Getting a USD cheque, without too many fees, and with a sensible exchange rate?
"UPDATE: Unfortunately Citibank have removed the ""standard"" account option and you have to choose the ""plus"" account, which requires a minimum monthly deposit of 1800 sterling and two direct debits. Absolutely there is.  I would highly recommend Citibank's Plus Current Account.  It's a completely free bank account available to all UK residents. http://www.citibank.co.uk/personal/banking/bankingproducts/currentaccounts/sterling/plus/index.htm There are no monthly fees and no minimum balance requirements to maintain.  Almost nobody in the UK has heard of it and I don't know why because it's extremely useful for anyone who travels or deals in foreign currency regularly. In one online application you can open a Sterling Current Account and Deposit Accounts in 10 other foreign currencies (When I opened mine around 3 years ago you could only open up to 7 (!) accounts at any one time). Citibank provide a Visa card, which you can link to any of your multi currency accounts via a phone call to their hotline (unfortunately not online, which frequently annoys me - but I guess you can't have everything).  For USD and EUR you can use it as a Visa debit for USD/EUR purchases, for all other currencies you can't make debit card transactions but you can make ATM withdrawals without incurring an FX conversion. Best of all for your case, a free USD cheque book is also available: http://www.citibank.co.uk/personal/banking/international/eurocurrent.htm You can fund the account in sterling and exchange to USD through online banking.  The rates are not as good as you would get through an FX broker like xe.com but they're not terrible either. You can also fund the account by USD wire transfer, which is free to deposit at Citibank - but the bank you issue the payment from will likely charge a SWIFT fee so this might not be worth it unless the amount is large enough to justify the fee. If by any chance you have a Citibank account in the US, you can also make free USD transfers in/out of this account - subject to a daily limit."
"See my comment below about the official exchange rate. There is no ""official"" exchange rate to apply as far as I'm aware.   However the bank is already applying the same exchange rate you can   find in the forex markets. They are simply applying a spread (meaning   they will add some amount to the exchange rate whichever way you are   exchanging currency). You will almost certainly not find a bank that   doesn't apply a spread. Of course, their spread might be large, so   that's why it is good to compare rates. By the way, 5 GBP/month seems   reasonable for a foreign currency (or any) acct. The transaction fees   might be cheaper in a different ""package"" so check. You should consider trying PayPal. Their spread is quite small - and publicly disclosed - and their per-transaction fees are very low. Of course, this is not a bank account. But you can easily connect it to your bank account and transfer the money between accounts quickly. They also offer free foreign currency accounts that you can basically open and close in a click. Transfers are instantaneous. I am based in Germany but I haven't had a problem with clients from various English-speaking countries using PayPal. They actually seem to prefer it in many instances." I regularly transfer money from the US to Europe, and have found a simple US check a pretty useful way (if you are not in a hurry): you write a US dollar based check to yourself, and deposit it to a bank in your new location (which implies you open an account in France, yes). It takes some days (somedays 7 days), and then the money will be deposited. The local bank will convert it (so you can walk around and pick a bank that has a rate concept that pleases you, before you open the account), and there will be no fees on the US side (which means you can get every last dollar out of the account). Also, you have the control over how much you pull when - you can write yourself as many checks as you like (assuming you took your checkbook). This was the best rate I could get, considering that wire transfers cost significant fees. There are probably other options. If you are talking serious money (like 100 k$ or more), there will better ways, but most banks will be eager to help you with that. Note that as long as you make interest income in the US, you are required to file taxes in the US; your visa status and location don't matter. in my experience no-cash transactions are the best deal. Take your Portuguese credit card, get some cash ($60) for emergencies. Only pay with your credit card. It's much cheaper because it's all virtual.  The best would be to set up an American bank account and transfer the money there. You can also get Paypal account, they offer credit cards too. The virtual banks, credit unions are the best option because they don't charge you for transactions. They don't have expenses with keeping actual money. Find some credit Union that accepts foreigners and take it from there. You can exchange your money on the airport because it's in tax free zone. I recommend the country of the currency since they sell you their 'valuts' and you are buying dollars. Not selling Euros... Make sure to find out what is the best deal. "Some years ago I was in a similar situation with a CAD cheque. I did not experience any reservation period of months. Within Canada, around a week was usual, and as far as I remember that was the case also for the cheque deposited to the EUR account.  You could ask your bank whether a certified cheque (has to be done at the ""home"" bank of the sender) will have the same reservation period and what the processing time will be anyways.  I found a large variation of the (large) fees for cashing foreign cheques. It may be worth asking a few different banks for their conditions (both fees and duration for the whole process)." Give a cheque.  You can. Your friend would have to deposit this in a Bank that does this service. Not all Banks offer this service in US. It generally would take 1-3 months for the funds to reach.  