Restricted currencies and country rules: India, China, the UAE and others

Some countries control their own currency so tightly that you cannot buy it here at all, and others require extra information before they will let money in. The Indian rupee is a well known example of the first kind: it is a restricted currency that cannot be bought and sold outside India, so a UK resident cannot order rupees before a trip, and only Indian residents may carry rupees in and out of the country, within limits set by the Indian authorities, equivalent to up to £220 in cash¹. The UAE is a well known example of the second kind: since 1 January 2019, payments to the UAE must include a beneficiary residency code and a purpose of payment code, and payments without them may be returned.

Neither rule stops you moving money to those countries. It changes how you do it: you send pounds, dollars or another freely traded currency, or you use a transfer service that converts the money on arrival, and you supply the extra details the receiving country demands. This page explains which countries have these rules, what information each one wants, what happens when something is missing, and where your UK protections stop once money leaves the country.

Why some countries restrict money coming from the UK

A currency is "restricted" when its country's authorities control who may hold it, buy it or move it across the border. India is one example; the Post Office, which sells travel money, names the Indian rupee, the Moroccan dirham, the Sri Lankan rupee and the Tunisian dinar as currencies it cannot buy or sell¹. The restriction comes from the other country's rules, not from anything in UK law, and it is the reason a high street bureau cannot simply hand you rupees the way it hands you euros.

Restrictions on payments work the same way. A receiving country can require extra information before it releases funds to the recipient, and it can refuse or return payments that do not include it. The UK's own rules mostly govern what happens on this end of the journey. For example, the UK's interchange fee regulation applies only to UK-issued cards used in the UK⁴, and consumer cross-border card payments between the UK and the EU, or any other third country, where either the acquirer or the issuer is based outside the UK's jurisdiction, are no longer subject to the interchange fee caps⁵. The UK caps apply where the merchant, acquirer and card issuer are all within the UK⁶. In other words, once a payment leaves the UK framework, the costs and rules are set partly by whoever handles it abroad.

Newer forms of payment face the same boundaries. The Bank of England's proposed stablecoin rules would only apply to stablecoins widely used for payment in the UK, and it notes that right now there are none like this⁷. UK payment protections are similarly territorial: the 2024 amendment regulations on outbound authorised push payment payments apply only to payments wholly executed in the UK in sterling⁸. A transfer to Mumbai, Dubai or Shanghai sits outside that perimeter, which is why the receiving country's requirements matter so much.

Indian rupees: only Indian residents can carry them, up to £220

The rupee rule is about physical cash. Indian rupees are a restricted currency, which means they cannot be bought and sold outside India, and only Indian residents are allowed to take rupees in and out of the country, within limits set by the Indian authorities. The cash limit is given as up to £220 in or out of the country¹. British residents and tourists cannot order or carry rupees bought from the UK¹.

In practice this means no UK travel money service will sell you rupees, and the Post Office's list of currencies it cannot buy or sell includes the rupee alongside the Moroccan dirham, Sri Lankan rupee and Tunisian dinar¹. If you are travelling to India, you take pounds, a travel card or a debit or credit card instead, and you either exchange money after you arrive or withdraw local currency there, subject to Indian rules on arrival.

The restriction also works in reverse if you are leaving India with cash. The limit is set by the Indian authorities, not by UK border rules, and the £220 figure is the equivalent given for it¹. UK rules on carrying cash are separate: they concern declaring large sums of £10,000 or more, which is covered on the page about carrying cash in or out of the UK.

Sending money to India instead of carrying rupees

Because you cannot bring rupees with you, sending money is the normal way to get value to India, and it is how most people support family there. You send pounds from your UK account, and the provider converts them so the recipient receives rupees into an Indian bank account. The mechanics of that journey, through correspondent banks and local payout systems, are explained on the page about how international payments work, and the choices between banks, specialists and brokers are compared on the page about ways to send abroad.

