How to get paid by international clients in India

To get paid by international clients in India, you can use PayPal (opens in a new tab), Upwork (opens in a new tab), Payoneer (opens in a new tab), Wise (opens in a new tab), Remitly (opens in a new tab), Infinity (opens in a new tab) or a plain bank wire. When you are starting out, pick the one your client finds easiest and trusts, even if it costs you more. Once clients know you and come back, move them to a cheaper route. This guide shows what each route costs, when to switch, and which papers to keep for tax.

All the rupee figures below use ₹95.87 to the dollar, the Federal Reserve's rate for 18 September 2026.¹ The fees are as of September 2026 and they change, so check each provider's page before you choose. I have linked every one. None of these are referral links, and nobody pays me to mention them.

What paying you looks like from the client's side

A new client abroad has seen your profile or your email, and now they are being asked to send money to a stranger in another country. If paying you means filling in an international bank form, adding you as a new overseas payee or opening an account with a service they have never heard of, some of them will put it off.

Clients pay fastest through something they already use. For a small business owner, that might be PayPal. For a company with a finance team, it is usually a normal US bank transfer, the same way they pay a local supplier.

The trust cost: why the cheapest route is not the first one

When I started, I asked clients for bank transfers. Then one of my mentors gave me a rule I have followed ever since.

Online shops follow the same rule: when a buyer reaches the payment page, nothing should get in the way. So I switched to PayPal. I sent a link, the client clicked it and paid, because they trusted PayPal. It cost me about 7% of every payment, and for at least four or five years, PayPal was the only way I got paid.

Think of that 7% as the trust cost: the extra you pay so that a stranger feels safe paying you. PayPal's own fee page adds up to about the same today. On a $1,000 payment, it takes 4.4% plus $0.30 to receive it, and then converts the dollars at 3% below its base rate.² That is about ₹6,500 less than Infinity in the table below. With a new client, it is worth paying; Step 3 is about cutting it once they trust you.

Step 1: start with the route your client trusts

Ask each new client how they usually pay suppliers abroad, and use that route if you can.

Step 2: know what each route costs

Each provider publishes its fees for payments into India. The table uses them to work out roughly what reaches your bank from a $1,000 invoice, before any GST on the provider's fee. To try your own amount, and Upwork or Fiverr routes, use the payout comparison. To look at one provider on its own, there are fee calculators for PayPal, Payoneer, Wise and Upwork.

Upwork's withdrawal fee is small because Upwork has already taken its share. Its service fee on your earnings is between 0% and 15% for each contract, and you see the rate before you send a proposal.⁸ On a $1,000 contract at 10%, that is $100 gone before the withdrawal.

Payoneer does not publish one conversion charge for India. Its pricing page gives a range of 1% to 4%, depending on your region and how much you receive, and you can see your own rate inside your account. Payoneer also charges $29.95 a year if you receive less than $6,000 in twelve months.³

A plain bank wire straight to your Indian bank is still an option, but banks do not publish one number for it. The client's bank charges a fee, a bank in between can deduct its own fee, and your bank converts at its own rate and may add a charge. You find out the total only when the money lands.

Step 3: move regular clients to a cheaper route

Once a client has paid you two or three times and keeps sending work, ask them to pay a cheaper way. One short email is enough: "To keep your payments simple on your side, I now have US bank details. You can pay me by ACH transfer from next month." ACH is the normal US bank transfer. With more experience, clients who come to you through a referral often already trust you enough to pay your way from the start.

After PayPal, most of my work came through Upwork. I have used Wise as well, but in my experience it has become harder to open an account there without delays, or without it getting blocked. These days I recommend Infinity, which I have used a couple of times. It gave me a US bank account at Chase (opens in a new tab), a bank people in the US already trust, so clients pay me the way they pay a local supplier. Infinity is new, so I cannot say how it will work in the future; as of today, it is the one I recommend. Some of my clients have also paid me through Remitly. It was easy for both sides, and the money arrived in seconds.

What the providers say:

• Infinity gives you account details in other countries, charges 0.5% on each payment, and says the rupees reach your Indian account within a day. It issues a FIRA with every withdrawal, through RBI-authorised banks.⁴
• Remitly Business is set up by your client, not by you. Your client sends from the US, and you only share your Indian bank details. Remitly says business transfers to India usually arrive within the hour, and the client gets a receipt with the amount and exchange rate.⁶ Remitly gives the receipt to your client, not to you, so ask your bank for the remittance advice on each payment.
• Wise Business is the only way to receive money with Wise in India, because Wise's receiving feature there is for business customers only. It charges GST on its fees.⁵

Step 4: keep the papers for tax

For GST, money from a client abroad can count as an export of services, and one of the conditions is that you are paid in foreign currency.⁹ Your bank or provider proves that with a remittance advice. For every payment, keep three things:

1. Your invoice, in dollars (or the client's currency), with the client's name and country.
2. The remittance advice from your bank or provider. It is called a FIRA, an eFIRA, or an eFIRC, which is the older name. Infinity issues one with every withdrawal,⁴ and Wise issues one for each transfer, for a small fee.⁵ For PayPal, Remitly or a wire, ask your bank. It shows the amount, the date, the sender and the purpose of the payment.
3. The bank statement line where the rupees arrived.

Your provider or bank will also ask for a purpose code, a code from the Reserve Bank of India's list that says what the payment was for. Choose the one that honestly matches your work.¹⁰ A few that freelancers often need:

If none of these fits, ask your provider or bank which code they use for your kind of work. A wrong code can hold up a payment while the bank asks questions. Once your income from clients abroad grows, GST registration and a letter of undertaking (LUT) come into the picture, and GST and income tax for freelancers in India covers both. Everything here comes from my own experience and from the providers' published pages. It is not financial or tax advice, so check your own case with a chartered accountant.

If your client came through Upwork

Some freelancers want to move a good Upwork client to their own invoices and a cheaper route, to save the platform fee. For 24 months from the start of a relationship that began on Upwork, both of you must use Upwork for payments, unless the client pays Upwork's conversion fee to move the contract off the platform.¹¹ That fee is 13.5% of the freelancer's estimated yearly earnings on the contract.¹² Asking a client to pay you outside Upwork is also against Upwork's terms.¹¹

A worked example

Say a small US agency found you through a friend and wants you to run its reports for $800 a month.

1. The first payment. The agency's owner has never paid anyone in India. You ask how they would like to pay you, and they say they have only ever used PayPal for this. You send a PayPal link with your first invoice, and they pay the same day. Using the table, about ₹71,100 reaches you from the $800.
2. Three months in. The work is going well and the owner trusts you. You send the short email about your new US bank details, from Infinity. The owner forwards it to their bookkeeper, who adds you as a supplier.
3. The difference. The same $800 now brings about ₹76,300. That is about ₹5,200 more each month, or about ₹62,500 over a year.
4. The papers. For each payment you save the invoice, the FIRA from Infinity and the bank statement line, in one folder for the financial year.