Deposit cash into US bank account
Sure; you can deposit cash. A few notes apply: Does the source of cash need to be declared ? If you deposit more than $10,000 in cash or other negotiable instruments, you'll be asked to complete a form called a Currency Transaction Report (here's the US Government's guidance for consumers about this form). There's some very important information in that guidance document about structuring, which is a fairly serious crime that you can commit if you break up your deposits to avoid reporting. Don't do this. The linked document gives examples. Also don't refuse to make your deposit and walk away when presented with a CTR form.  In addition, you are also required to report to Customs and Border Protection when you bring more than $10,000 in or out of the country. If you are caught not doing so, the money may be seized and you could be prosecuted criminally. Many countries have similar requirements, often with different dollar amounts, so it's important to make sure you comply with their laws as well. The information from this reporting goes to the government and is used to enforce finance and tax laws, but there's nothing wrong or illegal about depositing cash as long as you don't evade the reporting requirements. You will not need to declare precisely where the cash comes from, but they will want the information required on the forms.  Is it taxable ? Simply depositing cash into your bank account is not taxable. Receiving some forms of income, whether as cash or a bank deposit, is taxable. If you seem to have a large amount of unexplained cash income, it is possible an IRS audit will want an explanation from you as to where it comes from and why it isn't taxable.  In short, if the income was taxable, you should have paid taxes on it whether or not you deposit it in a bank account. What is the limit of the deposit ? There is no government limit. An individual bank may have their own limit and/or may charge a fee for larger deposits. You could always call the bank and ask.
"The new information helps a little, but you're still stuck as far as doing exactly what you asked.  The question that you really should be asking is ""How do I deposit money into my BofA checking account from Italy?""  If you can figure that out, then the whole part about your father's AmEx card really becomes irrelevant.  He might get that money from a cash advance on his AmEx card or he might get it from somewhere else. I think there's some small chance that if you call BofA and ask the right question, they may give you an answer that will let you make this deposit.  I tend to doubt it, but this would at least give you a chance. Other than that, you should probably look into some options based in Italy.  For example, get the cash from your father and open a bank account in Italy.  Maybe you can buy a pre-paid Visa card with the cash to use while you're there.  Maybe use traveler's checks for the rest of your trip.  Etc. What is available and what makes sense will still depend on a lot of details that we don't have (like how long you're staying and what type of entry visa you got when you entered Italy)." yes you can open bank account you should have a address in us and personally visit bank to deposite $1500 only to get you a debit card.you are required to maintain min balance of $1500 only. I have done it 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 Look for EU banks that have US branches. Open an account there and look for the SWIFT code of your bank in US. Withdraw money using SWIFT US code. The data provided in your question is irrelevant. The data that you provided in the comments (that you're physically present in the US while doing the work) is the only relevant information needed to answer your question. You will need to pay taxes in the US for the earnings. The company invoicing the US client will also need to pay taxes in the US for its earnings from these invoices. You can transfer between bank accounts and deposit whatever you want anywhere you want, no-one cares (with respect to the US taxes, check with Indian tax accountant about Indian requirements). Banks in the US have to report deposits of more than $10,000, so they'll contact you to complete form 8300 or something. It should not be a problem, though, if you specify that it's someone else's money, not your income. I'm going to give the checkmark to Joe, but I wanted to convey my personal experience. I bank with TD in New Jersey and was informed by the teller that I simply needed to endorse the check myself and indicate Parent of Minor. I cannot attest if other banks will accept this, but it at least works for TD and my situation in particular. "See ""Structuring transactions to evade reporting requirement prohibited."" You absolutely run the risk of the accusation of structuring. One can move money via check, direct transfer, etc, all day long, from account to account, and not have a reporting issue. But, cash deposits have a reporting requirement (by the bank) if $10K or over. Very simple, you deposit $5000 today, and $5000 tomorrow. That's structuring, and illegal.  