Wise Fees in NZ (2026): Every Single Fee, Itemised

There are exactly eleven ways Wise can charge a New Zealand customer money, and this page lists all of them. No monthly fee, no minimum balance, no inactivity fee, no foreign transaction fee, and — the one that matters most — no markup on the exchange rate. Sending NZ$1,000 to the United States costs about NZ$4.98 all in. Sending NZ$5,000 costs about NZ$16.37. A New Zealand bank advertising a NZ$0 transfer fee costs roughly NZ$85 on that same NZ$5,000, and the rest of this page shows you exactly where that NZ$85 is hiding.

We earn a commission if you open an account with some of the providers listed on this page. It never changes the rate or fee you pay, and it never changes our rankings — our comparison figures come from each provider's published pricing.

Every Wise fee for a New Zealand customer, in one table

#	Fee	Amount	When it applies
1	Open an account	NZ$0	Never. Personal accounts are free to register.
2	Monthly / annual fee	NZ$0	Never. There are no plans, tiers or subscriptions.
3	Hold a balance	NZ$0	Never. Any of 40 currencies, any amount, indefinitely.
4	Currency conversion fee	From 0.25%	Every time currency is converted. Varies by pair.
5	Fixed transfer fee	~NZ$2	On NZD sends, on top of the percentage. Varies by pair and funding method.
6	Exchange rate markup	NZ$0	Never. Wise uses the mid-market rate.
7	Debit card	NZ$14 one-off	Once, when you order the physical card. NZ$17.40 express.
8	Card spending	NZ$0	Never. No foreign transaction fee. Conversion fee applies only if converting.
9	ATM withdrawals	Free to NZ$400/mo, then 2.69%	On the amount above NZ$400 in a calendar month.
10	Receive money (domestic)	NZ$0	Never, for NZD, AUD, USD, GBP, EUR, CAD, SGD, PHP and more.
11	Receive a SWIFT / wire payment	US$6.11 · £2.16 · €2.39	Only when a sender uses a wire instead of your local details.

That is the complete list. If you are looking for a hidden charge, the honest answer is that the one worth watching is #9, because 2.69% on ATM withdrawals adds up fast if you are a cash-heavy traveller, and #11, because a US client who insists on wiring rather than using your ACH details costs you US$6.11 per payment for no reason.

The conversion fee: what "from 0.25%" actually means

Wise's headline is "from 0.25%", and the word doing the work is from. The percentage is set per currency pair and reflects how liquid and cheap that pair is for Wise to handle. High-volume corridors sit at or near the floor; thin or restricted currencies cost several times more.

Roughly, the bands look like this:

Band	Typical conversion fee	Example currencies from NZD
Cheapest	~0.25–0.35%	AUD, USD, EUR, GBP, CAD, SGD, JPY
Mid	~0.4–0.9%	Many European, Nordic and larger Asian currencies
Higher	~1–2%+	Thinner emerging-market and restricted currencies

Two practical consequences. First, the currency pair matters more than the amount — NZ$1,000 to Australia costs about NZ$3.83 while the same NZ$1,000 to a thin currency can cost several times that. Second, how you pay changes the fee too. Funding a transfer by bank transfer from your NZ account is normally cheapest; paying by debit or credit card is faster but adds a card-processing charge on top. Wise always shows the split before you confirm, so check the fee line against your funding method rather than assuming.

You can price any pair yourself on Wise's NZ pricing page before you open anything.

The fixed fee, and why small transfers cost proportionally more

On top of the percentage, Wise adds a small flat amount — around NZ$2 on NZD sends, though it varies by pair. It exists to cover the per-transaction cost of moving money, which does not shrink just because you are sending less.

The effect is that Wise's all-in percentage falls as your amount rises, which is the opposite of how a bank's cost behaves. A bank's margin is purely proportional: 1.69% of NZ$200 and 1.69% of NZ$20,000 are the same percentage. Wise's fixed component gets diluted. This is why the gap between Wise and a bank is trivial on NZ$200 and enormous on NZ$20,000.

