How do you handle an overseas client whose bank transfer arrives late and short of the invoice total?

Why an international transfer arrives both late and light

Two problems are happening at once and they have completely different causes. The lateness usually comes from the route. A wire between banks in different countries often passes through one or more correspondent banks, each handling it during its own business hours and its own holiday calendar. Add a compliance check on a first payment to a new beneficiary and a transfer sent on Monday can easily land the following week. When a client says they already paid, they are often telling the truth.

The shortfall has a different source. Fees get taken along the way. The sending bank's charge, an intermediary bank's handling fee, and your own bank's incoming wire fee can each come out of the amount in transit rather than off the client's balance. Currency conversion does the rest. If you invoiced in dollars and the client paid from an account in another currency, the rate their bank chose decides what actually lands. Typical shortfalls look small next to the invoice, but across a year of monthly billing they add up to real money.

Keep reading: Why Clients Pay Late, and What Actually Helps, How to Write a Payment Reminder That Gets Paid, Not Ignored, Payment Terms That Protect a Freelancer. See how InvoiceNudgr helps you automatic invoice reminders for freelancers.

Decide who pays the fees before you send the invoice

The fix is a sentence in your terms, agreed before the work starts: the amount stated on the invoice is the amount that must land in the account, and any transfer, intermediary, or conversion charges are the payer's responsibility. Wire instructions have a field for who bears the charges, and clients who send international payments regularly will know exactly what you mean. Say it once during onboarding, then repeat it on the invoice itself, because the accounts person paying you has probably never read your contract. Related: Payment Terms That Protect a Freelancer

Also decide what currency you bill in and stay consistent. Invoicing in your own currency pushes the conversion risk to the client, which is reasonable given they chose to hire someone abroad, though expect a conversation with clients whose accounting is strict about it. If you agree to bill in theirs, quote a rate you can live with and consider re-quoting on long engagements. Either way, list your full bank details in the same format every time, including the routing information their bank will ask for, since a missing field is one of the most common reasons a payment bounces back or stalls. Related: Why Clients Pay Late, and What Actually Helps

How to chase a wire that has not landed

When a client says the money is sent and your account is still empty, ask for three specific things: the date they sent it, the exact amount and currency debited, and the reference their bank gave them. Wires carry a tracking reference, and the sending bank can run a trace on it. That request has to come from the client, because the sender's bank will not discuss the payment with you. Making it one short email with those three items gets a faster answer than asking again whether they have paid.

While you wait, check the obvious things on your side. Look for a credit under a slightly different amount, since a partial arrival is easy to miss when you are scanning for the exact invoice total. Confirm your own bank has not held the funds pending a question about the source of the payment, which happens on larger first transfers from a new sender. And give it a few business days before you escalate, because the most common outcome is that the money simply appears, often on the same day the trace was opened.

Reminders that work across time zones and banking weeks

Timing matters more than tone on international invoices. A reminder that leaves at nine in the morning your time can land at two in the morning theirs and end up buried under a night of email. Sending in the recipient's working morning is a small change that gets your message read on the day it arrives. Watch their calendar too, because national holidays, a month end closing routine, and banks that release outbound wires only on certain days can each move your payment by a week without anyone actually ignoring you. Related: The Follow Up Cadence That Gets Invoices Paid

For that reason an overseas invoice deserves a slightly longer runway than a domestic one. We usually suggest a short note a few days before the due date, a first reminder a few days after it, then a steady weekly rhythm, with the full payment instructions repeated in every message so nobody has to dig through old email to find them. Automating that is mostly about consistency, since a schedule spread across a client eight hours away is exactly the kind of thing you stop tracking once real work gets busy. Related: How to Write a Payment Reminder That Gets Paid, Not Ignored