How to receive money internationally as a business

Choose the receiving outcome before sending instructions

The invoice currency and receiving account currency should be explicit. On the page fetched August 10, 2026, Bank of America gave different SWIFT codes and bank addresses for incoming US-dollar and foreign-currency wires. Copying the US-dollar instruction onto a foreign-currency invoice would ignore the bank’s own routing distinction. Ask the bank whether it can hold the invoice currency, converts on receipt, or requires a different account.

Build one bank-issued receiving-instructions sheet

IBAN is also account-specific. Bank of Scotland tells business customers to retrieve the IBAN and BIC from authenticated online banking, while HSBC US lists an IBAN or account number among possible incoming-wire fields and warns that missing or incorrect information can delay the payment. Do not generate an IBAN from a sort code or reuse one from an unrelated entity.

Put the instructions on the invoice without creating a fraud trap

Why an incoming payment can be held

The beneficiary bank may receive the payment message before crediting the business. Swift’s 2025 study identified purpose-of-payment reporting, currency and FX controls, unavailable 24/7 infrastructure, and manual processes among important last-mile delay causes. It describes institutions holding funds until a beneficiary supplies purpose information in some jurisdictions, especially where local reporting codes do not align with the sender’s data.

Financial-crime controls can also create an exception. OFAC’s compliance framework says organisations screen counterparties, commercial documents, and transactions and highlights due diligence on customers, ownership, locations, counterparties, and dealings. Swift notes that automated screening usually takes seconds or minutes, while a smaller set of payments needs deeper investigation. A receiving business should respond with accurate documents, not ask a bank to bypass review.

• Keep the invoice, contract or purchase order, and description of goods or services ready.
• Know the legal sender and whether a third party is paying on the customer’s behalf.
• Provide the destination jurisdiction’s exact purpose code when the bank requests it.
• Name one treasury or receivables owner who monitors bank messages and answers document requests.
• Escalate a rejected or returned payment using the bank reference before asking the client to pay again.

Decide what happens to currency on receipt

A foreign-currency wire can be converted automatically. Bank of America’s business schedule, effective February 20, 2026, says an incoming wire received in foreign currency for payment into the account is converted to US dollars using the bank’s applicable exchange rate, which the bank determines. It also listed a $15 incoming international wire fee with specified waivers. Another bank or multi-currency account can work differently, so capture the receiving fee, rate, currency credited, and amount posted.

Match the receipt to the invoice

An official ISO 20022 message definition defines a remittance identification as a unique reference assigned by the initiating party to identify remittance information sent separately from the payment instruction, such as remittance advice. Use the invoice number in the payment reference and provide an allocation schedule when one receipt covers several invoices. Then follow the separate accounting reconciliation guide for matching, bank fees, FX differences, and exceptions rather than rebuilding that workflow here.