Worked examples: what you actually pay at four amounts

All figures for NZD → USD, the most common corridor from New Zealand. The Wise column is anchored on verified figures — NZ$1,000 costs NZ$4.98 and NZ$5,000 costs NZ$16.37 per third-party comparison data — with the NZ$200 and NZ$20,000 rows derived from the same fee structure. The bank column models a New Zealand bank charging a NZ$0 online transfer fee with a 1.69% margin built into its exchange rate.

You send	Wise total fee	Wise as %	Bank at "NZ$0 fee" + 1.69% margin	You keep
NZ$200	~NZ$2.70	1.35%	NZ$3.38	NZ$0.68
NZ$1,000	NZ$4.98	0.50%	NZ$16.92	NZ$11.94
NZ$5,000	NZ$16.37	0.33%	NZ$84.60	NZ$68.23
NZ$20,000	~NZ$59.13	0.30%	NZ$338.40	NZ$279.27

Read the first row honestly: on NZ$200, Wise saves you 68 cents. That is not a reason to switch. Below roughly NZ$150 the fixed fee dominates and a low-flat-fee specialist — OrbitRemit charges nothing on GBP and Samoan tālā from New Zealand, with a roughly 1.18% margin — can beat Wise outright on small sends. Wise's advantage is real from about NZ$500 and becomes hard to argue with above NZ$2,000.

And read the last row too. NZ$279 on a single NZ$20,000 transfer. If you are converting a house deposit or an inheritance, this is the most valuable ten minutes of admin available to you — our guide to the cheapest way to exchange money in New Zealand in 2026 runs the same test across every provider.

Why Wise's fee looks bigger than a bank's "$0" — and is actually smaller

This is the single most misread thing in New Zealand international payments, so let us do it with arithmetic rather than argument.

Westpac NZ genuinely removed its NZ$5 telegraphic transfer fee from the Westpac One app and internet banking on 1 December 2025. ANZ NZ genuinely charges NZ$0 online on several corridors, including USD to the United States, GBP to the UK and AUD to Australia. Those are not marketing claims; they are the published fee schedules. So a customer comparing screens sees "Fee: NZ$0" at the bank and "Fee: NZ$16.37" at Wise and reasonably concludes the bank is cheaper.

It is not, because the bank is not charging a fee — it is charging a rate. Here is the same NZ$5,000 both ways, using an illustrative mid-market NZD/USD of 0.5850:

	Wise	Bank with a "NZ$0" fee
Stated fee	NZ$16.37	NZ$0
Rate you get	0.5850 (mid-market)	0.5751
Amount converted	NZ$4,983.63	NZ$5,000.00
Recipient receives	US$2,915.42	US$2,875.50
Shortfall vs mid-market	—	US$39.92
True total cost	NZ$16.37	NZ$84.60

The bank's cost was always there. It was denominated in exchange rate rather than in dollars, which is the only reason it did not look like a charge. Independent measurement bears this out: on a NZ$5,000 NZ→US transfer, third-party comparison data puts Wise at NZ$16.37, BNZ at NZ$77.46, ASB at NZ$84.58 and Kiwibank at NZ$108.39 — total cost including margin. Published margin ranges are roughly 1–2% at ASB on major currencies and 1.5–3% at BNZ, rising to about 5% on Pacific currencies.

Catch the margin yourself in four steps

1. Note the rate your bank quotes. Example: 0.5751.
2. Look up the mid-market rate on our NZD currency converter. Example: 0.5850.
3. Divide: 0.5751 ÷ 0.5850 = 0.9831. Subtract from 1 → 1.69% margin.
4. Multiply by your amount. 1.69% of NZ$5,000 = NZ$84.60. Add any stated fee. That is your real cost.

Do this every time, with every provider, including Wise. It is the only comparison that means anything, and it takes less than a minute.

The Wise card: NZ$14, then what?

