I'm still very new to AdSense and have been looking through the various AdSense FAQs and can't find what currency I am paid in. (I'm in the UK). I'm beginning to get the impression that I may be paid by USD cheque... Knowing what UK banks like to charge, I suspect they'll take a large chunk! Any other Europeans out there with any experience of this? Regards, Noel
Yes they send you a USD cheque. But I have a bank account at Citibank Germany. Google sends their cheques from Citibank Delaware and I have never been charged a cent for the transfer.
Barclays take £9 for USD cheques worth over £100, and £4 for cheques worth less than £100. For very small cheques it's free (although I've only ever encountered this once with a $9 cheque, so I'm not certain exactly where the threshold is). I think I read somewhere that NatWest charge £5.50. I imagine most other UK banks will have a similar fee involved. Go to the cashier and say you have a foreign currency cheque to be negotiated and they'll get a form for you to fill in.
Citibank is available in North America, Europe, Japan and some other Asian countries for individuals. I suggest if you have this bank in your country get an account there. Not only Google is sending Citibank cheques but I received some Citibank cheques from Amazon as well e.g. CB is available in the UK too btw... http://www.citibank.co.uk/uk/, check them out they shouldn't charge you no matter of the cheque amount as long as the cheque is from a US Citibank and not something like AMEX, BoA, BoNY etc.
are the cheques you receive from Citibank Delaware? Maybe Google doesn't send the same cheques to Asia as they do to Europe.