According to the Payment Service Act we have to impose holding and spending limits on your Wise balances if you've registered with an address in Singapore.
These limits don't apply to business accounts, transfers paid by other payment methods outside of your Wise balances, or money held in Interest or Stocks.
What are the limits?
Hold limit
You can't hold more than 20,000 SGD, or foreign currency equivalent held as Cash, 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
Check your Wise card spending limits here
You can't send or spend altogether more than 100,000 SGD or foreign currency equivalent from your balances in a fixed 12-month window. This means you can't spend over 50,000 SGD with your card and send over 100,000 SGD.
The window starts on 1 April and ends on 31 March of the following year.
Transactions counted towards your 100,000 SGD limit:
Wise card transactions
spending on your Wise card
withdrawing at an ATM
Transfers from your Wise balance or Jar held as Cash
transferring to another person's overseas bank account
transferring to local business bank accounts
transferring to overseas business bank accounts
transferring to other Wise balances
Transactions not counted towards your 100,000 SGD limit:
Transfers from your Wise balance or Jar held as Cash
transferring to another person's local bank account
transferring to a local bank account designated as your own
transferring to an overseas bank account designated as your own
converting your SGD or USD balances to either Interest or Stocks
Transfers outside of your Wise balance or Jar
transfers funded from bank accounts, cards, or alternative payment methods outside of your Wise balance or Jar (e.g. Paynow)
Transfers funded from your Wise balance or Jar held in Interest or Stocks
Transaction limits
If you're a personal customer, you have to update your limit per transaction when sending from your balance. You'll be able to update their limit immediately within the transfer creation step and continue with the transfer as usual.
What happens if I exceed the limit?
Exceeding the 20,000 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.
What's an external account and how can I set one up?
An external account is a bank account that's 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.
Note: for Singapore addresses/profiles, your external account must be denominated in SGD, EUR, USD, GBP, NZD, or AUD.
Exceeding the 100,000 SGD send and spend limit
If you exceed the send and spend limit, you can do one of the following to resolve this:
consider switching your SGD and/or USD balances to Interest or Stocks as they don't count towards the limit
pay for the money you send with payment methods other than your Wise balances — for example bank accounts, cards, or Paynow, as they don't count towards the limit
wait until 1 April 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 19,000 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 19,000 + 1,350 = 20,350 SGD. As the holding limit is 20,000 SGD, you'll be 350 SGD over your limit.
Keep in mind that with Interest or Stocks your capital may be at risk.