FX fees on international client payments come from three places: the exchange rate margin hidden in the conversion, the fees each payment route charges, and contract wording that leaves it unclear who pays them. You can measure all three in an afternoon and patch them without changing banks or tools.

You open your banking app over breakfast and see the payment from your European client. Relief for a second, then a frown: it's smaller than the invoice by roughly the cost of a weekend away. You try to match it to the invoice, give up, and tell yourself you'll look into it later. The same leak happens every time money crosses a border.

If you're still setting up how you bill overseas clients, start with Multi-Currency Invoicing for Freelancers Made Simple. This post is about finding and fixing what you lose once the payments start arriving.

Where the money goes

The exchange rate margin. The rate you see when you search for a currency pair is the mid-market rate. Your bank or payment platform usually converts at a different rate, with a margin built in. Per euro or dollar it looks tiny. Across a whole invoice it adds up.

Fees along the payment route. Each step can take a cut:

Card processors
Platforms between you and the client
Intermediary banks, when the money travels over SWIFT
Your own bank, for receiving it

Vague pricing and contract wording. If your proposal is in one currency, your client reads it in another, and nobody agreed who pays the bank fees or what happens if the exchange rate moves, you pay for that vagueness.

Big firms have treasury teams for this. When you work alone, every percentage point comes straight off your take-home, and by autumn your invoiced total for the year and your bank balance don't quite match.

Measure the leak: a one-afternoon audit

Do this once, and you'll know which payment routes cost you most:

Pull three recent international payments, in different currencies if you have them.
For each one, compare the rate you got with the mid-market rate for that day.
List every fee between your invoice and the money arriving: card fees, platform cuts, bank charges, intermediary bank fees.
Add the rate difference and the fees together, and divide by the invoice amount.

That percentage is your real leak for each route. Most people find one route is much worse than the others.

Patch the leak without changing banks

Bill in your client's currency, and receive it in that currency. If your bank offers a multi-currency account, use it for international clients. If not, open a low-fee account only for receiving foreign currency. Let the money sit there, and convert in larger planned amounts rather than every invoice.

Steer higher-value clients to your cheapest route. For most consultants that's a direct transfer in the client's currency to your multi-currency account, rather than a card payment.

Set a minimum for card payments, so fixed fees don't wipe out small invoices.

Build an FX buffer into your prices for the currencies where your audit found the biggest leak, instead of guessing.

Record your income consistently. Many consultants record each foreign invoice in their home currency on the day they issue it. Tax authorities set which exchange rates and dates you must use, so ask your accountant which rate applies to you before you pick one.

Fix the contract wording

Your scope is usually clear. The terms at the bottom often aren't, especially across borders. This isn't legal advice, and a lawyer should check anything that matters, but three changes help:

One line on who pays transfer and intermediary bank fees.
The invoice currency stated on the first page of the proposal, in plain language, not buried in a schedule.
For retainers and long projects, a review clause saying prices can be reviewed if the exchange rate moves beyond an agreed band. The point is to stop you being trapped by a bad swing, not to squeeze the client.

If you work across Europe, the UK and elsewhere, one well-written template can cover every currency. You choose the right options instead of rewriting it each time.

Make it a monthly check

Stop this becoming a one-off clean-up that drifts back to old habits by winter. Book 30 minutes once a month for your money mechanics:

Add any new international payments to your fee notes
Check the leak for each payment route, and adjust your prices or FX buffer where one goes over what you're comfortable with
Update which routes you steer new clients towards

What Kiaro does here, and what it doesn't

Kiaro handles the invoicing side of this. It doesn't track the money after it leaves your client:

Invoices in the client's currency. Set a client's billing currency and every invoice for them uses it, locked when the invoice is created. Kiaro supports USD, EUR, GBP and ZAR, and never adds amounts in different currencies together.
The cheapest route on the invoice. Save a bank account per currency, such as the EUR details of your multi-currency account, and a EUR invoice picks it automatically. Clients see the details on the invoice, the PDF and the client portal.
Card payments if you want them. Connect your own Stripe account and invoices carry a payment link. Kiaro takes no fee; Stripe's own fees apply, and you can see them in your Stripe dashboard.
Your contract wording, saved once. Save your fee and currency terms as a section in the Content Library and insert it into every proposal, or save a finished contract as your own template.
What it doesn't do. Kiaro doesn't convert currencies, record the amount that arrived, or show fees by payment route. Keep the monthly fee notes above in a spreadsheet, or in your bank or multi-currency account's own reports.