remittance

From remit + -ance.

• IPA^(key): /ɹɪˈmɪtəns/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

remittance (countable and uncountable, plural remittances)

1. The act of sending money to someone.

   remittance advice ― a letter informing that an invoice has been paid

2. Money which is sent to someone, typically to someone in another country.
3. Money sent by a foreign worker back to their home country.
   • 2016, Zadie Smith, Swing Time, New York, N.Y.: Penguin Press, →ISBN, page 203:

     It had been built on remittances, Lamin told me, sent back by a local young man who had been doing well, driving a cab in Amsterdam, until his luck changed and the money abruptly stopped.

   • 2025 February 25, Joshua Korber Hoffman, “It costs more to send money to sub-Saharan Africa than anywhere else in the world: these companies are trying to change that”, in CNN‎^[1], archived from the original on 2 April 2025:

     While the average cost of sending money to sub-Saharan Africa is the highest in the world, the cost of digital remittances to the region is less than the global average. If more Africans sent money home via digital services rather than cash, average remittance fees should fall, but receiving money online requires the internet, which is used in sub-Saharan Africa by only 37% of people, according to the World Bank.

• Nowadays the last sense is the most common.
• Not to be confused with remittence (“a temporary abatement of symptoms”).

• remittance man, remittance woman

• money order