How to Transfer $1M from the US to Europe for a House Purchase

The single biggest mistake American buyers make is assuming the wire is one single event on closing day. It is not. In every European jurisdiction, the money has to be 'cleared and available' in a specific account on a specific legal date, and the chain of custody matters.

In Spain, you wire to your Spanish notary's client escrow account (the 'cuenta cliente') the day before signing at the notary's office, and the notary releases funds to the seller at the moment of signing the escritura pública. In France, you wire to the notaire's dedicated escrow account managed by the Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations. In Italy, you bring bankers' drafts ('assegni circolari') drawn on your Italian bank account to the notaio's office on the day of the rogito, which means the money has to be in your Italian bank account several days before closing to clear and be reissued as drafts. In Portugal, you wire to your own Portuguese account and write the cheque at the escritura, similar to the Italian pattern.

What this means practically: you need to understand the rail from the start. A US-to-France wire for closing day can land directly with the notaire. A US-to-Italy wire cannot — it has to pre-fund an Italian current account, which adds two intermediate steps and at least five business days. Ask your lawyer or notary exactly which account receives the funds, get the IBAN in writing (never by phone, never via email without verification), and build your wire schedule backwards from closing. A good rule is to have the money 'available' at least three business days before signing, because banks regularly freeze large incoming wires for compliance review and you do not want that drama happening on your closing morning.

Every American's first instinct is to wire through their US bank because it feels safer. A Chase or Wells Fargo international wire is $45 to $65 on the send side, sounds reasonable, and you know the brand. Then you look at the exchange rate you got and it's 2.8 to 4.5 percent worse than the rate showing on Google that morning. On a $1 million transfer to euros, a 3.5 percent spread is $35,000. That single number dwarfs every other cost of the entire transaction.

The mid-market rate is the rate the interbank FX market trades at, quoted in real time, and it's the benchmark every legitimate provider publishes. Wise uses the mid-market rate with a small, transparent percentage fee, typically 0.35 to 0.55 percent for EUR/USD on large transfers. OFX has no transfer fee and builds a small markup into the rate, typically 0.5 to 0.8 percent on large transfers and dropping to about 0.4 percent on $500k+ transfers after you speak to a dealer. Your US bank, by comparison, is often in the 2 to 4 percent range on large transfers and some of them still tack on an additional $45 wire fee plus intermediary bank charges.

The difference on $1 million is real money. Mid-market at 1.0800. Wise at 0.40 percent would give you about €1,075,700, OFX at 0.60 percent would give you about €1,073,540, Bank of America at 3.0 percent would give you about €1,047,600. That's €26,000 to €28,000 of pure spread captured by the bank on a single transfer. Buyers do not notice because the bank never shows them the mid-market rate alongside the quoted rate. You have to know to look.

For $1M-scale transfers in 2026, three providers dominate the US-to-Europe lane: Wise, OFX, and Moneycorp. There's a fourth tier for $2M+ transfers (Corpay, Cambridge Global Payments, StoneX) that gets tighter spreads, but for most house purchases the big three are the right call.

Wise is the best product if you can split the transfer into three or four chunks under about $750k each, which you typically can, because it's entirely self-serve, the rate is mathematically the mid-market rate plus a published fee, and the money usually arrives in euros within one business day. The only friction is that Wise imposes per-transfer limits that vary by your verification level and sending method (ACH versus wire). For a $1M transfer, expect to submit source-of-funds documentation (typically your US brokerage statement or HELOC funding letter), and expect Wise to delay the first large transfer 24 to 48 hours for compliance review. Subsequent transfers from the same verified account clear quickly.

OFX is the best product if you want a single dealer you can phone, a forward contract to lock the rate in advance of closing, or a transfer over $1M in one shot. OFX has no upper transfer limit and the dealer pricing model means you can call and negotiate the spread for transfers over about $250k. The trade-off is that OFX is slower to set up (plan three to five business days for the first transfer, KYC included) and the dealer-negotiated rate is only as good as your willingness to ask for it.

Moneycorp is the best product if you want forward contracts for extended periods (six to 24 months), a named account manager, and a relationship that handles both the closing wire and ongoing mortgage payment transfers afterward. Their 2026 pricing on large transfers is competitive with OFX but the value is in the product set: forward contracts, limit orders (the system executes when the rate hits your target), and market orders.

