Exchanging a substantial amount of Euros into US dollars

Question

I'm moving from the Netherlands to the US for a long stay. Therefore I sold most of my belongings in Europe and now have a decent amount of money in my dutch bank account. I would like to make use of this money in the US (buy a car, set an emergency backup, rent an apartment, etc.) Which is the most efficient way to transfer money from the Netherlands to the US? I think of three main options.

1. Withdraw my money from the bank and exchange in the Netherlands.
2. Bring Euros to the US and exchange them for US dollars.
3. Open a bank account in the US and ask for a wired transfer.
4. Use my Dutch credit card.

For options 1 and 2 I'm aware that I have to declare to the authorities if I'm traveling with more than $10.000. In any case, for security reasons, I wouldn't dare to travel with that amount of cash.

Answer 1

1. You can read about opening an USA account as a tourist here. To summarize, you need to be present personally, not every branch will do it, you will need your original passport and visa but .nl doesn't need one), copy of my address proof from back home (any one of these: utility bill, bank statement, credit card statement) a small (< $100) amount of cash as an initial deposit, and preferably a US phone number (you can use any VoIP service like voip.ms or Google Voice to set one up).

2. The cheapest transfer service is transferwise. I linked their SOFORT support page. You can send 25 000 EUR every 24 hours if paying with SOFORT. Since you are not in a rush you can be done with wiring in a few days / weeks depending. With Transferwise, you can just type the amount you are sending to see how much will arrive before committing to the service so you can see whether they give you a good deal (they do).

3. Do not even think of using Western Union they will fleece you badly for wiring this much money. You can't send more than 7500 USD in one go anyways. SWIFT is not bad but Transferwise is much better.

4. Having this much money on you personally in the USA anywhere but an airport especially is very strongly not advised because there's a chance -- some say it's very small, I disagree -- of civil forfeiture and then good bye money.

Answer 2

It is possible to open a bank account as a foreigner, especially if you go to one of the big Wall Street banks (Wells Fargo, Chase, US Bank, etc.) Once there, you can wire money through. (It is similar to a student studying abroad in the US). That is possibly the safest and most reliable way. You could bring Euros and convert them or go through a service like Western Union, but once you get to the US, you wouldn't want to carry all that money with you. You could also use your Dutch credit card, but if you're in a situation where only cash is allowed, or your bank freezes your account because you are abroad, then you'll be stuck without money.

Answer 3

By Efficient I assume you mean lowest transaction cost and substantial meaning over $10k. There are a few variables which will be peculiar to your bank and which foreign exchange service you seek to use and their rates.

From my somewhat extensive personal experience in Europe, withdrawing my funds from ATM gives me the best rate compared to using foreign exchange services. By that I mean withdrawing € (out of my Bank of America account) from ATM's in Europe. I use ATM's from banks which are members of the Global ATM alliance and hence incur no fees.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_ATM_Alliance

Option 1: Poor Exchange Rate

Option 2: Poor Exchange Rate

Option 3: Better Exchange rate, pay wire transfer fee ~$40

Option 4: Better Exchange rate, watch out for foreign transaction fees up to 3%. If you have cards with no foreign transaction fee, great! Cannot typically use a card to buy a car and for some transactions so you will be handicapped

Overall, Option 3 gives me the best efficiency.