hey everyone welcome to my channel and welcome back to my subscribers this is bald guy money and i recently received this question from a viewer on my instagram about traveling with money so let me read it here for you it says hey bald guy do you know anything about traveling with money i am traveling back home and i want to bring a large amount of money with me and don't know the rules i know you're an expat in dubai so i thought maybe you know something on the topic thanks in advance i love your channel


well thank you for your question and thanks for saying the nice thing about my channel i am going to keep the sender of this question anonymous because i don't necessarily think they'd appreciate me uh broadcasting their private business all over youtube but this is a topic i am actually extremely familiar with as being a foreigner living in dubai so the answer is actually quite simple you can travel with large sums of money even more than ten thousand dollars across borders despite there being a


common belief that ten thousand dollars is the maximum amount of money you can travel with but don't turn the video off yet please there is a lot of extra important information that you need to know before you decide to travel with a large amount of money so the first piece of information that is absolutely critical to know is that most countries have a limit of cash you can bring into the country without having to declare it so let's bring up the first graphic so for most countries around the world


that amount is going to be 10 000 and for countries that have their own dollar currency it's usually ten thousand dollars of whatever native dollar they have that could be ten thousand australian dollars or ten thousand canadian dollars and for the european union that amount is 10 000 euros that said don't take this general rule for granted every country as i said has a a specific amount of money that you can travel into the country with and it's very easy to check because every country


also has a customs website that explains these limits in detail so here's an example from canada and as you can see traveling with more than 10 000 canadian dollars is actually traveling with ten thousand canadian dollars or more so if you have ten thousand or more you have to declare while entering the country and as you can see here it says monetary instruments include but are not limited to stocks bonds bank drafts checks travelers checks so basically any form of money that you're traveling into the country with


that is worth ten thousand dollars or more has to be declared on the border and the consequences of not declaring that when you reach the border is actually confiscation of whatever it is you have on your persons so be very careful about this and know the limits of course because if you're not familiar with the limits this can really come back to bite you and that brings me to my next point once you know how much you need to declare when entering a country make sure you check how much you have to declare when


leaving the country you are currently in let's go back to that canadian example really quickly because there was actually something about that mentioned on the website and you can see here when leaving canada when departing canada by air with ten thousand dollars canadian or more in your possession you must report to the cbsa office within the airport before clearing security prior to departing by land boat or rail so by train report to the cbsa so this is the canadian customs office nearest your location


and let me make this perfectly clear these rules are not strictly applying to canada these rules apply to basically every country in the world i live in the united arab emirates and when i leave the country with a value of 10 000 or more on my persons in as it was mentioned on that website cash bonds uh any kind of paper form that can be considered having value i have to declare that as i'm leaving the country now some of you might be asking by this point why do customs agents want to know how much money you have on you


why is it such a big deal to travel around with large sums of money isn't that your own private business well in a perfect world i agree that should be your own private business but these rules are in place basically to stop people from traveling around with illegally acquired money and to prevent also cross-border money laundering so by forcing you basically to declare whether or not you have ten thousand dollars or more when leaving or entering a country they believe that this forces you to


prove that your money has been acquired earned by legal means and that's very important and and that's very important because if you are not able to prove that your money was earned via legal channels then as i mentioned before it's the same consequence basically as not declaring the money it can be confiscated from you at whatever border you're at so the best thing to make it easier when traveling with large sums of money is to prepare yourself with the following documents number one is a proof of employment


letter and if you're uh self-employed then a business license will suffice this proves that you are either employed or you have a business for which you are able to generate a way to earn income number two a bank withdrawal slip of course if you've taken this money out of a bank you should save your bank withdrawal slip to present it to people on the border when traveling with your money to prove that you have taken this out of a legitimate bank account now if you're in a country that doesn't


use you know a form of currency that is easily able to be exchanged in your country of destination you might want to exchange this money in your starting country for for example us dollars before you leave if you decide to do that it is absolutely imperative that you save the foreign exchange receipt in order to present that to the border guards when you're leaving the country and entering your country of destination having these things will 100 percent make your experience of traveling with a


