How Long Does a SWIFT Transfer Take? Timelines, Delays & Tracking

Businesses dealing with cross-border payments know how important it is to have a clear idea of when their payment will arrive to manage cash flow, plan expenses, and keep operations running smoothly. And if you’re using SWIFT for those transfers, timing matters even more, because how long a SWIFT transfer takes can fluctuate a lot, depending on various factors. 



Continue reading to understand what those factors are and if there is a way to minimize SWIFT transfer time. 

SWIFT transfer is a method that banks, financial institutions, and corporations use to transfer payment instructions all over the world. SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) itself is a global organization of around 11,500 financial institutions that represents over 200 countries. 



SWIFT does not actually transfer money across countries but helps in the transfer of that money through its messaging network. It transfers instructions of payments between banks, such as the sender's and receiver's bank details, the amount of the payment and the currency, and the beneficiary's name and account number. 

SWIFT provides banks a standardized, computer-readable messaging format that gives financial institutions a uniformity in financial transaction messages. These messages are also encrypted and authenticated to protect confidentiality and reduce fraud risk.

We have already established that SWIFT transfers are quite secure and reliable, and that’s a big plus. But in a way, this might come at a slight trade-off when it comes to the speed of the transactions. SWIFT transfers take a lot of time to process and they’re not exactly known for being instant.

The exact time is hard to predict, but such transfers can take anywhere between one to five business days, depending on the number of intermediary banks involved, time zone differences, destination country, and necessary compliance checks. 

To understand the transfer time, it’s important to know the backend of a SWIFT transfer. This is what a usual SWIFT transfer looks like:

1. Initiation

When a person or business initiates a SWIFT transfer, their bank creates a standardized SWIFT message. This message contains all the essential details of the payment. The details being the beneficiary's name, account number, amount, and the recipient bank's unique SWIFT code (also known as a BIC).

2. The messaging network

Next, the message is sent through the SWIFT network to the receiver's bank. The role of SWIFT ends here given that it's a communications channel, not a settlement system.

3. Intermediary/Correspondent bank

This is where most of the delay can occur. If the sender's bank and the recipient's bank do not have a direct financial relationship (a "nostro/vostro" account), the payment message will be routed through one or more intermediary banks. 

Each intermediary bank processes the message and debits/credits its own accounts to move the funds forward. This adds time and additional fees.

4. Verification and settlement

After reaching the destination, the compliance and payments teams of the receiver's bank verify all the details in the SWIFT message. This is where AML and other sanctions are checked. If all details are correct, the bank credits the funds to the beneficiary's account.

The factors that decide how much time a SWIFT transfer will take can include the destination country, time zones, compliance checks, currencies and intermediaries involved, and more. Let’s look at them one by one.

1. Intermediary banks

The most common cause of delay is that there are different intermediaries involved. If your bank doesn't have a direct correspondent banking relationship with your client's bank, the payment message will move through one or more intermediary banks. Each bank in this chain will process and verify the message before passing it along. This adds time, complexity, and often, additional fees.

2. Time zones and bank holidays

International transfers also have to consider the banking hours of all the institutions that are involved in the transaction. If you initiate a payment at the end of a business day, it may not be processed until the next business day in the country to which you are sending the money due to time differences. 

Apart from that, public holidays and weekends in any of the countries along the payment chain can also halt the process for one or more days, causing significant delays.

3. Compliance and security checks

To prevent money laundering, terrorism financing, and other financial crimes, all SWIFT transfers go through compliance and KYC/AML checks. Banks screen transactions against international sanctions lists and regulatory databases. If a payment raises a "red flag" due to a name, country, or transaction amount, it will be manually held for investigation, which can extend the transfer time.

4. Accuracy of information

You can’t avoid simple human error. If somehow you have provided incorrect or incomplete information like a wrong SWIFT code, account number, or beneficiary name, the payment will be held up. 

After this, the bank will have to investigate the error, or in some cases, the transfer may even be rejected and sent back to the sender, which can take days or even weeks.

