Sending Money Abroad from Bangladesh: What Is Allowed, How Much, and What Happens When You Go Around the Bank

In this guide: Personal remittances: travel, study, treatment · Business payments abroad without a file · Investing abroad: the 2022 Rules and the start-up window · Non-residents and foreigners taking money out · Hundi, under-invoicing and the penalties · When the bank says no

The short answer

A person travelling can take US$18,000 a year and pays for a child’s school abroad, a parent’s hospital or a course fee through the bank on documents, with no Bangladesh Bank involvement. A company pays its foreign vendors, licensors, consultants, cloud providers and advertisers through its bank from the Circular 40 list, declaring and withholding tax on each. An investor in a foreign company, property or fund abroad has no route unless the business is an exporter with a retention quota or a start-up within the US$10,000 window; the private route through hundi, a friend’s account abroad or an informal “booking” is a FERA offence and, since 2012, money laundering, prosecuted by the CID and the Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit. Our work on this page is of three kinds: getting the bank to release a legitimate payment that is on the list but that a branch refuses; obtaining Bangladesh Bank approval for a purpose that is not on the list; and advising a person who has already moved money informally on exposure and on the regularisation routes that exist. For the inbound direction (foreign investors taking profit out) see our repatriation guide; for NRBs holding Bangladeshi assets, our NRB investment guide; for the framework, the FERA and Guidelines guide.

Personal remittances: travel, study, treatment

The quotas below are released by any authorised dealer bank on the stated documents; the bank, not Bangladesh Bank, decides, and endorses the passport. Private travel: US$18,000 per adult per calendar year from September 2026 (US$12,000 before), half for a child under twelve, usable in one or several trips to any country, with up to US$5,000 in notes and the balance on an international card, traveller’s cheques or a draft; the bank endorses each release on the passport and checks the earlier endorsements, and an unused balance does not carry into the next year. Business travel for an employee of a registered business: US$400 a day per traveller, US$4,000 a trip and US$10,000 a year under Circular 40. Medical treatment: US$15,000 on a Medical Board or specialist recommendation and the foreign hospital’s cost estimate; anything above that goes to Bangladesh Bank through the bank. Education: tuition and living costs on the admission letter and the institution’s or the country’s published estimate, released for one academic year at a time, directly to the institution for tuition and to the student’s own account for living costs; a student file is opened at one bank and all later releases go through it. Each of these is a purpose with a quota; what the Guidelines do not allow is sending money to a relative abroad as a gift or for family maintenance, which needs Bangladesh Bank approval on evidence that the family member has no income, and a bank will refuse it at the counter. A pensioner, a divorced spouse or an elderly parent being supported from Bangladesh is the single most common reason people turn to hundi, and the only lawful answer is a Bangladesh Bank application.

Business payments abroad without a file

Circular 40 of 2026 consolidated what a bank may pay abroad for a resident business on the bank’s own documentation, replacing dozens of earlier circulars. The main heads: training, consultancy and professional services up to 1% of the previous year’s sales or US$100,000 a year, whichever is higher; payments to related parties up to 10% of net profit; maintaining a branch or office abroad up to US$30,000 a year per business; foreign employees’ salaries, up to 80% of net after-tax pay remitted to the employee’s home account; subscriptions and journals US$15,000; software licences, cloud services, hosting and online advertising without a cap on the invoice and the tax deduction; freelancers’ domain and hosting fees up to US$500 a year from their own accounts; and membership fees for BASIS and e-CAB members to overseas marketplaces and platforms up to US$40,000 and US$10,000 a year respectively (reported; confirm with the bank). Royalty, technical know-how and technical assistance fees go up to 6% of the cost of imported machinery (new project) or 6% of previous-year sales (operating) without permission, and above that with Invest Bangladesh approval under section 27 of the 2026 Act. Every payment needs the invoice or agreement, a tax deduction certificate at the rate for non-residents (usually 20%, reduced by treaty, see our treaty guide), a VAT deduction where the service is consumed here, and for larger sums the chartered accountant’s certificate under the Income Tax Act 2023 that tax on the payment has been settled. What is outside the list, such as a resident company paying for a foreign subsidiary’s expenses, lending to a related company abroad or paying a foreign commission above the trade-circular limits, needs a Bangladesh Bank application through the bank.

