What Is Fedwire? How a Fedwire Transfer Works, Fees and Hours

Fedwire is the Federal Reserve's real-time gross settlement (RTGS) system for moving US dollars between banks, and a Fedwire transfer, often written 'fed wire', is a payment sent over it. Each transfer settles individually and immediately during operating hours, and once settled it is final and irrevocable: no bank in the chain can reverse it.

The scale explains why it matters. Fedwire settled around $4.6 trillion a day in 2025, with an average transfer of about $5.3 million, so it is the system behind large corporate payments, interbank settlement and property closings in the US. There's no Fed-imposed dollar ceiling on a Fedwire transfer, which is why a $10 million payment moves on the same system as a $10,000 one.

If you export services from India and a US client pays you by wire, the US leg of that payment very likely settled over Fedwire or the private CHIPS network before it reached your bank, so its hours, cutoffs and finality shape when your money moves.

A Fedwire transfer moves through four steps, initiation, debit, settlement and credit, and the Federal Reserve does the settling itself, by moving money between the two banks' accounts at the Fed.

1. The sender instructs their bank, which submits a payment order to the Fedwire Funds Service.
2. The Federal Reserve debits the sending bank's master account for the full amount.
3. The Fed settles it in real time, individually, on a gross basis; this RTGS real-time gross settlement step is what makes it final.
4. The Fed credits the receiving bank's account, which then credits the beneficiary under funds-availability rules.

Gross means each payment settles on its own, in full, rather than being netted against other payments at the end of the day the way ACH batches are. That is why Fedwire is fast and final, and also why banks need enough money in their Fed accounts during the day to cover every outgoing payment. Since July 2025, Fedwire messages use the ISO 20022 format, the same global standard SWIFT now uses for cross-border payments, which carries more structured data about who is paying whom.

For you as a sender or receiver, the practical result is simple: once your bank confirms the wire went out on Fedwire, the money is with the receiving bank, and any delay after that is about that bank crediting the account.

Fedwire is open from 9:00 pm ET the previous evening to 7:00 pm ET, Monday to Friday, and the cutoff that matters for business payments is 6:45 pm ET. Send before it and the wire settles the same day, within minutes. Remember that your own bank usually sets an earlier internal cutoff than the Fedwire cutoff, often an hour or more before, so check your bank's deadline, not just the Fed's.

Fedwire is closed on weekends and Federal Reserve holidays, so a wire sent on a Friday after the cutoff settles on Monday. In October 2025 the Fed said Fedwire will move to a Sunday to Friday schedule, including weekday holidays, no earlier than 2028, keeping 22 hours a day.

Separately, on 27 August 2026 the Fed moved a planned message update, which changes how postal addresses are formatted under ISO 20022, from November 2026 to November 2027. Hours, cutoffs and fees are unaffected, so the times in the table above are the ones to plan around.

Fedwire is the US system for large, same-day, final payments; ACH is cheaper but slower and batch-based; SWIFT only sends messages between countries; and FedNow and RTP are instant systems that run every day but cap each payment.

Fedwire vs ACH is the comparison most businesses actually face. Payroll, subscriptions and supplier direct debits suit ACH because a day or two does not matter and the cost per payment is low. A property closing, a large supplier invoice due today or an interbank settlement suits Fedwire because the money must arrive the same day and cannot be pulled back. FedNow (launched 20 July 2023) and RTP now allow up to $10 million per payment and run every day, so a large weekend payment can go instantly when Fedwire is closed.

For which one your US client should use for your invoices, see our guide to ACH vs Fedwire vs SWIFT.

No. 'Wire transfer' is the general name for any bank-to-bank electronic transfer; Fedwire is one specific system for settling them, the Federal Reserve's. So every Fedwire transfer is a wire transfer, but not every wire transfer goes over Fedwire.

Inside the US, a wire usually settles over one of two systems. Fedwire is run by the Federal Reserve and settles each payment on its own, in real time. CHIPS is run privately by The Clearing House and nets many payments through the day, which saves banks money on liquidity. Your bank chooses which to use, and as a customer you normally cannot tell from the outside.

An international wire works differently again. A US client paying an Indian account gives their bank your details, the instruction travels between countries as a SWIFT message, and correspondent banks move the dollars, very often settling the US part over Fedwire or CHIPS before the money leaves for India. That is why a bank statement can show 'wire' while the confirmation mentions Fedwire.

