How can a US company regularly pay an overseas contractor?

Question

I'm doing independent contract work for a small US company, remotely. I am not a US citizen nor resident, and do not have a US bank account.

The company occasionally pays me sums of a few thousand USD at a time for my work, by bank transfer - from their US bank account (it's a Bank of America account, don't know any more details) to my non-US bank account.

Right now, their bank charges them about 45 USD per transfer, and mine charges me another edit: 20 USD per transfer.

_{This is in addition to the conversion to local currency: The bank's conversion rate is worse than what I can get from money changers where I live; but if I were to withdraw the USD without conversion, that also incurs a non-negligible fee.}

My question: Is there a cheaper, but safe and legal, method for the company to pay me? That is, a method in which, eventually, money in my local currency ends up in my local bank account?

Notes:

• I'm located in Israel; but if you have an answer that's more general, that's also relevant.
• If you need more details to provide an answer, ask for them in a comment.

Answer 1

Your best bet is to create a Transferwise bank account. That gives you an American routing number which your customer can wire the money to (which should be straightforward for them). You can then transfer the money to your local bank. For personal transfers, Transferwise charge $34.28 to transfer $5,000.

If you can't get through the Transferwise money laundering checks, then you could try to persuade your customer to send the money via Transferwise themselves (they have a business option).

As well as the obvious disadvantage that it's more work for your customer (and their accounts department might screw it up), Transferwise charge businesses $41.72 to transfer $5,000.

Their bank might still charge them for transferring dollars to Transferwise, and your bank might still charge you for receiving a foreign transfer, but it's still likely to to be a better deal.

(No connection to Transferwise, other than as a satisfied customer for CHF+GBP to EUR.)