India's own payment infrastructure is advanced, which affects how money arrives. WhatsApp Payments, for example, was introduced in India to a limited number of users, using the country's unified payments interface (UPI)⁹. That matters to a UK sender in two ways. First, it shows that once your payment reaches India it moves on Indian systems under Indian rules, and the conversion into rupees happens there. Second, it means the details you need may differ from a plain bank transfer: the recipient's account details, and sometimes a UPI-linked identifier, are what route the money.

What you cannot do is send rupees yourself from the UK, because the currency is not available outside India¹. Some senders choose to send US dollars instead of the local currency, which some countries prefer or require; India is the opposite case, and the practical route is a sterling payment converted on arrival. The costs of that conversion, and how exchange rate margins work, are covered on the page about exchange rates, and the tax and practical side of regular support payments on the page about sending to family.

UAE payments need a residency code and a purpose code

The UAE operates a different kind of restriction: the money can flow, but only with the right information attached. Since 1 January 2019, payments to the UAE must include a beneficiary residency code and a purpose of payment code, and payments that do not include them may be returned. The residency code identifies the recipient's status in the UAE, and the purpose code tells the receiving authorities what the money is for, such as a salary, a property payment or family support.

The reference field is where this information goes, and the general principle with payment references is that the unique reference stated for a payment must be quoted when making it¹⁰. For a UAE payment, that means the purpose code and residency details belong in the fields your bank or transfer service labels for them, not in a free-text note. If you are paying a salary, you use the purpose code that corresponds to salary income; if you are sending money to family, the family support code. Your provider will normally list the available codes when you set up the payment, and the recipient can confirm their own residency status with their bank in the UAE.

Getting this right matters because the UAE rule is enforced at the receiving end. A payment that arrives without the codes may be held up or sent back, and a returned international payment can take time and cost fees on the way out and the way back. Before sending, confirm with the recipient which codes apply to your payment, and check the page on the details needed to pay someone abroad for the other information, such as IBAN and BIC, that travels with the payment.

Payments to China and Japan: checking with the recipient first

China, like the UAE, wants payments to arrive with enough information to be processed locally. A payment to China generally needs the recipient's account details plus the CNAPS code, the routing code that identifies the specific branch holding the account within China's payment system. The recipient's bank can supply the code, so the practical step before sending is to ask them to get it and confirm their account can receive funds from abroad. The recipient may also need to expect the payment: Chinese banks can ask the account holder to confirm a incoming international payment before releasing it, so telling them the amount and date helps.

Japan does not restrict its currency the way India does, but services set their own rules and limits. Remitly, for example, lists a limit of 1,000,000.00 JPY per transfer for payments sent from Japan². Limits for payments sent from the UK may differ, and each provider publishes its own, so check the per-transfer cap with whichever service you use. The broader point for both countries is the same: the receiving country's systems decide what a valid payment looks like, and the person being paid is often the quickest source of the details those systems want.

For larger payments, the checks can extend to you as the sender. Payments that are large or unusual can trigger source of funds questions from your own provider, which are explained on the page about sending large sums overseas, and identity verification is covered on the page about identity and security checks.

Cash transfer services and where the money can be collected

Cash collection services, such as MoneyGram-style transfers, work differently from bank payments: the money is made available for pickup at a location in the country you chose when you set up the transfer. That choice is fixed. If the person you sent money to has moved to another country before collecting it, the money generally cannot be picked up there, because the payment was routed to the destination country you selected. The options are asking the provider whether the payment can be redirected or cancelled, or the recipient collecting it where it was sent. How cash pickup works, and its costs and risks, are covered on the page about cash pickup services.

This is one reason cash transfers suit some circumstances better than others. They help where the recipient has no bank account or needs money quickly in a place with pickup locations, but the destination is locked in at the start, and the comparison with bank deposits is set out on the page about cash pickup versus bank deposit. If a cash transfer goes wrong, the same tracing routes apply as for bank payments, which are explained on the page about tracing, cancelling or recalling a payment.

What happens when payment details are missing or wrong

When an international payment arrives without the information the receiving country requires, the usual outcomes are delay, a request for more details, or the payment being returned. A returned payment can mean fees on both legs and days of waiting, which is why the UAE codes and the Chinese routing details are worth confirming before you send rather than after.