Investing abroad: the 2022 Rules and the start-up window

Capital account transactions by residents remain prohibited in principle. Two windows exist. The Capital Account Transaction (Overseas Equity Investment) Rules 2022 allow an exporter with an export retention quota account to invest abroad from that account, up to the lower of 20% of its average annual export earnings over the previous five years or 25% of its net worth, in a business related to its own, after a Governor-chaired inter-ministerial committee approves the proposal on criteria of track record, tax compliance and the project’s benefit to Bangladesh; the investing company must hold retention-quota balances, show audited solvency and a minimum credit rating, and invest in a line linked to its own business on a feasibility study, and the investment must be reported and the returns repatriated. A handful of large groups have used the window since 2022 for subsidiaries in Africa, Asia and the Gulf. The second, since March 2025, allows a start-up (a resident company operating for under ten years, or an individual with an innovative business idea) to remit, from its own funds, up to US$10,000 to set up or hold a company abroad, typically a holding structure in Singapore or Delaware that foreign venture investors require, through the bank with the incorporation documents and a report to Bangladesh Bank; the conditions are a clear link to bringing investment and earnings back, repatriation of unused funds, notice of any ownership change and annual reports to Bangladesh Bank. Outside these, a resident buying property, shares, a fund or a cryptocurrency abroad has no lawful route, and the Guidelines expressly forbid the banks to remit for it; a Bangladeshi who holds assets abroad bought with money that left informally is in breach of FERA and, in income-tax terms, of the obligation to declare foreign assets in the return, which the 2023 Act makes an offence in its own right. NRBs and foreigners are in a different position, covered in the next section.

Non-residents and foreigners taking money out

The rules for a foreign national are the mirror image: a foreign employee remits up to 80% of net salary through the employer’s bank, and on leaving takes out the balance of the salary account and the proceeds of selling a car or household goods, on the bank’s review of the tax clearance. A foreigner who sells property in Bangladesh cannot take the price out through the bank: the proceeds are credited to a non-resident taka account and the bank forwards the file to Bangladesh Bank, which decides case by case, usually allowing repatriation of the amount brought in through banking channels for the purchase and considering the rest. An NRB with Bangladeshi citizenship or a dual-national card who sells inherited or purchased property faces the same case-by-case review, with the inward remittance record for a purchase the decisive document and inherited property depending on Bangladesh Bank’s discretion; our NRB investment guide covers the bonds and NFCD accounts that are repatriable by design. A foreign company takes dividends, loan repayments, royalties and the proceeds of a share sale or a liquidation out on the files described in the rest of this category. The person who leaves Bangladesh permanently as an emigrant may apply to Bangladesh Bank to transfer assets under the emigrant provisions of the Guidelines, which allow a one-time transfer on proof of emigration and tax clearance; the practice is slow, and the amounts released have been modest.

Hundi, under-invoicing and the penalties

Money leaves Bangladesh informally in three ways: hundi (a taka payment here against a foreign-currency payment abroad, netted by the operator against inward remittances), trade misinvoicing (over-invoiced imports and under-invoiced exports, which the customs valuation system and Bangladesh Bank’s export-proceeds tracking are designed to catch), and card and crypto routes (international cards used beyond the endorsed quota, which the banks now report monthly, and peer-to-peer crypto purchases). Each is an offence. Under FERA section 23, dealing in foreign exchange otherwise than through an authorised dealer, or making a payment to a non-resident without permission, carries imprisonment (up to seven years, raised from four by the 2015 amendment), a fine, and forfeiture of the currency; Bangladesh Bank also imposes administrative penalties on the bank. Since the Money Laundering Prevention Act 2012 defined money laundering to include smuggling money abroad and listed currency smuggling as a predicate offence, the same transfer is money laundering under section 4: four to twelve years’ imprisonment and a fine of twice the value of the property or Tk 10 lakh, whichever is greater, with the property liable to confiscation. The Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit receives suspicious-transaction reports from banks and mobile financial services, and the CID and the Anti-Corruption Commission prosecute. Tax law adds a third exposure: foreign assets not declared in the return. The practical advice is dull but correct: for a purpose on the list, use the bank and keep the endorsement; for a purpose off the list, apply to Bangladesh Bank before paying, since the approvals come through more often than people expect; and for money already abroad, take advice on exposure before any step that would create a record, because a voluntary approach has been treated differently from a discovery.

When the bank says no

Most of the disputes we see are not with Bangladesh Bank but with a branch that refuses a permitted payment. The refusal usually rests on one of four things: the branch does not know the circular (Circular 40 is recent and consolidates heads that were scattered), the documents are incomplete (the invoice does not name the service, the tax deduction has not been computed, the chartered accountant’s tax certificate is missing), the purpose is being described in the wrong words (an “investment” in a foreign company when the money is in fact a service payment, or vice versa), or the bank’s compliance officer sees a sanctions or anti-money-laundering flag in the counterparty. Each is solved differently: a written reference to the circular paragraph; a complete file with the tax computation; a restatement of the transaction in the terms the Guidelines use; or a change of counterparty bank. Where the purpose is in fact off the list, the application goes to the Foreign Exchange Policy Department through the bank, with the agreement, the reason, the amount and the source of funds, and a decision takes from three weeks to three months. Bangladesh Bank publishes no fee for the application. For an NRB or foreigner taking out sale proceeds the file goes to the Foreign Exchange Investment Department. We draft these applications and the bank’s forwarding letter, and we answer the queries that follow; what we do not do is route a payment outside the bank for a client, however small.