The pattern I see most often from buyers on ExpatForum's transferring funds for house purchase thread is: Wise for the deposit and for funding the European bank account pre-closing, then OFX with a forward contract for the main closing tranche that locks the rate 30 to 60 days ahead of signing. That split minimizes both cost and timing risk.

A forward contract is an agreement between you and a currency broker to exchange a specified amount of currency at a specified rate on a specified future date. If you sign a Spanish purchase contract on March 1 and the closing is June 15, you have 107 days of currency exposure between signing and closing. If EUR/USD moves 2 percent against you in that window (which it does routinely), your €900,000 apartment just cost you $18,000 more than you budgeted. A forward contract locks the rate on March 1 for delivery on June 15 and eliminates that risk.

The cost of a forward contract through Wise, OFX, or Moneycorp is typically zero in explicit fees; the broker makes their margin on the spread. The spread on a forward contract is usually 10 to 25 basis points wider than a spot transaction to reflect the interest rate differential between the two currencies, so you are paying a little bit for the certainty. On a $1M deal, that's $1,000 to $2,500 of cost to eliminate $15,000 to $30,000 of downside risk. The trade is almost always worth it unless you have a specific view that the dollar is about to strengthen dramatically.

Most brokers will require you to post a deposit (margin) of 5 to 10 percent of the forward amount at contract signing, held until settlement. On a $1M forward, you're tying up $50k to $100k as collateral, so factor that into your cash flow planning. Moneycorp's guide to forward contracts for property walks through the mechanics in detail.

One nuance: if you need the money in tranches (for example, a 10 percent deposit at contract signing and 90 percent at closing), you can set up a forward for the full amount and draw it down in tranches at the agreed rate. Ask the broker specifically for 'drawdowns' when you set up the contract. Without explicit drawdown rights, you may be forced to take delivery in one lump on the settlement date, which is inconvenient if the European timing moves.

The US reporting piece is surprisingly simple once you know the rules, but the penalties for getting it wrong are brutal enough that Americans often panic unnecessarily. Two forms matter.

FBAR (FinCEN Form 114) is an annual report to the Treasury of any non-US financial account that exceeds $10,000 in aggregate at any point during the calendar year. It's filed electronically through the BSA e-filing system, it's free, and it takes about 20 minutes once you have your account numbers and peak balances. It is not a tax return — it goes to FinCEN, not the IRS. The deadline is April 15 with an automatic extension to October 15. Non-willful penalties in 2026 are up to about $16,500 per violation per year, but the IRS typically only pursues them aggressively for willful concealment. Don't skip it, just file it.

Form 8938 (Statement of Specified Foreign Financial Assets) is the more substantive form and is filed with your 1040. Thresholds are higher than FBAR: $50,000 at year-end or $75,000 at any point during the year for single filers living in the US, and higher for married filers and for Americans living abroad. If you open a Portuguese or Spanish account to hold the closing funds and mortgage payments, it almost certainly trips 8938. Form 8938 has more teeth than FBAR because failure to file affects the statute of limitations on your whole return.

Note that the foreign house itself is not reportable on either form. Real estate held directly in your name is excluded. Only the cash account holding the funds is reportable. If you buy the property through a foreign entity (a Portuguese sociedade, a Spanish SL, a French SCI), that entity usually becomes reportable on its own return (Form 5471 or 8865), and now you're in a different tier of complexity that requires a CPA who specializes in cross-border. For most American buyers, direct personal ownership is the right path precisely to stay out of the entity reporting rules.

Separately, on the sending side, US banks are required to flag any wire over $10,000 through their Currency Transaction Report (CTR) and Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) systems. The $10k threshold is for cash deposits, not wires, so a wire doesn't automatically trigger a CTR, but a million-dollar outbound international wire will routinely trigger a compliance hold while the bank's BSA team reviews the purpose. Be ready to answer three questions clearly when your bank calls: what is the source of the funds, what is the purpose of the transfer, and who is the recipient and what is their relationship to you. A simple 'the funds came from the sale of my Vanguard brokerage account on [date], the purpose is the purchase of a residence at [address], the recipient is the notary's escrow account per the attached purchase contract' will unlock the wire in under an hour. Being evasive will push the review to the next business day or the next week.

In Italy and Portugal, you typically need a local current account to hold the closing funds, because the payment rail to the notary requires a local instrument (assegni circolari in Italy, cheque in Portugal). In Spain you can wire directly to the notary's escrow. In France you can wire directly to the notaire's CDC account. Know which bucket your country is in and plan accordingly.