When a client says they have 'sent a wire', the useful follow-up is to ask for the reference: for a domestic US wire that is the Fedwire IMAD, and for an international one the SWIFT UETR.

SWIFT is a global messaging network that sends payment instructions between banks in different countries; Fedwire is a US settlement system that actually moves the dollars between US banks' Federal Reserve accounts.

Side by side, the differences are clear. Fedwire is a settlement system run by the Federal Reserve Banks: it moves US dollars between US banks with final settlement, about 22 hours a day, Monday to Friday. SWIFT is a messaging network run by a cooperative based in Belgium: it carries payment instructions between banks in more than 200 countries, around the clock, but does not move the money itself.

The two are partners more often than rivals. Take a $25,000 payment from a client in Texas to an exporter in Pune. The client's bank sends a SWIFT message towards the exporter's Indian bank; if the Indian bank holds its dollar account with a New York correspondent, the dollars move from the client's bank to that correspondent over Fedwire, and the correspondent then credits the Indian bank's account. SWIFT carried the instruction across the border; Fedwire settled the dollars inside the US.

For you in India, that means the SWIFT side needs your bank's SWIFT code, while delays on the US side are usually explained by Fedwire's hours and cutoffs.

The Federal Reserve charges banks $0.97 per Fedwire transfer at Tier 1 pre-incentive pricing in 2026; what you pay is your bank's wire fee, which is usually far higher.

The incentive price applies to a bank's volume above 60% of its five-year average daily volume. Banks also pay $125 a month to participate, plus $300 (Tier 2) or $600 (Tier 3), and surcharges of $0.14 above $10 million, $0.36 above $100 million and $0.26 after 5:00 pm ET. There is no Fed-imposed dollar limit; very large transfers simply carry the surcharges.

So why does your wire cost far more than a dollar? Because the Fed fee covers only settlement between banks. Your bank adds its own outgoing or incoming wire charge, any correspondent bank on an international route can deduct a fee, and when dollars are converted to rupees the exchange rate your bank applies usually costs more than all the fees together. Compare those three numbers, not the Fed's price. If you receive wires regularly, ask your bank for its incoming wire fee and the rate it applied on your last credit, then compare that rate with the mid-market rate on the same day.

Take a US client paying a $50,000 services invoice to an Indian exporter, a typical case of sending money from the USA to India: the client's bank submits the wire before 6:45 pm ET, the Fed charges the bank from $0.97, and the money settles the same day. What lands in your account then depends on the route into India.

The Fed's fee is the same in both columns; the difference is everything after the US leg. On the bank path, a correspondent deduction and the bank's conversion rate decide how many rupees you get, and you usually find out only after the credit. On a local-transfer path, the client's payment never enters the correspondent chain and the rate is shown before conversion. Use your own bank's rate card and last month's credits to compare, not headline fees.

A Fedwire routing number is a 9-digit ABA routing number used for wires. Many banks use the same number for wires and ACH, but some list a separate one for incoming wires, so always use the number your bank gives for 'wire transfers'.

The confusion comes from where people find the number. The routing number printed on a US cheque is often the one for ACH and cheque clearing. If your bank uses a different number for incoming wires and the payer uses the cheque number, the wire can be delayed or returned. Banks publish their wire routing number on their 'wire instructions' page or in account details, sometimes alongside a separate SWIFT code for international wires. If the page is unclear, ask the bank in writing which number to use for incoming domestic wires.

When you send your details to a US payer, include:

• account name exactly as the bank holds it
• account number
• bank name and address
• the wire routing number (not the cheque number, unless your bank says they are the same)
• for international wires, the SWIFT code

Getting this right once saves every future client from guessing. For how the 9 digits are built, see our guide to the ABA number.

A 'Fedwire credit' on a bank statement means money arrived in your account by an incoming Fedwire transfer, usually from another US bank or the US leg of an international payment. You track one with its IMAD or OMAD reference numbers.

Every wire that passes through Fedwire is stamped with two references. The IMAD, Input Message Accountability Data, is added as the payment enters Fedwire from the sending bank. The OMAD, Output Message Accountability Data, is added as it leaves for the receiving bank. Between them they prove when the payment moved and between which banks.