5. Currencies involved

The currency pair you are using for the transfer also affects the speed. If you are transferring some major global currency like the US dollar (USD), Euro (EUR), and British pound (GBP), it will be transferred much faster because it’s traded a lot and has a well-established payment channel. Less common or more volatile currencies may require additional processing time for conversion.

6. Destination country regulations

Some countries have local regulations that may require additional documentation or verification steps by the receiver’s bank before the funds can be credited to the final account.

Aside from this, how well-connected the banking networks of the destination country are also determines the SWIFT transfer time. 

Having a better understanding about how much time your SWIFT transfers can impact your cash flow management, supplier and customer relationship, financial planning, and transparency of your payments. Let’s see how. 

1. Improved cash flow management 

It’s much easier to manage your own finances when you are clear about the payment’s timing. You can plan ahead, cover things like payroll and supplier invoices on time, and avoid scrambling for short-term loans to handle urgent expenses.

2. Better financial planning

The same thing applies to financial planning. Understanding the typical transfer time for a specific payment gives your finance team significant ammo to create more precise budgets. 

3. Stronger supplier relationships

You can share a clear timeline with your partners. It’s a simple way to show them they can count on you, and that reliability goes a long way in building trust. 

A typical SWIFT transfer takes somewhere around 1-5 business days. Most domestic bank transfers, on the other hand, settle within the same business day, often within a few hours or minutes, depending on local payment infrastructure and cut-off times. 

This table clarifies their differences:

Real-time payment (RTP) system, as is evident from the name, is a direct settlement system that moves money instantly. Some of the examples of RTP systems include FedNow (USA), UPI (India), Pix (Brazil).

Here is how they differ from SWIFT transfers:

Minimizing SWIFT transfer time can be quite challenging given that there are multiple systemic, regulatory, and operational factors. These challenges and their factors include:

1. Chain of intermediaries involved

Each bank in the chain acts as a separate financial institution that must process and verify the payment. It’s not at all easy to simplify this multi-hop process. It would require coordination and integration among many different banks, each with its own technology and operational procedures.

2. Regulatory and compliance checks

Every SWIFT transfer has to pass a high level of scrutiny, and for good reason. These checks are very much needed to keep payments secure and to prevent fraud and money laundering. The downside, of course, is that they can slow things down.

3. Global time zones and bank holidays

You can’t really avoid the physical realities of global banking. Transfers between countries on opposite sides of the world, like the U.S. and Japan, can lose a full business day due to the time zone difference.  

Payments sent at the end of a business day in one country may not be processed until the following morning in the receiving country. This issue is compounded by public holidays, as a transaction can be held for several days if any of the banks in the chain are closed. It’s hard to eliminate these delays because bank holidays vary widely from country to country. 

4. Lack of standardized tracking

While SWIFT GPI has no doubt made quite a lot of progress in this area, traditional SWIFT transfers still lack a tracking system. Without real-time visibility, it is difficult to pinpoint exactly where a payment is delayed. 

This forces banks and businesses to resort to manual inquiries, which wastes time and makes it impossible to provide accurate arrival times to customers.

To minimize SWIFT transfer time, you should focus on three key areas: optimizing your payment processes, choosing the right banking partners, and leveraging modern technology.

1. Optimize your payment process

Double-check SWIFT/BIC codes, beneficiary account numbers, and other mandatory details to avoid rejections or recalls. Moreover, be aware of and respect your bank's daily cut-off times for international payments. Submitting a transfer request before the cut-off time can guarantee that your payment will be processed on the same business day.

2. Embrace technology

Use accounting and payment software that can integrate with your bank. These systems can automate the payment initiation process, which means less chance of human error and inclusion of required information in the payment message. Leverage tools that can automate AML and KYC checks to avoid manual hold-ups and errors.

