Best Payment Systems for International Freelancers

If you’ve recently started your entrepreneurial journey or launched a startup, you’ve probably run into this issue: customers from around the world are reaching out and willing to pay you — but not necessarily using your local currency or bank. When working with clients abroad, a reliable, secure, and low-fee payment system isn’t a luxury — it’s a necessity. Choosing the wrong payment system can cost you a lot of money but also take extra time. Scattered payment systems and invoicing increase the workload making it more complex and costly whether you're using a professional accountant or doing the accounting yourself.

If you're based in Europe where multiple currencies is the default, accepting foreign currency payments can be surprisingly confusing. As a remote freelance consultant working with clients across continents, it's taken me years of trial and error to find reliable, affordable, and convenient payment systems for different use cases. This article is a roundup of what I’ve learned — a guide for other global freelancers who are tired of juggling broken systems and hidden fees. This article analyzes the best alternatives for outdated payment systems like PayPal, which is the most well-known but also one of the most expensive systems to move money between currencies. We'll be answering to questions like:

1. How can I get paid as a freelancer?
2. How can I store multiple currencies as a freelancer?
3. What is the cheapest way to make an international payment?
4. How can I send invoices and collect payments from clients in foreign currencies?

Disclaimer: This post is not financial advice. It’s based on personal experience. Terms, fees, and conditions can change at any time — please check each provider's official website for the most current information.

Which payment platform is best for freelancers in 2025?

1. Amnis

Amnis, founded in 2014 in Zurich, Switzerland, has rapidly evolved into a comprehensive banking solution for Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs). Its multi-currency account allows businesses to send payments in major currencies to over 200 countries, with flat FX fees of 0.20-0.40% depending on your plan. As the company is still quite small you probably have not seen them marketing much globally yet. I found it by pure coincidence in the Swiss news when they raised 10M for their series B. After getting frustrated with other providers in this list, Amnis solved nearly every problem I was facing.

Key features

Spend and receive money like a local

Amnis enables companies to make use of local payment schemes, such as SEPA in the EU or ACH in the US. You can use a local dollar currency account, as well as local Swiss, German and British account details in your company’s name to send and receive money like a local. When paying with card, you can use a single card to consume all your currencies - perfect for setting up subscriptions for tools like Figma, Github, etc in local currencies without extra FX fees from the bank.

Free plan

The free Starter subscription plan offers unlimited virtual debit cards for your business at 0% fees, free local payments in EUR, CHF, GBP, USD and CAD, with transparent flat exchange margin of 0.4% which is clearly below the market average. For scaling companies paid plans with lower FX fees are available starting from 49 CHF/month making Amnis feasible solution also for scaling companies handling large B2B payments.

Regulations and security

Unlike many "financial companies", where regulations are often in the grey area, Amnis is a licensed payment institution regulated by Financial Market Authority Liechtenstein (FMA) and all money in Amnis is fully insured by Austria’s deposit insurance up to €100,000. All data is hosted in Switzerland and hence European specific regulations like GDPR are taken seriously as well.

Integrations

For developers, Amnis also offers a REST API and a webhook system to integrate with your own systems such as accounting software or invoicing tools. One of the biggest accounting software providers in Switzerland, Bexio, has also partnered with Amnis to automate the payment & booking process.

Referral code

After switching to Amnis, my accounting has become much simpler saving me hundreds of dollars in transfer fees and dozens of hours every month compared to my previous setup where I had to reconcile transactions and send invoices using different payment systems. I can see all my money in a single dashboard and send invoices globally to clients directly in Amnis. While this blog post is not sponsored by Amnis, existing Amnis customers have the option to give away a referral code that gives you a 200 CHF sign-in bonus after the first transaction. If you want to give Amnis a try, my referral code is d73912:

