How to Send Money Home from China

Where patience goes to die

Part of reaching baller status is building up a big fat cushion of money.  To do that I need to send a hefty portion of my income back home. I do my banking through Bank of China (BOC). The waiting time is abysmal and the processing speed of transactions is just as forehead-smackingly slow. But from what I hear all banks are like this, so I'm sticking with BOC.

In order to invest some of the money that I'm earning I need to send it to a bank in the U.S. I invest with Vanguard and cannot send either USD or CNY to them directly, so the process I use is this:

1. Visit the BOC in person, usually on a weekend morning (yep, they're open Saturdays and Sundays so they're not all bad) with the following documents ready:

• Passport (make sure it's the one you registered the account with)
• Bank card
• Employment contract (make sure it is the most up-to-date version)
• Work permit
• Tax receipt (I request the HR department of my company to provide this each month. The heading of the document looks like the screenshot to the right. It lets the government know that taxes have been paid on your received income.)



Tax Receipt Heading

• Information on where to send the money. This includes the bank name, address and phone number, account number and routing number. In my case I used a checking account I've had for years with my credit union in the U.S.  Note: After the first remittance you can just bring one of the carbon copy receipts that they give you - this has all the information about the bank written conveniently for the teller.  

2. When I get to the teller window, they'll ask for all the items listed above. The first process is transferring the RMB that I've been paid in to USD. They will calculate the amount I can transfer by the tax receipt and my contract. I usually have them transfer all of it, which typically comes out to just over 2,100 USD per month. Full disclosure: This is not all of my salary. I believe the government wants to make sure I have enough to live on as well. I'm fine with this number, since it's about as much as I'm able to send back. If I earned more, perhaps I could send back more, but I'd have to check to make sure.  

3. After the RMB has been converted to USD, they will send the money. During this process I'll need to input my PIN number and signed my name several times and many paper copies will be made. Two fees will be charged: 150 RMB and 50 RMB - my guess is that one is for the exchange and the other is for the remittance. So far this has been a flat fee for me.

4. The money will appear in my credit union account several days later and I'll invest it in a Vanguard index fund. Boo yeah!

I've been going through this process for almost a year now every month or two. I have also heard that Alipay can do the process for cheaper (only a 50 RMB fee) and without having to visit the bank. I can't confirm this, but I think it's worth looking into.

If you're working off the books, this probably won't work very well as you won't be able to offer a tax receipt, so you'd need to find a work-around.