large sum of money much much smoother than not having them and if you are preparing to travel with a large sum of money you absolutely should have these documents ready to go with you so now just a short recap on how to travel with large sums of money before i offer and propose some alternatives you may want to consider before deciding to travel here it is so number one check the declaration amount and that goes for the country you're leaving and the country you're actually going to check how much money you can leave with


without having to declare it and how much money you have to declare when you arrive to your country knowing this amount can prevent you from meeting with some sad circumstances should you accidentally not declare that money thinking you don't have to declare it when you reach the country or as you leave the country you are leaving number two save your withdrawal receipts this is the best way to prove that you have taken your money out of your own bank account and have not received it by some kind of


illegal means number three save your currency conversion receipts if you're converting your money for example to canadian dollars australian dollars us dollars euros in your country before you travel to your destination save this receipt because again this paper trail will add to the story that the money that you're traveling with is your money and that you have earned it by legal means as i mentioned also have a pay slip have proof of employment if you're self-employed have a business license be


able to prove that you have a way of earning income that is legal number five don't forget to declare your money as you're leaving the country this is absolutely important because most people think you only have to declare money when you're arriving in a country that's not true when you're traveling with a certain amount of money or more you will have to declare it as you leave that country and the last point is of course don't forget to declare your money when you enter your


destination country this is totally imperative and remember the consequences of not doing so mean that they can take everything away from you that you are traveling with so i hope this has been helpful for you but if you're not convinced to traveling with money or you're open to alternatives to get money from one country to another here are a few alternatives that you might want to look into number one opening a us dollar account in an international bank for example citibank offers this if you have a


citibank account in one country in a citibank account in another country you can have us dollar accounts open in both countries and transfer money free of charge well free of charge they actually do charge you i should say a one percent transaction fee to go from account to account uh and that's in the specific example of citibank i don't know maybe there are other banks that don't charge you such a transaction fee but this will make it easier for you to transfer large sums of money specifically us dollars


from one country to another country number two you can transfer money via bitcoin or stablecoin this one is for people who are kind of into cryptocurrencies and understand how these things work if you have an account and that's linked to an account that you can access in another country you could simply purchase bitcoin or stablecoin then convert it back into regular currency and put it into your bank account from one country to another number three is you could transfer money via western union i mean this is an old


tried and true method the only downside that i see of transferring money via western unit is that they charge ridiculous fees to do this sometimes it's more than seven percent and it's absolutely not the way i would personally go but it is an easy way to do it if you're not comfortable with traveling with large sums of money number four you can do a regular bank transfer but some of the risks of this are again they might and they often do specifically when you're in countries that are


attracting a lot of expat workers they do charge you large sums of money to make these transfers often in excess of five percent and the other issue is sometimes there are transfer issues that uh that come up i know somebody who actually transferred a large sum of money via a bank transfer from a bank in the uae to a bank in their home country the bank got tied up in some clearance processes and there were other technical glitches which i wasn't exactly privy to the details but the fact of the matter is


that person actually froze that money for a period of six or seven weeks and was unable to access it so i don't think that's personally for me the best option to go in however if you do some research you might decide that's that's a good option for you now i'm perfectly aware there are other ways to do this these aren't the only ways to transfer money from country to country and traveling it might with it might not be the thing for you but these are the top alternatives with respect to how i


see them and the easiest one if you ask for me is to have a us dollar account where you can travel uh transfer from one uh a bank in one country to the same bank in another country and the number two option for me would just be to transfer it in stable coins from one account to another because at the end of the day that's probably the future of where this business is going uh that said as i mentioned you have to do your own research to decide which option is the best for you now that's all i have for


this video and i do want to ask you please if you're not subscribed yet hit the subscribe button hit the like button now that helps make a little bit of noise for the algorithm i hope you've enjoyed the video if you have any comments or questions for me you know you can always drop them in the comments section here i will always respond to your comments and questions and i just might make a video about them if it's something that i think that other people are going to be interested in so make sure to drop me a comment


that said that's it for this video i wish you all success i wish you all happiness i do hope to see you in the next video tata for now