Pros

• No joining or monthly fees to, free plan available
• Send major currencies to over 200 countries
• Local bank accounts in multiple countries (including USD, EUR, CHF, GBP, CAD)
• Flat FX fee for all transfers 0.4% (paid plans 0.3-0.2%)
• Free multi-currency debit cards for your business at 0% fees
• Superb human customer support — no bots or endless auto-replies
• Regulated by Liechtenstein’s FMA and covered by Austria’s deposit insurance up to €100,000
• Invoicing tool to email invoices to clients and automatic reconcilation
• Integration with Bexio accounting system or export camt files/use REST API to integrate with your own accounting system

Cons

• No Stripe-like card payments yet (says coming soon)

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2. Stripe

Key features

Credit card & Recurring payments

Stripe is a global payment processing platform that allows businesses and freelancers to accept online payments securely and efficiently. It's especially popular among SaaS companies, e-commerce stores, and developers because of its powerful APIs and customization options. Stripe is especially great for freelancers that collect recurring fees from the clients making it easy for the client to subscribe once and automatically charge them monthly until the subscription has been cancelled.

One-time payments & Shareable Payment Links

In the beginning I also used Stripe for one-time invoicing but compared to local bank transfers with Amnis, it is charging extra fees:

• Payment fee: 2.9-3.25% + 30¢ per transaction
• FX Fee: 2% (when applicable)
• Invoicing fee: 0.4% / invoice, capped at $2

So let's say you're charging $1000 for a project,

• Amnis: you get $1000 via ACH transfer
• Stripe: you get $943.17 - $966.7 depending whether the payment is processed via international card and/or currency

For smaller invoices this might not feel that much but for larger one time client invoices of e.g. $10,000 you could already lose $568.3 using Stripe compared to Amnis.

However, for e-commerce stores that needs to sell 24/7 around the world, Stripe one time payments is still a great option with excellent development integrations tools and API.

Calendar booking payment integrations

If you're a small business owner like remote coach, doctor, lawyer, designer etc. charging for consulting calls, Stripe can be easily integrated with free scheduling tools like zcal and Doodle or client management tools like Bonsai to collect payments smoothly during or after booking. This is a big plus for business owners who have no technical knowledge and want to start collect payments immediately.

Pros

• No recurring fees, pay commission fees only when you get paid
• Widest currency support: Accepts 135+ currencies
• Transparent fees (2.9% + 30¢ per transaction for local cards, 3.25% + 30¢ per transaction for international cards)
• Support for several payment cards globally
• Excellent API & strong documentation
• Scalable if you need recurring billing
• Option to dispute payments & invoice directly in the platform

Cons

• Not a bank account but a payment processor with a balance, separate bank account needed
• Payouts take 3-5 business days
• Invoicing costs extra

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3. Revolut Business

Revolut Business offers a flexible digital banking experience for modern freelancers based in UK, EEA, Switzerland, Australia, Singapore, or the US. However, they recently changed their pricing and there is no longer free plan available.

My own experience with Revolut Business was not as positive as I expected. In my first online meeting with my point of contact, the person never showed up and I never received a response why. However, based on the experience of my friend who has a paid plan, the responsiveness has been better.

When comparing the cheapest plan fees, Wise Business/Amnis was always cheaper than Revolut Business. Nowadays, the basic plan that used to be free is £10/month while more premium plans are £30-90/month. If you handle large B2B payment conversions, Revolut Business may be the best option for you as it opens exchange up to £15,000-90,000 monthly at the interbank rate during market hours. However, if you usually transfer smaller payments or have a lot of fluctuation in your income, Wise Business/Amnis may be a better option to avoid recurring subscription fees.

Pros:

• Great UX & design in the website and app
• Multi-currency accounts
• Virtual and physical debit cards available
• In premium plans exchange rates follow interbank rate during market hours
• In EEA authorised by the Bank of Lithuania

Cons:

• Customer service can be unresponsive
• No free plan available
• Limited local bank account options compared to Amnis (e.g. currently not possible to open local US bank details for Swiss businesses)

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4. Wise Business

Wise (formerly known as TransferWise) is a financial technology company originally from Estonia that specializes in international money transfers. Founded in 2010, it has slowly transformed the fintech scene with its transparent FX pricing and “real” exchange rates.