1. Ask the sender's bank for the IMAD of the wire.
2. Give it to your bank and ask it to locate the payment.
3. If it cannot be found, your bank can open an investigation or a return request through Fedwire.

A useful rule: if a wire sent before 6:45 pm ET on a business day has not shown up as a Fedwire credit by the next business day, ask for the IMAD straight away. Under Regulation CC, banks must generally make received wire funds available by the next business day, so a longer gap usually means the money is held or misdirected, not slow. Keep the IMAD with the invoice in your records; it is the one reference both banks can search on.

Here is how to send a Fedwire transfer. You send it through your bank, not directly: give it the recipient's details, and it submits the payment to Fedwire before the cutoff.

1. Collect the recipient's name, account number, bank name and wire routing number.
2. Submit the wire in online banking or at a branch, and approve it.
3. Send before 6:45 pm ET on a business day for same-day settlement.
4. Keep the confirmation and the IMAD for tracing.

Picture a Chicago firm paying a New York supplier $250,000 at 2 pm ET on a Tuesday. Its bank submits the wire, Fedwire settles it within minutes, and the supplier's bank must make the money available by the next business day at the latest, usually the same day. Had the firm waited until 7 pm, the wire would have settled on Wednesday.

Because a settled Fedwire payment cannot be recalled, most fraud on wires comes from changed payment details, often in an email that looks like it is from the supplier. Confirm new or changed account details by phone with someone you know before releasing, and use two-person approval for large payments. If something does go wrong, call your bank immediately with the IMAD; it can ask the receiving bank to return funds, but only the receiving bank and its customer can agree to send them back.

Only institutions with a Federal Reserve master account can send or receive Fedwire transfers directly: banks, credit unions, some US branches of foreign banks and certain government agencies. Businesses and individuals use it through their bank, which is why your bank's own cutoffs and fees sit between you and the Fed's.

Finality is the rule that matters most in practice. It is what lets an escrow company release property keys or a seller ship goods the moment funds arrive, and it is also why the sender carries the risk: a payment sent to the wrong account, or to a fraudster, cannot be pulled back by the bank. That is the reason callback checks and dual approval are standard for large wires, and why businesses that receive wires should publish their account details only through channels clients can verify.

Fedwire's benefits are speed, certainty and size: payments settle in minutes, cannot be reversed and have no Fed cap. Its drawbacks are cost, limited hours and the fact that you depend entirely on your bank to access it.

• Same-day settlement within minutes during operating hours
• Finality under Regulation J, which a counterparty releasing goods or keys needs
• No Fed cap, so very large payments use the same system as small ones
• Clear legal rules under Regulation J and UCC 4A

Those benefits are why banks use Fedwire for interbank transfers and liquidity, corporate treasuries use it for large supplier invoices, payroll funding and tax, the Fedwire Securities Service settles US government securities, and real estate closings depend on it for 'good funds' on the day.

The drawbacks are just as practical. Banks price wires well above the Fed's fee, so ACH is cheaper for small or recurring payments. You depend on your bank's cutoffs, fees and exchange desk. And Fedwire runs about 22 hours a day, five days a week, so a Friday-evening wire waits until Monday, which is when FedNow or RTP can be the better choice. For an Indian business receiving dollars, these limits only bite on the US side of the journey; the time to rupees then depends on your receiving route.

Your US client keeps paying the way they always do; what changes is what happens on the Indian side. With a receiving account, the client pays your US account details by local transfer, so the payment does not travel through the correspondent chain to India.

With Xflow you can receive payments in 25+ currencies, with local account details for major currencies, through a USD Receiving Account. Pricing is linked directly to the live mid-market rate, with the fee shown upfront, and the money settles to your Indian bank account the next business day. You get an eFIRA within 24 hours for every international transaction (see FIRA), which is the record your CA needs for GST and RBI purposes.

For larger invoices, the ones most likely to arrive by Fedwire, Xflow offers custom pricing on the Scale plan for invoices of USD 10,000 and more. Xflow holds final RBI authorisation as a cross-border payment aggregator, for both inward and outward payments (as of February 2026). Your client sees nothing unusual: they pay a US account by local transfer, the way they pay any US supplier, and you track the receipt and its eFIRA in one place instead of waiting for a bank advice.