The debit card costs NZ$14 once (NZ$17.40 for express delivery) and has no annual fee. After that:

• Spending a currency you already hold: free. Hold €500, tap in Rome, no conversion and no fee.
• Spending a currency you don't hold: Wise auto-converts at the mid-market rate and charges the conversion fee from 0.25%. On NZ$4,000 of overseas spending that is roughly NZ$10–18 in total.
• Foreign transaction fee: none. This is the big one. An ANZ, ASB, BNZ, Westpac or Kiwibank card typically adds 2.5–3% to every overseas transaction — NZ$100–120 on that same NZ$4,000 trip.
• Replacement card: a fee may apply for a replacement, and express delivery costs more. The digital card is free to reissue.

See travel money cards in NZ and the best card to use overseas from NZ for how it stacks up against prepaid cards and low-fee credit cards.

ATM fees: the NZ$400 allowance and the 2.69% above it

Wise gives you free withdrawals up to NZ$400 per month per account, then charges 2.69% of the amount above NZ$400. Worked through:

Withdrawn in a month	Amount over NZ$400	Wise fee at 2.69%
NZ$400	NZ$0	NZ$0
NZ$600	NZ$200	NZ$5.38
NZ$1,000	NZ$600	NZ$16.14
NZ$2,000	NZ$1,600	NZ$43.04

Three things people get wrong here. The ATM operator's own fee is separate — overseas machines routinely charge US$3–6 or equivalent, and that is not Wise's charge and not something Wise can waive. Always decline the ATM's offer to convert for you; choose to be charged in the local currency and let Wise do the conversion, because the machine's "dynamic currency conversion" rate is far worse. And fewer, larger withdrawals beat many small ones, because the operator fee is usually flat.

Note one live inconsistency worth checking against your own account: Wise's NZ pricing page states the free allowance as NZ$400 per month, while its travel money card marketing page says NZ$350. Confirm the figure shown in your app before relying on it.

Receiving money and holding balances

Holding money in a Wise balance is free, in any of 40 currencies, with no minimum and no time limit. Wise does not currently pay interest on New Zealand accounts.

Receiving is free too — as long as the sender pays your local account details. Wise gives you real domestic account details in 20 currencies, so a US client can pay your US account number by ACH, a UK client can pay a sort code and account number, and an Australian employer can pay a BSB. All free.

The fee appears when someone bypasses that and sends an international wire or SWIFT payment instead:

• USD wire / SWIFT: US$6.11 per payment
• GBP SWIFT: £2.16 per payment
• EUR SWIFT: €2.39 per payment
• Around 19 other currencies have their own SWIFT receiving fees

If you are regularly paid from overseas, send the payer your local details explicitly and ask them to use a domestic payment. It converts a recurring US$6.11 into NZ$0. Worth contrasting with Kiwibank, which charges NZ$12 to receive any inward international payment.

The guaranteed rate: how the lock works

When you set up a transfer, Wise shows a guaranteed rate and holds it for a stated window — commonly up to 24 or 48 hours depending on the currency pair, and displayed on screen with a countdown. Pay within that window and you get the locked rate no matter what the market does in the meantime.

If your money reaches Wise after the guarantee expires — a slow bank transfer, a weekend, a missed payment reference — Wise converts at the mid-market rate applying at that moment instead. That can go either way; it is not a penalty, just the live rate. Three practical rules:

• Fund it immediately. The countdown starts when you set up the transfer, not when you get around to paying.
• Include the reference number Wise gives you. An unmatched payment sits in limbo and burns the window.
• Watch Fridays. A transfer set up on Friday afternoon and funded by a bank transfer that clears Monday will almost certainly miss its lock.

If you need certainty for a specific settlement date weeks or months out, Wise's short lock is not the right instrument — a broker offering a forward contract is, and you pay for that certainty in the rate. Our guide to sending money overseas from NZ covers when that trade-off is worth making.

Frequently asked questions

How much does Wise charge in total?