I have used personal Wise account for years and it has been a great experience to move money to my international friends. However, last year when I opened Wise Business, the experience was completely different. It cost 50 CHF to open the account and 5 CHF to get the card. The marketing claimed that it would include local US bank details but after several conversations with their customer service and a year later I still did not have the bank details and started to feel like their customer service is just run by bots. Another example of their poor customer service was when my virtual debit card suddenly got hacked in the Philippines and eventually I got the money back but after several messages later I still did not get an explanation why this happened. The hacked card had no transaction history which might indicate some severe security issues or bugs in Wise's system itself.

Regardless of my varying experience with Wise, it is still a good option for freelancers that need to collect payments from clients around the world instantly with low fees. Invoicing tool is completely free and easy to use on both sides. However, I'd not recommend to use Wise as a bank account as it has not the same security and insurance than regulated bank like companies like Amnis. So if you end up using Wise for your payments, I'd recommend to use it as a payment processor and move the money instantly to your bank account rather than storing your money there.

Pros

• Send payments to over 70 countries, Over 50 currencies supported
• Nearly instant payments, money moves usually within seconds
• Low conversion fees (usually around 0.4–0.7% depending on the currency)
• Free invoice creation
• Instant payments between Wise users by sharing your Wise tag

Cons

• Customer support is slow and full of bots
• Getting local bank details (e.g., USD) may not work as advertised — I waited over a year without resolution
• Card payment option is advertised but was not able to use it — customer service bots was not able to respond why
• Certain currency pairs like USD → CHF are more expensive than Amnis

5. PayPal Business

PayPal is established and often requested by clients — especially in the US but please DO NOT USE THIS OUTSIDE US! If you ever want to convert the money to your local currency or move the money outside US, you will be hit with insanely high fees compared to other providers in this list. The Paypal Currency Conversions Documentation mentions extra 3% foreign currency conversion fee on top of the regular fees making it around 10x more expensive to use with foreign currencies than Amnis, Wise Business or Revolut Business.

Note that Paypal fees also applies when sending USD to a USD account that's not based in the US. I learned this the hard way by sending USD to my Swiss CH IBAN account that had USD as a currency. I was first charged transfer fee to convert USD to CHF AND then another fee to convert CHF back to USD. Needless to say, this is far from ideal so if you receive money in Paypal, it's best to move that only to local USD accounts and do conversions and transfers later, never with Paypal.

Paypal fees are generally higher (2.89%-4.99% + fixed fee) than with Stripe also for local US payment, you can find the exact fees here. However, Paypal offers also variety of in-store payment options which might be interesting for small business owners who sell products or services in person. Also thanks to it's integrations with several e-commerce platforms, it can also be an easy option for freelancers who sell e-commerce products online but have limited technical knowledge.

Pros

• Trusted by clients in 200+ countries
• Easy integration with e-commerce platforms
• Good for US based freelancers working with local customers

Cons

• High fees: minimum 2.9% + fixed cost per transaction
• Insanely high 3% conversion fee for foreign currencies
• Not cost-effective outside the U.S.

Which one is the right payment system for me?

There’s no one-size-fits-all solution. Here’s how to choose the best payment provider for your freelance business:

Compare these factors:

• Transaction & FX fees
• Speed of payments
• Available currencies and countries
• Payment options (bank, card, mobile wallet, etc.)
• Customer support responsiveness
• Integration with your invoicing or accounting tools

Ask yourself:

• Where are most of your clients based?
• What currencies do you work with?
• Are you doing high-volume or high-value transfers?
• Do your clients prefer certain platforms?
• Which providers support businesses from your country?

Freelancing internationally is exciting, but the admin side — especially getting paid — can be frustrating. The right global payment system will save you money, increase client trust, and let you focus on what really matters: delivering great work.

Conclusion

Top multi-currency bank accout for freelancers in 2025

Amnis Treasury - use referral code d73912 to get a 200 CHF sign-in bonus after the first transaction

Top credit card payment & subsciption payment tool for freelancers in 2025

Stripe

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