Give a dollar-denominated cheque You can NOT write check on a Rupee account and put USD. You can definitely buy a USD Draft generally payable in the US. There would be some charge for you here and send it by courier, post. It would get paid into your friends account in about a week. Do a SWIFT transfer Yes you can. You may need to walk into a Branch and fill up forms. If the amount is more than specified limit a CA certificate is required. Am I correct in understanding Yes Use my ATM card in the US Yes you can.  Specialised money transfer services like Western Union Transfer money out of India is not allowed by Money Transfer services "My solution when I lived in Singapore was to open an account with HSBC, who at the time also had branches in the US. When I was home, I used the same debit card, and the bank only charged a nominal currency exchange fee (since it never had to leave their system, it was lower than had it left their system). Another option, though slightly more costly, is to use Paypal. A third option is to cash-out in CAD and convert to USD at a ""large"" institution - the larger your deposit/conversion balance, the better the rate you can get. To the best of my knowledge, this shouldn't be taxable - presuming you've paid the taxes on it to start with, and you've been filing your IRS returns every year you've been in Canada." frostbank.com is the closest thing I've found, so accepting this (my own) answer :) EDIT: editing from my comment earlier: frostbank.com has free incoming international wires, so that's a partial solution. I confirmed this works by depositing $1 (no min deposit requirement) and wiring $100 from a non-US bank. Worked great, no fees, and ACH'd it to my main back, no problems/fees. No outgoing international wires, alas. There are a few options that I know of, but pretty much every one of them will cost more than you want to pay in fees, probably.  You should be able to write a check/cheque to yourself.  You might check with your US bank branch to see how much of a limit they'd have.  You can also use a Canadian ATM card at a US ATM.  The final option would be to use a Canadian credit card for all of your purchases in the US, and then pay the bill from the Canadian bank account.  I don't recommend the last option because if you're not careful to pay off the bill every month, you're running up debt.  Also, it's hard to pay some kinds of expenses by credit card, so you'd want a way to have cash available. Another option would be to use a service like Paypal or Hyperwallet to send yourself the money.  Again, you'd be paying fees, but these might be cheaper than what the bank would charge. There may be other options, but these are the ones I'm aware of.  Whatever you choose, look carefully at what the fees would be, and how long you'd have to wait to get the money.  If you can plan ahead a bit, and take larger chunks of money at a time, that should help keep the fees down a bit.  I believe there's also a point where you start having to report these transfers to the US government.  The number $10,000 stick in my head, but they may have changed that recently. You want to bank with HSBC: From: http://www.offshore.hsbc.com/1/2/international/foreign-exchange-currency/foreign-exchange/faqs HSBC Bank International does not   charge ‘commission’, therefore   offering 0% commission on foreign   currency exchange transactions I assume the same criteria apply for this as your previous question. You want to physically transfer in excess of 50,000 USD multiple times a week and you want the transportation mechanism to be instant or very quick. I don't believe there is any option that won't raise serious red flags with the government entities you cross the boundaries of. Even a cheque, which a person in the comments of OP's question suggests, wouldn't be sufficient due to government regulation requiring banks to put holds on such large amounts. Then, is it possible to deposit rubles at the same ATM to get USD in my account at the same rate? No this is not possible. Generally deposits into accounts outside country and not offered. He can send you a check. This will move the burden of GBP->USD conversion to him (unless the GBP amount is preset, then you'll be the one to pay for conversion either way). You can then deposit the USD check in any Israeli bank (they'll charge commission for the deposit and the USD->ILS conversion). Another, and from my experience significantly cheaper, option would be to wire transfer directly to your account. If you have a USD account and he'll transfer USD out - it will be almost at no cost to you, if you don't have a USD account check with your bank how to open it, or pay for USD->ILS conversion. My preferred method of doing this is to get a bank draft from the US in Euros and then pay it into the French bank (my countries are Canada and UK, but the principle is the same). The cost of the bank draft is about $8, so very little more than the ATM method. If you use bigger amounts it can be less overall cost. The disadvantage is that a bank draft takes a week or so to write and a few days to clear. So you would have to plan ahead. I would keep enough money in the French account for one visit, and top it up with a new bank draft every visit or two. "Simplest is probably international bank transfer.  If you don't like those, I had a friend who would buy travelers cheques, endorse them and write in large ""Only pay to the order of ****"" then send them by mail.  Very difficult for anyone other than the recipient to cash, very low fees, and there next day if you send it overnight mail." Several possibilities come to mind: Several online currency-exchange brokers (such as xe.com and HiFx) offer very good exchange rates and no wire transfer fees (beyond what your own bank might charge you).  Get French and American accounts at banks that are part of the Global ATM alliance: BNP Paribas in France and Bank of America in the USA.  This will eliminate the ATM fee. Get an account at a bank that has branches in both countries.  I've used HSBC for this purpose.