Egyptians working abroad sent home $47.3 billion in the fiscal year 2025/26, a 29.6% increase from the previous year, according to preliminary figures from the Central Bank of Egypt. This surge, reported by Worldnews.com, follows a significant drop in recorded remittances in 2023 and is attributed to key economic reforms.
Recorded remittances in the 12-month period ending June 2026 far outpaced other major foreign currency earners, such as tourism and the Suez Canal. Tourism brought in $18.4 billion, while Suez Canal transit receipts reached $4.4 billion. The value of remittances was nearly double the combined total of these two vital sectors.
The growth is also evident in calendar-year data. The CBE reported that Egyptians abroad sent home $33.9 billion between January and August 2026, an increase of 27.2% from the $26.6 billion received in the same period of 2025. August alone saw remittances reach $4.2 billion, highlighting a strong and sustained recovery.
Remittances Fall Through Unofficial Channels
This recent rebound follows a sharp decline in officially recorded remittances. World Bank data for calendar years shows a stark drop: from $31.5 billion in 2021 to $28.3 billion in 2022 and a dramatic fall to $19.5 billion in 2023.
The World Bank identified a key reason for this slump. In its December 2023 review, the bank stated that the significant gap between Egypt’s official exchange rate and the parallel market rate likely caused a “substantial part” of remittance flows to move through unofficial channels, thus bypassing official statistics. This analysis was reiterated in June 2024, reinforcing the link between the divergent rates and the shift of transfers into informal channels.
The Impact of March 2024 Economic Reforms
A turning point came on March 6, 2024, when the Central Bank of Egypt enacted a series of major economic reforms. On that day, the CBE raised its policy rate by 600 basis points and unified the official and parallel exchange rates. The International Monetary Fund welcomed these moves as the start of a transition to a flexible exchange-rate regime, announcing a staff-level agreement on a new lending programme for Egypt.
The effect on remittances was almost immediate. By June 2024, the World Bank was reporting that official remittance flows to Egypt had rebounded following the unification of exchange rates. This recovery is reflected in the bank’s annual data series, which recorded $29.6 billion in remittances for 2024 and a significant jump to $41.5 billion in 2025.
The $41.5 billion figure for 2025 is the highest annual total in the World Bank’s data series, which stretches back to 1977. The value of remittances to the Egyptian economy also grew substantially, reaching 11.4% of the country’s gross domestic product in 2025, compared with just 4.9% in 2023.
Cost of Sending Money to Egypt
The cost of sending remittances remains a critical factor for Egyptians abroad. According to the World Bank’s Remittance Prices Worldwide survey, which tracks the costs of sending about $200, the average costs on key routes to Egypt in the third quarter of 2025 were:
* Kuwait: 3.33%
* United Arab Emirates: 3.70%
* Saudi Arabia: 5.15%
* United States: 5.36%
These costs are below the global average of 6.36% for the same period. However, they are measured against the G20’s remittance-cost targets, which call for a global average of no more than 3% for sending $200 by 2030. The routes from Saudi Arabia and the United States were still above the G20’s target of no corridor exceeding 5%.
Tracking a Late Bank Transfer
For recipients whose international bank transfers are delayed, there are specific steps to follow. For payments sent via the Swift network, recipients should ask the sender for the Unique End-to-end Transaction Reference (UETR), a 36-character identifier that remains constant as the payment passes through intermediary banks.
It is important to distinguish between the payment reaching the receiving bank and it being credited to the customer’s account. Swift network-wide figures indicate that 75% of cross-border payments reach beneficiary banks within ten minutes, but the final domestic processing stage can account for approximately 80% of the total time. These figures do not set a specific deadline for an individual transfer to Egypt.
Recipients can use independent services like uetr.ai to check the status of a transfer using the UETR or the transfer company’s own reference number. While an online status check is available, it does not replace a formal payment trace requested through the sending bank. If a payment is still not credited, the recipient can raise the issue with the receiving bank, while the sender initiates a trace through their own bank. Banks like Banque Misr have published complaint procedures that outline specific timelines for providing initial responses and final decisions on missing payment claims.
