How to send money from Poland to Ukraine in 2026: fees, limits and the cheapest options

Poland sends the most money to Ukraine, but mostly in cash

According to the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), private money transfers to Ukraine reached 7,881 million USD in 2025, down from 9,415 million USD in 2024 and 11,292 million USD in 2023. That is the third consecutive year of decline. The economic weight of these transfers is shrinking too: they equalled 3.7% of Ukraine's GDP in 2025, compared with 4.9% in 2024 and a wartime peak of 7.7% in 2022.

Poland is by far the largest single source. In 2025 residents of Poland sent 2,287 million USD to Ukraine, which is 29.0% of the entire inflow. In 2024 the figure was 3,243 million USD, or 34.4%. The United States came second in 2025 with a 14.1% share.

The surprising part is how this money travels. Of the 7,881 million USD total, 5,068 million USD arrived through official channels in 2025, including 2,456 million via international money transfer systems and 547 million via banks' correspondent accounts, while 2,813 million USD came through informal channels. For the Polish flow the split is far more extreme: only 183.5 million USD of the 2,287 million from Poland passed through official channels (119.8 million via banks and 63.6 million via transfer systems). Under NBU methodology the rest counts as informal transfers, which mainly means cash carried across the border in person.

A 2025 study by the National Bank of Poland (NBP, Poland's central bank), based on 3,965 respondents surveyed between April and June 2025, confirms the trend: Ukrainian migrants in Poland still support relatives at home financially, but both the frequency and the amounts of transfers are declining.

Fintechs vs transfer systems vs bank SWIFT: what a transfer really costs

You have three basic official routes: fintech transfer services (Wise, TransferGo, Paysend, Revolut), classic money transfer systems (Western Union, MoneyGram, RIA), and a SWIFT transfer from your Polish bank. A comparison by rates.fm (updated 12.03.2026) for a 2000 PLN transfer to Ukraine found: Wise 27.54 PLN, Western Union 64 PLN, TransferGo no commission (waived on 24.02.2022), Paysend a flat 1.50 EUR, MoneyGram no fixed commission (the cost sits in the exchange-rate margin), and Revolut 1% with a 1 EUR minimum.

Two caveats. Western Union's pricing depends heavily on how you pay in and how the recipient collects the money: an account-to-account transfer can carry no fixed fee, with comparison services estimating the exchange-rate margin at around 4-5%, so always check the amount the recipient will actually get in UAH, not just the headline fee. Revolut's real cost also depends on your plan (Premium and Metal get discounts) and on weekend exchange surcharges. For scale: in the international transfer systems segment, worth 2.5 billion USD in 2024 according to NBU data, Western Union led with a 37.6% share, ahead of MoneyGram (19.2%) and RIA (18.3%).

A SWIFT transfer from a Polish bank is usually the most expensive route: typically 0.2-1.5% commission with a minimum amount, plus the bank's currency spread and, if you choose the OUR cost option, fees charged by intermediary banks. Several Polish banks waived fees on transfers to Ukraine in 2022-2023 as a wartime measure, but you should verify the current fee schedule before assuming a waiver still applies. Currency spreads and add-on charges are exactly the kind of costs Polish regulators have flagged before: see our guide to hidden bank fees in Poland.

Wise in practice: the cheapest route comes with strict UAH limits

A live Wise quote from 06.08.2026 shows what the numbers look like today: a 1000 PLN transfer to a Ukrainian account in hryvnia costs 13.77 PLN in total fees (about 1.4%) when funded by a bank transfer, and the recipient gets about 11,751 UAH. Funding the same transfer with a debit card raises the cost to 24.58 PLN, and Apple Pay to 30.28 PLN. The practical lesson: always fund Wise transfers with a plain bank transfer.

The payout side has hard limits. Wise sends UAH only to a personal IBAN at a Ukrainian bank: no business accounts, and no payouts to cards since August 2024. Recipient limits are 399,999 UAH per transfer for PrivatBank accounts and 29,999 UAH per transfer for other Ukrainian banks. Payouts to occupied territories are not available, and the UAH exchange rate comes from Wise's local partner. According to Wise's own materials the maximum transfer is 60,000 PLN, though this cap is worth confirming in the app before a large transfer.

On the sending side, most of these services work best when funded from a Polish bank account, so it pays to have one with free transfers: compare current offers in our personal accounts ranking. And if you earn in PLN but hold savings in euros or dollars before sending them on, see our guide to multi-currency accounts in Poland.

Carrying cash across the border: declare from 10,000 EUR

NBU data makes clear that most money moving from Poland to Ukraine still travels as cash. That is legal, but there are declaration rules on both sides of the border. Under EU Regulation 2018/1672, anyone carrying cash worth 10,000 EUR or more across the EU's external border, which includes the Polish-Ukrainian border, must file a customs declaration, either in writing or electronically via PUESC, Poland's electronic customs services portal.

On the Ukrainian side, bringing in cash worth 10,000 EUR or more requires a written customs declaration. The threshold counts all currencies combined and applies per person. Ukrainian law sets no upper limit on how much declared cash you can bring in.

Remember that cash is not free money transport: you still pay exchange costs when converting PLN to UAH, you carry the physical risk yourself, and there is no paper trail. A declared bank or fintech transfer costs a known fee and leaves documentation, which can matter for larger amounts.

ZEN.COM buys PINbank: what could change for Poland-Ukraine transfers

On 22.04.2026 the Polish fintech ZEN.COM finalized its acquisition of Ukraine's PINbank, a bank that had earlier been nationalized after confiscation from a Russian oligarch. It is the first entry of a Polish fintech into the Ukrainian banking market. In its statement the company said Ukraine "has large growth potential and is a market of strategic importance".

ZEN.COM has announced plans to develop cross-border payments and money transfers between Ukraine, Europe and the United Kingdom, and to add the hryvnia to its multi-currency account, backed by a declared investment of over 20 million EUR in the Ukrainian market. As of August 2026 these are strategic announcements, not live services, and no launch date has been given.

For anyone sending money home, more competition on the Poland-Ukraine corridor can only help push fees down. For now, though, the cheapest official routes remain the fintech transfers compared above, with Wise, TransferGo and Paysend leading on cost in the available 2026 data.