How to invoice international clients (currency, tax, fees)

The first time you invoice a client in another country, the usual questions don't go away — what's owed, by when, how to pay — but three new ones show up alongside them: which currency, who eats the bank fees, and what your own tax office expects you to do differently. None of it is complicated once you've decided it upfront. The mistakes almost always come from leaving these open and sorting them out after the invoice has already gone out.

Decide the currency before you quote the job

The single biggest source of friction on an international invoice is currency, and it needs settling before you send a quote, not after you've already invoiced.

You generally have two options:

Bill in your own currency. Simpler for your bookkeeping — your reports, GST/VAT return and bank statement all line up in one currency. The client's bank converts it on their end.
Bill in the client's currency. Easier for the client to budget and approve, especially for a larger invoice that needs sign-off, but it puts exchange-rate movement on you between the invoice date and the day it's actually paid.

As a rule of thumb, freelancers and small agencies billing occasional overseas work tend to invoice in their own currency and let the client's bank handle conversion; businesses with a large share of recurring overseas clients more often bill in the client's currency because it removes a point of friction that slows approval. Neither is "correct" — pick one, say so clearly on the invoice, and stay consistent with that client so nobody's surprised later.

Whichever you choose, state the currency explicitly next to every amount (NZD, AUD, GBP, USD, EUR) rather than just a dollar sign — "$500" means something different in five different countries, and an ambiguous symbol is a common reason an international invoice gets queried before it's paid.

Who pays the transfer fees?

International bank transfers (SWIFT in particular) routinely cost somewhere between $15 and $50 in fees, sometimes split between sender and receiver banks so neither party even sees the full amount. If you don't address this upfront, there's a good chance you'll be paid a few dollars short of the agreed total because the client's bank took its cut out of the transfer rather than adding it on top.

Two clean ways to handle it:

State it on the invoice. A line like "Please ensure all bank fees are paid by the sender" makes the expectation explicit before the money moves.
Use a payment method that avoids the problem. A service built for cross-border transfers (Wise is the common example) or an online card payment usually costs less in total and avoids the "who absorbs the fee" conversation entirely — worth offering as the default rather than the fallback.

What still has to be on the invoice

An international invoice needs everything a domestic one does — invoice number, issue date, a real due date, a clear description, your contact and payment details — plus a couple of extras:

Your country and the client's country, spelled out rather than assumed.
The currency, stated explicitly as above.
Your tax or business number, if your country requires one on invoices generally (GST number, ABN, VAT number).
A note on who covers transfer or conversion fees.

Nothing about billing overseas removes the basics — it just adds a short list on top.

Tax treatment of exported work: check this one with your accountant

This is the part most worth getting a professional opinion on, because the rules differ by country and change over time.

New Zealand: supplies to an overseas client are often zero-rated for GST rather than GST-free — a different thing, with different reporting requirements — so check with your accountant or Inland Revenue on how to record it correctly rather than simply leaving GST off.
Australia: exported services to an overseas client are commonly GST-free, but the exact conditions depend on where the client is and whether they have any presence in Australia, so this is one to confirm with your accountant rather than assume.
United Kingdom: the VAT treatment of services to an overseas client depends on the "place of supply" rules, which vary by the type of service and whether the client is a business or a consumer — again, one for your accountant, not a guess.

In all three cases, the general pattern is the same: exporting work is often treated differently to a domestic sale, but exactly how differs by country, by client type, and by what you're actually selling — so treat this section as "here's what to ask your accountant about," not the final answer.

Payment terms worth adjusting

A couple of things about international clients make slightly longer or more flexible terms worth considering:

Time zones slow everything down. An invoice query that would take an hour to resolve domestically can take two days when the client's accounts team only overlaps with your working hours for an hour or two. Building in a few extra days on the due date avoids that gap turning into a late payment.
International bank transfers can take 2–5 business days to actually land, compared to same-day or next-day domestic transfers. If your terms say "net 7" but the transfer alone eats most of that window, you may be chasing a payment that's already on its way.
Larger international invoices often need extra internal approval before a client's accounts team can release an overseas payment, so a longer runway on bigger jobs tends to reduce the number of "just checking on this" emails you have to send. Our guide on payment terms is a good starting point if you're deciding what to set as a default.

Common mistakes

Leaving the currency ambiguous. A bare "$" on an invoice to an overseas client is a near-guaranteed source of a delay while someone asks which dollar you mean.
Not agreeing who pays the fees, then being short-paid. Say it on the invoice, every time, not just the first one.
Guessing at the tax treatment instead of asking. Zero-rating, exemptions and place-of-supply rules are easy to get subtly wrong, and subtly wrong is exactly the kind of thing that surfaces at tax return time, not invoice time.
Using the same due date you'd use domestically. A few extra days upfront costs you nothing and removes a predictable source of "it's on its way" follow-ups.

Getting paid without the back-and-forth

Most of this is a one-time setup per client: agree the currency, agree who covers the fees, confirm the tax treatment with your accountant, and set a due date that accounts for the extra steps involved in paying across a border. After that, an international invoice is really just an ordinary invoice with a bit more detail on it.

InvoiceCharlie supports multi-currency invoicing and online card payments, so an overseas client can pay in their own currency with one tap instead of working out a bank transfer — which tends to sidestep the fee and timing questions above entirely. If you just need to send one invoice right now, the free invoice generator will build a proper one in your browser, currency and all, with no account needed.