For a New Zealand customer sending NZD, the total is a conversion fee from 0.25% plus a small fixed fee of roughly NZ$2, with no markup on the exchange rate. That comes to about NZ$4.98 on NZ$1,000 to the United States and NZ$16.37 on NZ$5,000 — 0.50% and 0.33% respectively. The percentage falls as the amount rises because the fixed component gets diluted.

What is the Wise currency conversion fee?

From 0.25%, varying by currency pair. Major, liquid pairs such as NZD to AUD, USD, EUR or GBP sit near the floor at roughly 0.25–0.35%. Mid-tier currencies run around 0.4–0.9%, and thin or restricted currencies can exceed 1–2%. Crucially, the conversion always happens at the mid-market rate, so the stated percentage is the whole cost of converting — there is no second, hidden charge inside the rate.

Does Wise charge a monthly fee in New Zealand?

No. There is no monthly fee, no annual fee, no subscription, no plan tiers, no minimum balance and no inactivity fee. Opening a personal Wise account is free and holding money in it is free. The only recurring cost is the conversion fee you pay when you actually convert something.

What is the Wise ATM fee in NZ?

Withdrawals are free up to NZ$400 per month per account, then Wise charges 2.69% of the amount above NZ$400. Withdraw NZ$1,000 in a month and you pay 2.69% of NZ$600, which is NZ$16.14. The ATM operator's own fee is separate and unavoidable. Wise's pricing page states NZ$400 while its travel card page states NZ$350 — check the figure shown in your own account.

How much does the Wise card cost?

NZ$14 as a one-off charge, or NZ$17.40 with express delivery. There is no annual fee, no fee to spend a currency you already hold, and no foreign transaction fee. The digital card is available instantly and free to use for online and mobile-wallet payments; the physical card ships by post and takes one to two weeks.

Does Wise charge to receive money?

Not for domestic payments into your local account details — receiving NZD, AUD, USD, GBP, EUR, CAD, SGD or PHP that way is free. Fees only apply when a sender uses an international wire instead: US$6.11 for a USD wire or SWIFT payment, £2.16 for GBP SWIFT and €2.39 for EUR SWIFT. Give payers your local details and ask them to send domestically, and you pay nothing.

Is there a fee to hold money in a Wise balance?

No. You can hold any of 40 currencies indefinitely at no charge, with no minimum balance. Wise does not currently pay interest on New Zealand accounts. Bear in mind a Wise balance is not covered by New Zealand's depositor compensation scheme, so it suits money in motion rather than long-term savings.

Why does Wise show a fee when my bank says $0?

Because a bank's cost is in the exchange rate, not the fee line. Westpac NZ removed its NZ$5 transfer fee in December 2025 and ANZ charges NZ$0 online on several corridors — both genuinely NZ$0. But at a 1.69% margin, a NZ$5,000 transfer still costs NZ$84.60, versus NZ$16.37 with Wise at the mid-market rate. Third-party measurement of total cost on NZ$5,000 to the US confirms the pattern: Wise NZ$16.37, BNZ NZ$77.46, ASB NZ$84.58, Kiwibank NZ$108.39.

What is Wise's guaranteed rate, and what happens if it expires?

When you set up a transfer, Wise locks the exchange rate for a stated window — commonly up to 24 or 48 hours depending on the currency — and shows a countdown. Pay within that window and you get the locked rate regardless of market movement. If your money arrives after it expires, Wise converts at the mid-market rate applying at that moment, which may be better or worse. Fund the transfer straight away and always include the reference number Wise gives you.

Does Wise charge a foreign transaction fee?

No, and this is one of its largest practical savings. New Zealand bank cards typically add 2.5–3% to every overseas transaction, which is NZ$100–120 on NZ$4,000 of holiday spending. Wise charges nothing for spending abroad; you only pay the conversion fee from 0.25% if the card has to convert, which on that same NZ$4,000 is roughly NZ$10–18.

For the full picture on how Wise works, whether it is safe here, and how it compares to XE, OFX and TorFX, read our full Wise review for New Zealand. If you are paying overseas suppliers or contractors through a company, the fee structure is different — see Wise Business NZ.