# How to wire money to a Canadian account



## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

I'm hoping that someone here might have wired money to Canada at some point, and encountered this same issue. I've wired money between countries before, but every interface I have seen so far let me enter account number / transit / routing when applicable. The complete identifier for a Canadian bank account consists of: institution, transit, and account.

I'm trying to send a wire from a US brokerage to TD bank. The wire instructions at the sending institution ask for: SWIFT code, Account number, Account holder name, address, plus optional 'For Further Credit' instructions (you can enter arbitrary stuff here).

It's missing the transit #. When I phoned TD, the rep said that I must specify the transit # and said there must be a distinct field to enter it. There isn't.

E-Trade US had a similar problem, missing the transit number (see this forum discussion). In discussions I found, people said different things. One person added the transit number in one of the additional wire fields used for extra information. Another person said that in the account number field, they wrote: transit + institution + account.

An employee at TD once told me to do this, resulting in an "account number" that looks like:
11042 004 1234567
^ transit + institution (004) + account number

Does anyone know if this is the correct way to send a wire into a Canadian bank, when the sender does not give a way to enter the transit number?


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

And here's a thread discussing methods to cram together the transit and account number, when sending from Europe to Canada:
https://money.stackexchange.com/que...-do-european-banks-need-for-wire-transfer-ins

This is not very encouraging. They suggest trial and error, for example



> I was able to get my Canadian banker to provide me with this number which turned out to be yet another concatenation of transit number, account number, and institution number with a - and / thrown in. After asking around, getting this number right _does_ seem to sometimes be the key to a successful wire transfer.


But which order should the numbers be concatenated together? It seems to vary by Canadian bank. Yikes... and nobody on the TD phone lines has any clue about these issues. The two reps I talked to sounded very junior, with no understanding of international wires. Looks like I will be suiting up with my COVID mask and heading into a branch.


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## Money172375 (Jun 29, 2018)

Here’s TD’s official response from their website. 

my recommendation is to use 11042 004 1234567 as the account number. 

I never saw the back-end process, but I suspect a Lot of wire transfer administration is a manual process...hence the fees that are charged. In worst case scenarios, the wire would be directed to the branch manager and they would make a decision as to where the money should go. 

using the full 15 digit account as above should get it where it needs to go. 

I hated wire transfers! 


*How do I receive a wire transfer to my account?*
The person sending the wire transfer to your TD Canada Trust account must provide the following information about you and your account to their financial institution:

Your name (as account holder) and your full address
Your Account number
Your branch transit number and full branch address
TD's Institution number: 004 
TD's Swift Code (international): TDOMCATTTOR (applies to all accounts and branch locations)
If the transfer is in U.S. dollars, you may need to provide the following information from our U.S Correspondent/Intermediary Bank:

Bank of America, New York
SWIFT: BOFAUS3NXXX
Fedwire ABA# 026009593
If you hold a US dollar or other foreign currency account with TD, ensure you provide the correct account for the currency you wish to receive. If TD receives the wire payment in a currency that is different from the currency of your deposit account listed on the wire payment, the funds will be converted to the currency of your account.
If the account, name or address listed on the wire payment does not match exactly to your TD Canada Trust profile, funds may be returned to the sending financial institution.
Once a wire payment has been sent from another financial institution, it takes approximately 1-5 business days until TD receives the funds. Timing depends on the currency sent, where the sending financial institution is geographically located, and how many intermediary banks the sending financial institution needed to use for the transfer.
There is a fee for receiving a wire payment. Please refer to the About our accounts and related services (PDF) document under "*Wire payment by visiting a branch*". Other fees may be applied by the issuing financial institution and intermediary banks.
Information regarding your account can be found on your cheques. For more details see How do I find my transit number, institution number, and account number?
Please note that TD Canada Trust does not have an *IBAN *(International Standard for Bank Account Numbers) as it's not used by financial institutions in North America. In Canada, *Bank Identifier Code (BIC)* can also refer to the SWIFT code.


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## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

Yea it's a very clunky system. I believe they ask for the account holder's name to use it as a double check on the numbering system

I've used XE between Canadian/European/US banking systems many times while living in Europe and US. The new popular one is Transferwise but I have not tried it myself yet (EQ Bank for example advertises international transfers and they're using Transferwise) Lately I have used the TD USA to TD Canada interface (clunky old system but they hack it by artificially moving money faster and refunding all the fees)

The way 3rd party systems like Transferwise and XE work is you set up an account and connect it to your other accounts. It's much better and cheaper in my experience


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## AltaRed (Jun 8, 2009)

m3s said:


> The way 3rd party systems like Transferwise and XE work is you set up an account and connect it to your other accounts. It's much better and cheaper in my experience


That seems to be the 'go to' for ease of use. It's been quite a long time since I've wired USD from the USA to my Canadian account but IIRC, the TD methodology in post #3 is about how I remember it.


