Originally Posted by CashGordon

My US bank charges $30 for wires and my German bank charges $42 (32 Euro) for wires. You are forgetting the US intermediary bank which is between source and destination bank for USD wire transfers. They get a piece from the wire as well. Which is like $30-40. If money travels more banks, each continue to get a piece. Even for EU to EU IBAN transfers the bank charges around 30 Euro. In my all business life, i did not hear any international bank doing wires for free. As you say maybe there are but not in US or EU. But I have also heard there is a new system for EUR IBAN transfers which might be free, but this is not for USD.