3. Choose the right banking partners

Inquire about your bank's correspondent banking network. Partner with banks that have extensive direct correspondent relationships worldwide to reduce intermediary banks and associated delays

Beyond that, use a bank that is part of the SWIFT GPI for greater transparency and predictability, so you can see exactly where your payment is at any given time.

Xflow, a modern international payment service provider, can bypass the traditional SWIFT network's most common pain points. Instead of relying on the multi-hop correspondent banking model, Xflow uses a different approach that focuses on speed, cost, and transparency.

Xflow doesn't operate on the SWIFT network for every transaction. Instead, it leverages a network of local payment rails. For a payment from a US client, for example, Xflow allows the client to pay locally using familiar methods like ACH or a domestic bank transfer. 

This payment is then received in the international virtual US account provided by Xflow, and the equivalent amount is then transferred to the Indian business's INR bank account within 1 business day. This eliminates the need for payments to pass through multiple intermediary banks.

Unlike a traditional SWIFT transfer, which offers limited tracking, Xflow provides a clear, real-time dashboard for every transaction. This gives you full visibility to monitor the status of your payments at every stage, so you can have peace of mind and won’t need to spend time on manual follow-ups with banks.

Get started today with Xflow and take control of your international cash flow.

Any type of payment process would require regulatory and security checks for safety and efficient processing, and SWIFT transfers are no exception. Below, we discuss these regulatory and security considerations. 

1. Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and sanctions screening

Every SWIFT transfer has to undergo AML and sanctions checks. Banks have to verify all parties involved in a transaction (sender, beneficiary, and any intermediary banks) against national and international sanctions lists. The goal here is to prevent financial crime and terror financing.

2. Know Your Customer (KYC) requirements

Before a bank can process a cross-border payment, it must have a clear understanding of its customer. This would mean conducting strict KYC procedures to verify the identity of the sender and, in some cases, the beneficiary. This is especially required for large-value corporate payments or transactions from new clients, where the risk of financial crime is higher.

3. SWIFT Customer Security Programme (CSP)

CSP is a mandatory security framework that aims to toughen up cybersecurity across all SWIFT-connected institutions worldwide. It consists of 22 mandatory and 9 advisory security controls to which all SWIFT members must demonstrate their compliance. The objective is to:

• Protect local systems and infrastructure that connect to SWIFT by network segmentation, physically securing data centers, and managing privileged access.
• Limit unauthorized access to SWIFT-related systems using strong controls like multi-factor authentication (MFA) and least-privilege principles.
• Detect unusual activity and respond promptly to security incidents by having tested incident response plans in place and logging and monitoring all SWIFT-related activity.

4. Regulatory reporting and audits

Banks and financial institutions need to report suspicious activities and large cash transactions to regulatory bodies. SWIFT transfers are a key part of this reporting framework. Banks must maintain detailed audit trails of all transactions and be ready to provide this information to regulators upon request. 

It’s the ability of SWIFT to evolve according to new financial needs and fintech processes that assures us that it is secure, reliable, and irreplaceable. This is reflected in the introduction of the ISO 20022 (MX) standard to replace the legacy MT message formats to make messaging more secure and efficient and the adoption of SWIFT GPI for faster and more traceable payments, with the aim to deliver real-time tracking and fee clarity. 

That said, there are emerging technologies in the financial space to transfer payments like blockchain, digital currencies, artificial intelligence, and cloud computing. SWIFT transfers face strong competition from other fintech and payment service providers who adopt these technologies and are able to deliver lower fees, faster settlements, and easier integration.

SWIFT has always shown it can adapt – but to remain competitive, it needs to keep pushing for new innovations to lower the processing time and increase visibility, compliance, and interoperability.

If you make international payments regularly, you need a reliable partner. Delays, hidden fees, and lack of clarity shouldn’t get in the way of your business, and Xflow makes sure they don’t. With its transparent pricing, 24-hour settlement time, withdrawals at live FX rates, payment tracking, and connections in more than 140 countries, Xflow makes sure that your cross-border payments are always smooth and affordable. To experience all this and more, sign up with Xflow now!