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

Money172375 said:


> Here’s TD’s official response from their website.
> 
> my recommendation is to use 11042 004 1234567 as the account number.
> 
> ...


Thanks, that confirms my suspicion on the 15 digit formatting.

I will share the result, once I try this wire. I'm hoping that money can't get lost when doing this. If the numbers don't match up to a destination account, I presume the money just bounces back to the sender?


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## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

Now I remember I used TD USA to/from TD Canada - it's the only way I found to transfer USD cross border to USD account without exchanging it to another currency

XE and Transferwise last I checked would only exchange USD to/from another currency (at much better rates than TD) They won't do USD to USD account


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

In my case, the brokerage is going to send USD and my receiving account is also USD... as far as I can tell, anyway


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## Money172375 (Jun 29, 2018)

james4beach said:


> Thanks, that confirms my suspicion on the 15 digit formatting.
> 
> I will share the result, once I try this wire. I'm hoping that money can't get lost when doing this. If the numbers don't match up to a destination account, I presume the money just bounces back to the sender?


I’ve never seen a wire get a lost. It sometimes takes a few days, especially from overseas. Sometimes language and address formatting is the issue. Don’t recall any issues ever with wires from the US......unless the sending bank makes a typo.

sometimes a wire is rejected if the information Sent doesn’t match the destination details. Married name vs. Maiden name. Middle name is commonly used, but not the legal name. Things of that nature. In that case, the wire is rejected, returned and usually subject to more fees.


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

Money172375 said:


> I’ve never seen a wire get a lost. It sometimes takes a few days, especially from overseas. Sometimes language and address formatting is the issue. Don’t recall any issues ever with wires from the US......unless the sending bank makes a typo.


Well that's good news. I made a few more phone calls today but just got bounced around between the two banks. Sending bank says the number format is up to the receiving bank. The receiving bank (TD) said that it's up to the sending bank to format the fields properly.

These conversations are pretty frustrating. I even connected to the wire desk at the sending bank.

_Me_: "do you ever wire money to Canada"
_Wire desk_: "sure all the time"
_Me_: "Great! Can you please give me an example of how you format the numbers. What works?"
_Wire desk_: "you're going to have to ask the receiving bank, the account number has to be meaningful to them"


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

Money172375 said:


> my recommendation is to use 11042 004 1234567 as the account number.


Thanks again, and I hope this thread can help someone else trying to wire funds to TD

Even though this was a USD transfer, I did not use any of the Bank of America info that TD posts on their web site. I only used TD's own swift code, TDOMCATTTOR. Since the sending bank did not show any fields specifically for the transit number, I used the (transit + institution + account) format that @Money172375 endorsed as well. I entered the same 15 digits found in the TD direct deposit form, with spaces between them:

11042 004 1234567

Additionally, I filled in the optional Transmission Notes of the wire instruction with the following free-form text so it's crystal clear:

Transit 11042
Institution 004
Account 1234567

It worked. The funds appeared at TD, in USD, within 6 hours of sending the wire


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## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

Ok you were moving USD to a USD account

It's weird how hard this is to do. No 3rd party would do it like XE, TransferWise, PayPal etc

I managed to link my Cdn USD accounts to Questrade USD accounts but that was also a convoluted process


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## OneSeat (Apr 15, 2020)

TD has US branches. Have them send it there then repatriate it. That's the best I've found.
Oops - you've done it I see - but 6 hours is slow for wire transfers.


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## Money172375 (Jun 29, 2018)

james4beach said:


> Thanks again, and I hope this thread can help someone else trying to wire funds to TD
> 
> Even though this was a USD transfer, I did not use any of the Bank of America info that TD posts on their web site. I only used TD's own swift code, TDOMCATTTOR. Since the sending bank did not show any fields specifically for the transit number, I used the (transit + institution + account) format that @Money172375 endorsed as well. I entered the same 15 digits found in the TD direct deposit form, with spaces between them:
> 
> ...


I believe the Bank Of America info is for wires originating from outside of Canada or the US and domiciled in US dollars.


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

OneSeat said:


> TD has US branches. Have them send it there then repatriate it. That's the best I've found.
> Oops - you've done it I see - but 6 hours is slow for wire transfers.


True, I could have first opened a TD (US) account and gone that route as well. I think that's a common way to move USD into Canada.

The wire was a convoluted process, but once I nailed the account number format, seems fine. 6 hours is slow for a wire?


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## OneSeat (Apr 15, 2020)

It is with me - I use RationalFX and can have it reinvested in Canada an hour or two after I suspect they have sent it. Notice how I worded that - don't wait for either end to inform you - that is what takes the time. Electrons are fast - human hands slow -human brains very slow!


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