Airwallex Currencies: Which Ones You Can Actually Be Paid In

There is a number attached to Airwallex all over the internet, and it is the wrong one. Sixty-plus currencies, some sources say. Airwallex's own pricing page, read on 9 August 2026, says something narrower and much more useful: "Accounts with local bank details in 20+ currencies".

The gap between those two figures is not marketing sloppiness. It is the difference between two genuinely distinct capabilities, and only one of them saves you money.

Two things that both get called "supporting a currency"

Receiving locally means the platform issues you account details inside that country's banking system — a US routing and account number, a UK sort code and account number, an IBAN in the eurozone. Your client pays those details as an ordinary domestic transfer in their own country. No currency is converted, no correspondent bank takes a cut, and nothing arrives short. This is the capability that eliminates cost.

Holding and converting means the platform can keep a balance denominated in that currency and can exchange into or out of it. Useful, but the money had to become that currency somehow, and if it did so by conversion then the fee has already been paid. A long list of holdable currencies does not tell you whether any client can pay you without conversion.

Almost every inflated currency count you will see for any provider is counting the second thing. The list that matters is always shorter.

Why the local list is what your costs turn on

Consider a European consultancy invoicing a US client for $10,000.

Without local US details, the client's bank sends an international payment. Somewhere in that chain the dollars become euros at whoever's rate applies, plus correspondent fees deducted en route, and the amount landing is both smaller and unpredictable — the unpredictability often being worse than the cost, because you cannot reconcile against your invoice.

With local US details, the client pays domestically. Ten thousand dollars arrive as ten thousand dollars. You then decide when and whether to convert, at a rate you can see, at "0.5% above interbank rates for major currencies" — the figure Airwallex publishes. You have turned an unpredictable deduction into a visible, optional one you control the timing of.

That is the entire value proposition, and it applies exactly to the currencies on the local list and not at all to the ones that are merely holdable.

Where the local rail runs out

For currencies without local details, Airwallex's UK pricing page quotes SWIFT transfers at "£10-20/ transfer (SHA and OUR)". That is a reasonable price for an international payment and much better than most banks — but it is a different, worse experience than a domestic transfer, and it is what you fall back to.

So the question to answer before signing up is not "how many currencies does it support". It is:

• Which currencies do my clients actually pay in?
• Is each of those on the local bank details list?
• Can my client's own bank pay those details as a normal domestic transfer where they are?

If the answer to the last two is yes for the bulk of your invoicing, the saving is real. If your main receiving currency is only holdable, you are buying a conversion product, and you should compare it as one.

Why providers quote the bigger number

It is worth understanding the incentive rather than treating it as deception, because it tells you how to read every page in this category.

Currency support is genuinely layered. A platform may be able to convert into a long list of currencies through its FX partners, hold a balance in a shorter list, and issue local receiving details in a shorter list still. All three are real capabilities and all three can honestly be described as "supporting" a currency. The marketing incentive is to quote the longest of the three, and the reader's incentive is to ask about the shortest — which is why the number on a landing page and the number on a pricing page so often disagree.

Airwallex's own pricing page is on the honest side of this: it says local bank details in 20-plus currencies rather than leaning on a larger figure. The inflated counts attached to it generally come from third-party review sites recycling each other, which is a good reminder that the vendor's own pricing page beats any comparison article, this one included.

There is a second wrinkle worth knowing. Having local details in a currency is not quite the same as having them in every country that uses it. Euro details cover a large area because SEPA is a shared rail; dollar details are a US arrangement and do not automatically make you payable domestically everywhere dollars are used. Ask about the country your client banks in, not just the currency on the invoice.

The same test applies to every provider

This is not an Airwallex-specific caveat, and it would be dishonest to present it as one. Wise's business pages likewise reference different figures in different places — a count for the currencies you can accept payments in, and a larger count elsewhere for currencies generally. Airwallex vs Wise Business compares the two on the shape of their fees rather than their headline numbers, which is the only comparison that survives contact with an actual invoice.

Apply the same test to any provider making a currency claim. Ask which currencies come with local details, in which countries those details are payable domestically, and what happens to everything else. A provider that answers all three clearly on its own pricing page is telling you something about how it does business.

What to do with this

Check your own receiving currencies against the local-details list before you open anything, and check the specific country your client pays from, not just the currency name. Then look at the conversion markup for the pair you will actually run, because that is the number that repeats every month.

If the account is right for you, Airwallex has a free entry tier, so the test costs nothing but the time. Our full Airwallex review covers the plan structure and what each tier adds, and how to get paid in multiple currencies sets out the general structure this fits into.