According to the Payment Service Act we have to impose holding and spending limits on your Wise account if you've registered with an address in Singapore.
Money kept in Balances and Jars that are held in Interest or Stocks are not subjected to these limits. Business accounts are also not subject to these limits.
What are the limits?
Hold limit
You can't hold more than 5,000 SGD or foreign currency equivalent by the end of the day. This includes the money across all your Balances and Jars of any currency that are not held in Interest or Stocks.
You can convert your SGD and/or USD Balances and Jars to either Interest or Stocks to be able to hold as much as you want while getting a return.
Send and spend limit
You can't send or spend more than 30,000 SGD or foreign currency equivalent from your Balances in a fixed 12 month window. The window starts on April 1st and ends on March 31st of the following year.
This limit includes spending on your Wise card, transferring to third party bank accounts, and transfers to other Wise accounts. Sending money to your own personal local or overseas bank account does not count towards the limit. Sending from a balance held in Interest or Stocks does not count towards the limit either.
You can convert your SGD and / or USD balance to either Interest or Stocks to be able to send and spend as much as you want while getting a return.
What happens if I exceed the limit?
Exceeding the 5,000 SGD hold limit
If you exceed the hold limit, you will not be able to top-up or receive funds. You can take one of the following steps to resolve this:
Consider switching your SGD and/or USD Balances and Jars to Interest or Stocks since money kept in Balance and Jar held in Interest or Stocks do not count towards the hold limit.
Move the excess money to an account outside of Wise. You can automate the withdrawal of the excess money by setting-up an external account. An external account is a bank account that is in your name, and that Wise will use to automatically move the excess money to.
To create an external account, login to Wise website, go to Recipients, add or select the recipient that you want to use as an external account, and mark it as your external account.
Exceeding the 30,000 SGD send and spend limit
If you exceed the send and spend limit, you will not be able to send and spend from your Balances. This includes spending from your Wise card. You can take one of the following steps to resolve this:
Consider switching your SGD and/or USD Balances to Interest or Stocks as money sent and spent from these Balances do not count towards the send and spend limit.
Wait until April 1st for the sending and spending limit to be reset.
What if my Wise account is restricted?
If you are in breach of the hold limit for more than two days, we will restrict your Wise account. You will not be able to top-up or receive funds. Once you take an action to resolve the issue, we will immediately lift the restrictions from your Wise account.
Please remember to manually reactivate your account details so that you can continue receiving incoming payments.
How does Wise calculate my holding balance?
If you’re holding money in currencies other than SGD, we use the mid-market rate to convert all your non-SGD Balances to SGD to determine your total balance in SGD.
For example: you have 4,000 SGD and 1,000 USD, and the exchange rate is 1 USD = 1.35 SGD. This means your USD is 1,350 in SGD. So in total, you’re holding 4,000 + 1,350 = 5,350 SGD. As the holding limit is 5,000 SGD, you'll be 350 SGD over your limit.
Keep in mind that with Interest or Stocks your capital may be at risk.