Opening an Italian or Portuguese account as a non-resident American in 2026 is slower than it used to be, because of FATCA and because some banks have simply stopped accepting US clients. In Portugal, Millennium bcp and Activobank are the two names American buyers mention most often for non-residents. In Italy, Intesa Sanpaolo, BNL (BNP Paribas) and Crédit Agricole Italia are the usual picks. Plan for two to six weeks to open an account, plan to appear in person at the branch at least once, plan to bring your US passport, a utility bill, a reference letter from your US bank, and your codice fiscale or NIF. Some banks will open an account by video call; many will not.

A useful workaround: Wise's multi-currency account gives you real EUR IBAN details, hold balances in euros, and in many jurisdictions the Wise EUR IBAN is accepted as the source of funds for notary payments as long as the IBAN matches your personal name. Verify with your specific notary first, but for Spain and France the Wise IBAN has been accepted for years. For Italy and Portugal the notary still usually wants a traditional bank, because the assegni circolari and cheques need to be drawn on a bank with a local branch.

The real value of the local bank account shows up after closing. Your utilities, condominium fees, property taxes, water, and (if you financed) your monthly mortgage payment all want to draw from a local IBAN via SEPA direct debit. Opening the account early and building a modest transaction history before closing makes the post-closing operations vastly simpler.

A traditional US-to-Europe wire goes through the SWIFT network and passes through one or two intermediary banks before arriving. Each intermediary can take what's called a 'lifting fee' (typically $15 to $40) before passing the funds on. On a $1 million wire, the lifting fees are noise, but they can cause the recipient to be short by $30 to $80 of the expected amount, which is exactly the kind of thing that creates a problem on closing day if the notary is expecting the number to the cent.

The fix is to explicitly specify 'OUR' charges rather than 'SHA' (shared) or 'BEN' (beneficiary pays) in the wire instructions. 'OUR' means the sender pays all fees on both sides, and the recipient gets the exact amount. US banks charge an additional $30 to $75 for an OUR designation. Wise, OFX, and Moneycorp bypass this entirely because they route through their own in-country settlement accounts rather than SWIFT, so the recipient always gets the exact amount quoted.

When you wire through a specialist like Wise, you send USD to Wise's US bank account via ACH or domestic wire, Wise executes the FX internally, and Wise's European settlement partner pays EUR to your recipient via SEPA within the eurozone or BACS within the UK. It's a domestic-to-domestic rail on each end with an internal FX in the middle, not a SWIFT wire, and that's why the fees are an order of magnitude lower. Understanding this explains why the 'free' Wise transfers are actually free: they're not wires.

For $1M transfers, you still want to know the counterparty bank's name, SWIFT/BIC, IBAN, beneficiary name, and beneficiary address before you initiate anything. Triple-check the IBAN against the purchase contract; a single wrong digit in an IBAN usually bounces the wire back (the IBAN checksum catches most errors), but the bounce can take five to ten business days to arrive in your recipient's account, which is catastrophic on closing day. I recommend sending a small test transfer of $200 to $500 through the same rail a week before the main transfer. If the test arrives correctly, the large transfer will too.

Every eurozone country enforces EU anti-money-laundering directives and every notary and lawyer in the chain is required to verify the source of funds for any significant cash transaction. For a $1M house purchase, expect your European lawyer to ask for a traceable paper trail showing where the money came from: not just 'my savings,' but specifically which US accounts held the funds and how they got there.

Acceptable documentation in my experience:

• A brokerage statement from Schwab, Fidelity, Vanguard, or similar showing the sale of securities sufficient to generate the transfer amount, with dates.
• A HUD-1 or closing disclosure from the sale of a US property, showing the net proceeds deposited into your US bank account.
• A HELOC funding statement from your US mortgage lender showing the line of credit draw.
• Three to six months of US bank statements showing the accumulation of the funds via salary, dividends, and transfers from clearly documented sources.
• A pledged-asset line statement from your US brokerage.

Unacceptable (or at least, creates delays): a cash transfer from a family member without a gift letter, a wire from a business account without operating agreement and tax returns, funds routed through multiple intermediary accounts without clear documentation, or cryptocurrency conversions without KYC records from the exchange.

