Changing Japanese Yen to U.S. Dollars in large amounts at the best rate

March 16, 2016 10:49 PM

I am an American working in Tokyo and get paid in Yen. I have way too much Yen now, and I want to change to USD, especially because the rate is relatively good at the moment. I would like to hear any anecdotal evidence about the cheapest way to change JPY to USD.

I have checked out services like Western Union, Shinsei, and TransferWise, and all of them basically charge a 2% fee over the mid-market rate, whether from the spread, fees, or both. Since I'm looking to make about a USD 10,000 transfer (and similar amounts in the future), it bothers me to pay USD 200 fees for this.

By the way, if I can find friends who want to exchange USD/JPY with me at mid-market rates, I do it, and it works out well for both of us (I give them JPY cash and they Paypal me the USD), but my friends don't have enough capacity for the amount I want.
Suggestions, tips or tricks?

posted by banishedimmortal to Work & Money (7 answers total)

Have you tried using shinsei goremit? IIRC the fee is 2000 yen no matter how much you send.
posted by gloriouslyincandescent at 11:41 PM on March 16, 2016

...Nevermind, you said shinsei, not sure how I missed that. My bad.
posted by gloriouslyincandescent at 11:41 PM on March 16, 2016

Honestly, in my experience, GoRemit is about the best you're going to do, especially for large quantities. Unless you're talking about truly stunning quantities of money, odds are you aren't going to be doing much better than what we peons have available to us. 2% sounds pretty normal for currency exchange services, given that the company doing so has to make money somehow.
posted by DoctorFedora at 11:58 PM on March 16, 2016

When I was changing money between the US and Australian dollar, I used Oanda.com for the exchange. It was the most inexpensive and convenient way I could find at the time(all wiring between the different bank accounts I had registered with them). I was doing this for larger real estate down payment sized amounts of money.
posted by newpotato at 4:33 AM on March 17, 2016

Maybe try TransferWise.
posted by veedubya at 8:39 AM on March 17, 2016

About 15 years ago, I had good results with xe to transfer AUD and USD around. I mean, I lost my shirt on inventory costs due to the US dollar tanking, but that's not xe's fault... :)
posted by TheNewWazoo at 10:14 AM on March 17, 2016

I use xe trade for USD to GBP transfers - they do free, slower, Electronic Funds Transfers (which is what I use), and faster Wire Transfers which incur a fee. Unfortunately free EFT's are not available for Yen, but I've been very happy with the service and I reckon it'd be worth investigating what their Wire Transfer fees are - I'd wager they're more competitive than Western Union et al.
posted by forallmankind at 4:36 PM on March 17, 2016