner - they must withhold the taxes on your behalf). The payer will report payments to the IRS, so you have to submit your own tax return for a match. If there's activity on your account that might be suspicious, it will be reported to money laundering unit in the US Treasury Department, that may come after you through the treaties the US might have with your home country (tax treaty, extradition treaty, etc). There is no limit on how much money you can bring into the USA, in Cash or through electronic transfer. You only need to be able to proof or convincingly show that you earned it legally and paid all potential US taxes that you had to pay. If you chose to bring it in cash, you need to tell customs when arriving (and again, be prepared to proof the legal sources). Wire transfer, cash in the suitcase, whatever you like. There is no tax for bringing the money, and the tax for making that money supposedly is already paid. Once the money is in the US, and earns more money, you will owe taxes on the gain (not on the capital itself, just on the amounts it increases by) I hope you understand that if you live in the US, and you have money anywhere in the world, you might need to report it to the IRS; and if your money makes interest anywhere in the world (including of course in India), you might be are required to pay US taxes on the gains. That is independent of your question; but if you don't do it, you are cheating the IRS, and they will ask this when you bring the money back. "My recommendation is to shop around for a bank that handles wire transfers in a more sensible manner. Many wire transfers are set up so that you do not need to go physically into a branch. The wire transfer system I use has me initiate the transfer online, then call a dedicated number with a pin to authorise the transaction (24/7/365). I'm on the other side of the world from where the money ""is"" initially - no branch visit required." If the funds are in NRE account, then there is no issue. You just instruct your bank in India to transfer. If your tax status in India is Non-Resident Indian, you should not be holding a normal Savings bank account.  Under the liberalized remittance scheme you can transfer upto 2,50,000 USD per year. You would need to instruct your bank in India to initiate a international wire transfer. The FAQs are here As far as I can tell, the direct deposit option would require you to have a US bank account, which you don't have. So wire transfer is your only option unless you can ask them to try something else, like one of the cheaper money transfer services around. The charges for wire transfers tend to be fairly significant (typically low tens of USD). Depending on your relationship with the payer and the nature of the payment, try to get them to send it with all charges paid so you actually receive the amount you are owed and they cover the charges. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wire_transfer: The entity wishing to do a transfer approaches a bank and gives the bank the order to transfer a certain amount of money. IBAN and BIC codes are given as well so the bank knows where the money needs to be sent.  The sending bank transmits a message, via a secure system (such as SWIFT or Fedwire), to the receiving bank, requesting that it effect payment according to the instructions given.  The message also includes settlement instructions. The actual transfer is not instantaneous: funds may take several hours or even days to move from the sender's account to the receiver's account.  Either the banks involved must hold a reciprocal account with each other, or the payment must be sent to a bank with such an account, a correspondent bank, for further benefit to the ultimate recipient.  Banks collect payment for the service from the sender as well as from the recipient. The sending bank typically collects a fee separate from the funds being transferred, while the receiving bank and intermediate banks through which the transfer travels deduct fees from the money being transferred so that the recipient receives less than what the sender sent. The last point may not be relevant in domestic transfers. I don't see how Paypal can stop you from transferring USD funds from your paypal account to a USD account held with a bank. Just tell them to do the transfer to your account. The issue could be around USD onshore / offshore regulation. Is the US government preventing EU citizens from taking USD income offshore? If that's the case then you need a correspondent bank. So in other words, like using your friend. But what you can do is ask your bank who is their correspondent bank in the US, and whether they have the license required to transfer USD funds offshore. So you shift the regulation issues to your bank, and then you have to accept your bank's exchange rate - which is going to be better than paypal, who charges too much for FX transactions. Not a good idea.  When you form a partnership with someone that creates a legal connection between you two.  What if he racks up $50,000 on the company credit card?  Do you want to be responsible for that debt?   A better way to do this would be to either charge your clients $X for IT work and pay him half of $X which would get you the same 50% or simply have him agree to share 50% of any income he gets from people referred by you.   This can be done in a simple contract or agreement without force you both into a partnership.