Let me offer a pre-emptive ""I don't know what frequency of $10000/X deposits triggers this rule. But, like the Supreme Court's, ""We have trouble defining porn, but we know it when we see it. And we're happy to have these cases brought to us,"" structuring is similarly not 100% definable, else one would shift a bit right."" You did not ask, but your friend runs the risk of gift tax issues, as he's not filing the forms to acknowledge once he's over $14,000." There are good reasons to not go the cash route here (see Jay's answer). If one insists however, at 30 k€ anti-money laundering regulations have to be considered (and are not mentioned by the existing answers so far). Depositing amounts larger than 10 k€ will trigger questions about the source of the money to fight tax evasion and organized crime (splitting the amount may still trigger the process). So prepare good proof concerning the origin of that money and a paper trail that shows it is legal money and that it has been taxed already.  I.e. the latest Anti-Money Laundering Directive is supposed to be implemented by national laws, thus including Spain. The European Union Fourth Anti-Money Laundering Directive is the most sweeping AML legislation in Europe in several years. On 25 June 2015, the EU Fourth Directive was enacted, which replaces the previous Third Directive. With a two-year window for implementation, all EU member states must be compliant with the new mandates by 26 June 2017. Source Almost any financial institution has the technical ability to do this (simply called sweeps, auto sweeps, or deposit sweeps); the issue you face is finding an institution that is willing to do it for you.  I think you will have the most luck at your primary financial institution where you currently keep the majority of your banking relationship.  You will have better luck at small-town banks and credit unions.  The mega banks will likely not waver from their established policies. Deposit sweeps are common for business accounts.  They are usually tied to a savings account, which is usually held within the same institution, however this is not a requirement.  The sweep can send money to any US bank if you can provide the routing number and account number.  The sweep will establish a peg balance, or floor balance, on the checking account.  At the end of the day, any amount above the peg is swept into the savings account automatically. I doubt you will find what you’re asking for within an online banking system.  You will likely have to go into a branch and speak with a personal banker.  Explain to them you want to establish a sweep on your checking account and want to send the funds to another financial institution.  You will have better luck asking for a peg of $100, or some other small amount.  They may not take your request seriously if you want to completely empty the checking account to zero. "Depositing above $10,000 in cash into a bank automatically triggers warnings in the banks computer system, and reports are submitted to appropriate authorities. Every bank has to do its, it's the law. If you ""structure"" your deposits where you put in several cash deposits below $10,000 that's a crime and bank computers are very sensitive to picking up on that. They're so sensitive to structuring that innocent people get flagged by it all the time. So I recommend only depositing $6k or less of that money into banks. What do you want to do with the money?  If you want to use it to buy stuff in person at stores then I recommend just using it at the counter instead of credit cards. If you want to buy things online with it then I recommend bitcoin. It's anonymous, the IRS won't know it's yours, and it's easy to buy what you need with bitcoin. You can easily exchange bitcoin for cash among your neighbors using apps like PaxFul, LocalBitcoins, and BitQuick. They'll give you bitcoin which you'd load onto an app called a ""wallet"", for example Mycelium or Blockchain.info. You can buy just about anything online with bitcoin these days: from computers at newegg, to hotels at expedia, to airplane tickets at cheapair.com, to anything on amazon at 20% off using purse.io, or you can invest it by offer people around the world loans at BTCJam.com and they pay you back with interest. You can hold on to bitcoin as it grows in value, or you can donate it to any of the thousands of charities around the world who accept it. You can even use it to support presidential campaigns (at this time, only Rand Paul's campaign and Joe Biden's SuperPAC accept bitcoin)." Every bank and credit union in the US has a Deposit Agreement and Disclosures document, Bank of America is no different. Our general policy is to make funds from your cash and check deposits   available to you no later  than the first business day after the day   of your deposit. However, in some cases we place a hold  on funds that   you deposit by check. A hold results in a delay in the availability of   these funds. that sounds great but ... For determining the availability of your deposits, every day is a   business day, except Saturdays,   Sundays, and federal holidays.   If   you make a deposit on a business day that we are open at one of our   financial centers before   2:00 p.m. local time, or at one of our ATMs   before 5:00 p.m. local time in the state where we  maintain your   account, we consider that day to be the day of your deposit. However,   if you make  a deposit after such times, or on a day when we are not   open or that is not a business day, we  consider that the deposit was   made on the next business day we are open. Some locations have    different cutoff times. so if you deposit a check on Friday afternoon, the funds are generally available on Tuesday. but not always... In some cases, we will not make all of the funds that you deposit by   check available to you by the  first business day after the day of   your deposit. Depending on the type of check that you deposit,  funds   may not be available until the second business day after the day of   your deposit. The first  $200 of your deposits, however, may be   available no later than the first business day after the day  of your   deposit.  