If the problem is on your own provider's side, UK rules give you some ground. Under the Payment Services Regulations 2017, a payer is not liable for losses arising after notification of an unauthorised transaction where the provider failed to provide appropriate means for notification, or where strong customer authentication is required but the provider does not require it, except where the payer acted fraudulently¹¹. Separately, a payment service user is entitled to redress notwithstanding that they failed to notify their provider, where the provider failed to provide or make available information about the payment transaction as the regulations require¹².

For payments sent to the wrong place, there is a code of best practice on misdirected payments. It does not guarantee that you will always recover money paid in error, but in most instances your bank should be able to get it back for you¹³. The speed and likelihood of recovery depend on where the money went and how quickly you act, so contact your provider as soon as you notice a problem.

Where UK protection stops on payments abroad

UK consumer protections are largely built for payments that stay inside the UK. The mandatory reimbursement scheme for authorised push payment scams does not apply to debit or credit card payments, international transfers or cryptocurrency transactions³. So if you are defrauded into sending money abroad, the reimbursement route that covers domestic scam victims will generally not be available, and the page about scams when sending abroad explains what remains.

Other protections have similar boundaries. The Consumer Rights Act 2015 carves out contracts for the purchase or sale of foreign currency, traveller's cheques or international money orders denominated in foreign currency from several of its remedies¹⁴. The Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 do not apply to contracts for services of a banking, credit, insurance, personal pension, investment or payment nature¹⁵, so cooling-off rights do not attach to a money transfer the way they do to a shop purchase. Even the price display rules for bureaux de change are their own specialised regime, and do not apply to a trader merely because they accept payment in a foreign currency for goods or services they supply¹⁶.

Some activities sit outside the payment regulations altogether: the Payment Services Regulations 2017 list what does not constitute a payment service, including cash transactions without an intermediary, the physical transport of banknotes and coins, cash-to-cash currency exchange, and paper cheques, bankers' drafts, paper vouchers and postal orders¹⁷. That matters when choosing how to send money, because a method outside the regulations carries fewer of the rights described on the page about your rights under the Payment Services Regulations. Related rules elsewhere show the same pattern of national boundaries: restrictions apply to transfers of pensions overseas, transfers that might not be in the saver's best interest and transfers where there are signs of a pension scam¹⁸, and a student loan borrower leaving the UK is still expected to keep repaying their loan unless they can give proof, such as a recent bank statement, that their overseas income is below the threshold¹⁹.

If you are abroad and cannot get money any other way

There is a last-resort official route for British people overseas who cannot access money. The FCDO money deposit service is only considered in exceptional circumstances if no other transfer service is available, usually takes longer than other options, requires visiting the nearest British embassy, high commission or consulate in person, and a fee is charged²⁰. It is not a normal way to send money: it exists for situations where a person is stranded and every other route, from bank transfers to cash pickup, has failed.

Before reaching that point, the ordinary options are usually better: a bank or specialist transfer, which are compared on the page about banks versus specialists, a cash pickup, or a payment into a mobile wallet, covered on the page about mobile wallets abroad. If money has been sent but has not arrived, the page about how long an international payment takes explains the normal timescales and what counts as a delay.

Getting help

If a payment has gone missing, been returned or arrived short, start with the provider that sent it: they can trace the payment through the chain of banks and, for payments sent in error, the misdirected payments code means in most instances your bank should be able to try to get the money back, though recovery is not guaranteed¹³. Keep the payment reference, the amount, the date and the recipient details, because tracing depends on them.

If the provider cannot or will not help, the escalation route is a complaint to the provider and then to the Financial Ombudsman Service, which can look at complaints about UK-based payment firms; your rights in that process are set out on the page about your rights under the Payment Services Regulations. If the worry is that a provider may fail, the pages on safeguarding and the FSCS and when a payment firm fails explain how customer money is protected with payment firms. And if you are unsure which details a particular country needs, the page on the details needed to pay someone abroad gathers them in one place, and the money transfers section covers the rest of the journey.