Sending an international invoice is the easy half; the money still has to cross a border, and every channel it can take has a different shape — different speed, different fee structure, different failure modes. You don't need to master international banking. You need to pick a sensible default channel, write the instructions on the invoice, and make sure fees land on the sender's side.
The three main channels, structurally
Skip the pricing pages — fees change and vary by country pair. What doesn't change is the shape of each option:
| Channel | Typical fee shape | Speed | Suits best |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bank wire (SWIFT) | Flat-ish fees, possibly at both banks plus intermediaries; exchange rate set by the banks | Days | Larger invoices, corporate clients whose AP process expects wires |
| PayPal | Percentage of the amount plus a conversion margin | Fast | Smaller amounts, one-off clients, clients who won't do bank paperwork |
| Multi-currency services (Wise and similar) | Lower-margin conversion with transparent fees, local-account style transfers | Hours to days | Freelancers with recurring foreign clients in supported countries |
The structural insight: percentage-fee channels punish large invoices; flat-fee channels punish small ones. A percentage fee on a four-figure invoice can dwarf a wire fee, while a wire's fixed costs can eat a meaningful slice of a small one. Many freelancers run two channels — a wire or multi-currency account as the default, PayPal as the convenience fallback — and let invoice size pick between them.
A note on wires specifically: intermediary banks along the SWIFT route can each take a cut, which is why wired amounts sometimes arrive short even when both endpoints behaved. That's not a dispute with your client — unless your invoice makes it one, which is what the next section fixes.
"Sender covers fees": the sentence that protects your amount
The most valuable line on an international invoice costs you nothing to write:
"Sender covers all bank and transfer fees; the full invoice amount of USD 2,400 must be received."
Without it, a client can pay in full on their side and you still receive less — and you're left choosing between absorbing the gap and invoicing someone for their bank's behavior. With it, the expectation is set before payment, when it's a formality rather than a negotiation. For wires, clients can usually instruct their bank to charge fees to the sender (banks call this an "OUR" instruction); you don't need to explain that on the invoice — the sentence above is enough.
Set the expectation in the proposal too, so the first invoice isn't the first time the client hears it.
Put the payment instructions on the invoice itself
Every email round-trip about "how do I pay you?" adds days. Use the two text fields your invoice already has:
- Terms: the rules — currency, due window, sender-covers-fees, and the reference request ("please include invoice INV-0084 in the transfer reference").
- Notes: the coordinates — account name, account number or IBAN, SWIFT/BIC and bank address for wires; your PayPal email; or a line like "Wise account details sent separately" if you'd rather not print full banking details on a PDF that gets forwarded around.
Whichever channel you use, ask the client to include the invoice number with the payment. Matching money to invoices is trivial when the reference is there and genuinely annoying when it isn't.
A complete example
Example: invoice with full wire instructions and fee terms
Payment coordinates in the notes, rules in the terms: currency fixed, sender covers fees, full amount must be received, and a payment reference requested.
Make the invoice channel-ready by default
Once your terms and notes templates carry the fee wording and your payment coordinates, every future international invoice is a fill-in-the-blanks exercise. The free invoice generator gives you both fields, 25+ currencies, and a clean PDF with no signup or watermark — your instructions travel on the document itself. Deciding what currency that invoice should be in comes first, though: see which currency to invoice in, and for the wider basics, invoicing international clients.