GCash Cash In Fees: A guide to fees, limits and free methods in 2025
A transparent guide to GCash cash-in fees. Get a full breakdown of charges at different partners and learn the best methods to cash in for free.
Sendwave1 is a specialist in international transfers, serving customers in North America and parts of Europe, who want to send money to select countries around the world - including the Philippines. You can send money with Sendwave for cash collection, to a bank or to a popular e wallet like GCash2.
This guide to receiving a Sendwave to GCash transfer covers how to receive money from Sendwave, including setting up your GCash account optimally. Let’s dive right in.
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Sendwave is an international transfer provider, operated by Zepz, which serves people sending money from the US, Canada, the UK and countries within the EU. Sendwave allows payment to the Philippines, including cash pick ups, bank deposits and transfers to GCash3.
This guide on how to receive money from Sendwave to GCash covers what you'll need to do as the recipient of an incoming payment, including Sendwave tracking and delivery times. Plus, we'll also touch on some of the important fees that the sender may need to cover, and the Sendwave exchange rate which will be used to convert the foreign currency to PHP for deposit.
Before you receive a payment from Sendwave to GCash it’s worth checking if your GCash account is properly verified. While you might be able to receive a small incoming transfer to GCash without completing a verification step, you’ll be capped at 5,000 PHP in incoming payments in a month. To increase this to 100,000 PHP all you need to do is to get verified and then you can take a couple of further steps to increase your wallet incoming payment limit to 500,000 PHP or even 1 million PHP a month4.
You can get verified on GCash by uploading a government ID document - usually one of the following5;
- National ID (Card Type)
- National ID (Paper Type) / Digital National ID
- Passport
- HDMF (Pag-Ibig Loyalty Plus)
- Driver's License
- Philippine Postal ID
- PRC ID
- UMID
- SSS ID
You’ll also need to take a selfie and upload it. It may take 3 days to change your account limit and status, so do take this step before the person sending you money has initiated the payment at their end. If they send you money and your account can not accept the payment, the money is likely to be returned to the sender, but any fees will not be refunded.
It’s also worth checking if the sender has registered with Sendwave. This can be done online by adding some personal information and linking a debit card or other payment method. The sender can then automatically send the equivalent of 999 USD per day and 2,999 USD per month. Or they can add a government photo ID to their Sendwave account to increase the limits to 2,999 USD per day and 12,000 USD per month.
To receive a payment from Sendwave to GCash you’ll need to give the sender your full name and GCash phone number - the one you used when you signed up with GCash. Here’s a full summary of the information needed6:
👀 Looking for a smart, low-cost way to send or receive remittances? Learn more about how to use Wise in the Philippines |
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Sign up for a free Wise account
It’s very simple from the perspective of the person receiving money - once the sender has initiated the Sendwave to GCash payment, you can simply wait for it to arrive.
Make sure you give the sender your correct name as shown on GCash and the phone that you used to sign up with, and then wait for a text message to arrive. This will inform you that your payment is in GCash and ready to be used.
Before we close out, let's look at a few more things to know if you’re expecting a Sendwave to GCash payment in the Philippines.
Sendwave states that in most cases, payments to the Philippines settle within 2 hours. That should mean you get a text message notifying you that your money has arrived to GCash in just a couple of hours. If there’s any delay, the sender can track the payment to see where it has got to.
There’s not usually any fee to receive an incoming payment with GCash. However, this doesn’t mean that a Sendwave to GCash transfer is free. Instead, the sender may need to pay a fee when they set up the transfer, which may include a transfer charge and also a cost which is rolled up into the exchange rate used to convert their home currency to PHP. More on that next.
Sendwave’s niche is in processing international money transfers, which need to be converted from the source currency to be deposited and received by the recipient in the end. So, in the example of a payment from the US to the Philippines, the sender will pay Sendwave in USD, and Sendwave will then convert the payment to PHP to deposit to the recipient's GCash account.
When currency conversion is involved in a payment, the exchange rate that’s used is important. You’ll usually find that the exchange rate you’re quoted isn’t the same as the one you can find with a Google search. That’s because Google and currency conversion tools will give you the mid-market exchange rate, while providers will often add a fee, known as a markup to the rate they use to convert customer payments.
Sendwave confirms that the currency exchange rate they use for customers is not the same rate that they get when they convert currencies themselves - which is likely to mean a markup is added. This is a fee which is tricky to see, but which can mean you’re paying more than you think for your transfer. Not all providers use a markup - we’ll look at one which takes a different approach, next.
Wise supports online and in app payments from many countries and regions globally. Your sender can process a Wise payment to your GCash account, or to a bank account in the Philippines - which will often be super quick to arrive, so there’s no hanging around waiting for your money.
Ang Wise account ay isang madaling paraan mag-hold at mag-exchange ng 40+ currencies, kasama na ang PHP, USD, CNY at marami pa. Kailangan mo lang gumawa ng libreng account para makapagsimula.
Sa Wise, pwede kang mag-exchange ng pera sa mid-market rate, yung totoong exchange rate na nakikita mo online, na walang patong! Plus, pwede ka rin mag order ng Wise card para mas convenient gumastos na walang foreign transaction fees. At kung kailangan mo ng cash, pwede ka ring mag-withdraw ng up to 2 beses nang libre (up to 12,000 PHP) kapag nasa abroad ka. Makakakuha ka pa ng 8+ local account details para direkta kang mabayaran sa Wise account mo sa peso at sa iba pang major global currencies.
Magse-send ka ba ng money or magbabayad abroad? Nag-o-offer din ang Wise ng fast at low-cost transfers na abot 140+ countries - pwede mong i-track ang transfer mo sa account mo at ma no-notify din ang recipient mo kapag dumating na yung transfer.
This content incorporates publicly available data points from as part of research and comparative analysis conducted as of 4 November 2024. The information and insights provided are for informational and illustrative purposes only and may not reflect the most current data. Readers are advised to independently verify and cross-check the information before making any decisions or proceeding further. |
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*Please see terms of use and product availability for your region or visit Wise fees and pricing for the most up to date pricing and fee information.
This publication is provided for general information purposes and does not constitute legal, tax or other professional advice from Wise Payments Limited or its subsidiaries and its affiliates, and it is not intended as a substitute for obtaining advice from a financial advisor or any other professional.
We make no representations, warranties or guarantees, whether expressed or implied, that the content in the publication is accurate, complete or up to date.
A transparent guide to GCash cash-in fees. Get a full breakdown of charges at different partners and learn the best methods to cash in for free.
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