If we are not going to make all of the funds from your   deposit available by the first business  day after the day of your   deposit, we generally notify you at the time you make your deposit. We   also tell you when the funds will be available. Ok what happens when the funds are available... In many cases, we make funds from your deposited checks available to   you sooner than we  are able to collect the checks. This means that,   from time to time, a deposited check may be  returned unpaid after we   made the funds available to you. Please keep in mind that even though    we make funds from a deposited check available to you and you withdraw   the funds, you are  still responsible for problems with the deposit.   If a check you deposited is returned to us unpaid  for any reason, you   will have to repay us and we may charge your account for the amount of   the  check, even if doing so overdraws your account. Fidelity has a similar document: Each check deposited is promptly credited to your account.  However,   the money may not be available until up to six business  days later,   and we may decline to honor any debit that is applied  against the   money before the deposited check has cleared. If a deposited check does not clear, the deposit will be removed  from   your account, and you are responsible for returning any  interest you   received on it. I would think that the longer holding period for Fidelity is due to the fact that they want to wait long enough to make sure that the number of times they have to undo investments due to the funds not clearing is nearly zero. "Several options are available. She may ask the US bank to issue a debit card (VISA most probably) to her account, and mail this card to Russia. I think this can be done without much problems, though sending anything by mail may be unreliable. After this she just withdraws the money from local ATM. Some withdrawal fee may apply, which may be rather big if the sum of money is big. In big banks (Alfa-bank, Citibank Russia, etc.) are ATMs that allow you to withdraw dollars, and it is better to use one of them to avoid unfavorable exchange rate. She may ask the US bank to transfer the money to her Russian account. I assume the currency on the US bank account is US Dollars. She needs an US dollar account in any Russian bank (this is no problem at all).  She should find out from that bank the transfer parameters (реквизиты) for transfering US dollars to her account. This should include, among other info, a ""Bank correspondent"", and a SWIFT code (or may be two SWIFT codes). After this, she should contact her US bank and find out how can she request the money to be transferred to her Russian bank, providing these transfer parameters. I can think of two problems that may be here. First, the bank may refuse to transfer money without her herself coming to the bank to confirm her identity. (How do they know that a person writing or calling them is she indeed?) However, I guess there should be some workaround for this. Second, with current US sanctions against Russia, the bank may just refuse the transfer or will have do some additional investigations. However, I have heard that bank transfers from US to private persons to Russia are not blocked. Probably it is good to find this out in advance. In addition, the US bank will most probably charge some standard fee for foreign transfer. After this, she should wait for a couple of days, maybe up to week for the money to appear on Russian account. I have done this once some four years ago, and had no problems, though at that time I was in the US, so I just came to the bank myself. The bank employee to whom I talked obviously was unsure whether the transfer parameters were enough (obviously this was a very unusual situation for her), but she took the information from me, and I guess just passed it on to someone more knowledgable. The fee was something about $40. Another option that I might think of is her US bank issuing and mailing her a check for the whole sum, and she trying to cash it here in Russia. This is possible, but very few banks do cash checks here (Citibank Russia is among those that do). The bank will also charge a fee, and it will be comparable to transfer fee. Plus mailing anything is not quite reliable here. She would also have to consider whether she need to pay Russian taxes on this sum. If the sum is big and passes through a bank, I guess Russian tax police may find this out through and question her. If it is withdrawn from a VISA card, I think it will not be noticed, but even in this case she might be required to file a tax herself." India does allow Resident Indians to open USD accounts. Most leading National and Private Banks offer this. You can receive funds and send funds subject to some norms. "HypoVereinsbank (member of UniCredit group), a few savings banks (""Sparkasse"") and VR Banks offer cash (bill) deposit machines.  However, it can take a few business days until the deposit is credited to your checking account, which has to be with the same bank. Google for ""Bargeldeinzahlungsautomat"" (=cash deposit machine). As Duffbeer stated correctly, HSBC Trinkaus which is the German arm of the HSBC group does not operate any ATMs in Germany. In addition they do not share the same bank accounts. So I would recommend going with the classic banks mentioned above."