I've seen two closings stall at the last minute because the buyer had converted Bitcoin to dollars the week before closing and could not produce exchange records. One was salvaged by getting Coinbase to issue a transaction history letter overnight; the other missed closing and lost a deposit. If crypto is part of your funding story, liquidate well in advance and generate the paper trail months before you need it. Our guide on US lenders that will finance foreign property covers the lending side of this paper trail in more detail.

European closings are not like American closings. There is no title insurance company running parallel schedules, no escrow company managing a ten-day close. The notary schedules you on a specific day, everyone shows up, and the money has to be there. If the money is not there, the notary will not sign, and in most countries you lose your deposit if the delay is your fault.

Plan backwards from your closing date with these rough rails:

D-10 business days: your EUR destination account is open, has been verified by the receiving bank, and has been added to your Wise or OFX beneficiary list. Wise and OFX both require a test transfer or a separate verification step for new beneficiaries.

D-7 business days: you initiate the large transfer from your US bank or broker to Wise/OFX. This is the moment your US bank will call you for compliance review. Be reachable by phone.

D-5 business days: the funds settle in Wise/OFX and the FX executes. You verify the EUR amount and the recipient details one more time.

D-3 business days: the EUR amount hits your European bank account (or the notary's escrow, depending on jurisdiction). You confirm receipt with the recipient bank in writing.

D-1 business day: if your jurisdiction requires bankers' drafts (Italy) or a cheque (Portugal), you go to your European bank branch and request them. Bring ID.

D: closing. You bring drafts or cheques or confirm the escrow transfer to the notary. Signing happens. Keys change hands.

The D-10 to D-3 rail assumes everything works. Build in a four-business-day buffer on top of it. A $1M wire that gets held for manual review at the sending bank is a routine occurrence, not an anomaly.

After closing, you will have ongoing costs that are much better paid from a euro account than converted out of dollars every month. Property tax (IMI in Portugal, IBI in Spain, taxe foncière and taxe d'habitation in France, IMU in Italy), condominium fees (€50 to €400 per month), utilities, insurance, and if you financed, the monthly mortgage payment. A reasonable rule is to hold six months of running costs plus one mortgage payment as a buffer in your local account at closing and refill twice a year.

The cheapest way to do the refills is a recurring Wise transfer at market rate whenever you need to top up. Schedule the refills quarterly rather than monthly to minimize per-transaction friction. Some buyers I know keep a year of operating costs in euros at all times and rebalance once a year, usually in January after the fourth-quarter property tax assessments are known. Others prefer a rolling six-month buffer. Pick a system and stick to it.

One useful discipline: keep every cross-border transfer in a dedicated spreadsheet row with date, amount, rate, fee, and purpose, because by December you will need every single one of those rows for your US tax return and your FBAR filing. Doing it live takes thirty seconds per transfer; backfilling it in April takes six hours and you will miss something.

For ongoing life in the destination country, our moving to Spain guide, moving to Portugal guide, moving to Italy guide, and moving to France guide walk through residency, taxes, and healthcare. And if you're still working out the financing side of the purchase, Italian mortgages for Americans has the LTV rules and lender shortlist.

If I were doing this today with a $1M budget and a 90-day timeline between signing the preliminary contract and closing, here's the playbook I'd run. Day 1: sign the preliminary contract, pay the 10 percent deposit (€100,000) via Wise from my US account to the destination account. Immediately open an OFX account and schedule a KYC call. Day 3 to 7: OFX KYC completes, I lock a forward contract for €800,000 for settlement at D-5 before closing. Day 10 to 15: I open the destination-country bank account in person (for Italy/Portugal; skipped for Spain/France). Day 20: I call my US bank to flag an upcoming large outbound wire and pre-brief their BSA team with the purchase contract. Day 60: I initiate a practice wire of $1,000 to confirm the rail works. Day 80: I initiate the main transfer through OFX at the locked forward rate. Day 85 to 87: funds settle in the destination account. Day 88 to 89: I pick up bankers' drafts if needed. Day 90: closing.

At every stage, keep emailable confirmations and keep every statement. The paperwork pile is your audit trail for the IRS, your source-of-funds documentation for the EU notary, and your own record when something goes wrong. Nobody who's done this twice keeps loose receipts. The buyers who struggle the most are the ones who treat the wire as 'just a transaction' and not as a 10-day project with its own timeline. Treat it as a project and it goes smoothly.