How to invoice in a foreign currency as a freelancer (USD and EUR)

For a freelancer who needs to invoice in a foreign currency such as USD or EUR, the setup that holds up is simple: one multi-currency business account that gives you local US and euro account details, an invoice template with the fields EU VAT rules expect, a card payment link only for clients who insist on it, and a record folder that doesn’t depend on any one country’s software. Here’s how we’d put it together, and what each piece costs.

How we checked this

We used the providers’ own pages for Wise Business receiving fees, Revolut Business multi-currency accounts and two Revolut help-center articles on account details, plus the published US fee pages for Stripe and PayPal (updated September 1, 2026) and Stripe’s documentation on invoice reminders. For VAT rules we used the European Commission’s VAT invoicing page and the Your Europe page on charging and deducting VAT (last checked May 11, 2026, per the page). A Flexhire guide to freelancing in Finland from July 2026 serves as one country example, not a rule for every country. Facts checked on September 24, 2026.

This is educational material, not tax or legal advice. Where you’re registered, whether you charge VAT, and how you report foreign income all depend on where you live, so check them with a tax professional in your country of residence.

Which account details do US and EU clients actually need?

Most clients don’t want to send an international wire. A US company’s accounts-payable team wants a US routing number and account number so it can pay by ACH or domestic wire, the same way it pays any vendor. A company in the euro area wants an IBAN it can pay by SEPA transfer. If your invoice gives them a Swift code and a foreign IBAN instead, some will pay anyway, some will be slow about it, and a few will pass their own bank fees on to you. So the real question is whether your account can give you local receiving details in both currencies.

Wise Business advertises this directly. Its US business pricing page says you can get account details to receive in 22 currencies for a one-time fee of 31 USD. Domestic payments into those details are free in AUD, CAD, EUR, GBP, HUF, NZD, PHP, SGD and USD. Swift payments cost more: a fixed 6.11 USD per incoming USD wire, 2.39 EUR per EUR Swift payment and 2.16 GBP per GBP Swift payment. For your US client, that’s the difference between asking for an ACH transfer and asking for a wire. Put the ACH details first on the invoice.

Revolut Business says on its multi-currency accounts page that you can hold up to 30 currencies, that it offers “local and global account details,” and that incoming transfers in GBP, EUR, USD and CHF come at no extra cost. Which local details you actually get depends on where your business is registered. Revolut’s help article on available details lists, for UK-registered customers, a GBP sort code and account number, a USD account with ACH and wire routing numbers, a Polish IBAN, and Swift details for the other currencies. The Business help page only tells you to use the details for the matching currency, and to fall back on international details when local ones aren’t shown. Before you put Revolut details on an invoice, open the details screen in the app and confirm what your entity actually has.

For a broader side-by-side of the two accounts, see Wise vs Revolut for living in two countries.

Payment link or bank transfer: what costs less?

A bank transfer into local details is almost always the cheapest route for both sides. With Wise’s domestic receiving, a 2,000 USD ACH payment arrives with no receiving fee under the pricing above, and it only costs money if the client insists on a wire (6.11 USD). Card payment links are convenient for small clients and one-off jobs, but you pay a percentage that grows with the invoice.

Stripe’s US pricing page lists 2.9% plus 30 cents for a domestic card, a 1.5% surcharge for international cards, and 1% more if currency conversion is needed. ACH Direct Debit costs 0.8%, capped at 5 USD. Payment Links carry no separate fee beyond payments pricing. If you use Stripe Invoicing, the Starter plan adds 0.4% per paid invoice. PayPal’s US business fee page lists 3.49% plus a fixed fee for invoices paid with PayPal Checkout, 2.99% plus a fixed fee for card payments on a PayPal invoice, 1.50% extra for international commercial transactions, a currency conversion spread that is usually 4.00% (sometimes 3.00%), and fixed fees of 0.49 USD or 0.39 EUR per transaction.

Here’s what that means on a single 2,000 USD invoice. This is our own arithmetic from the published rates, for a US-based merchant account. It isn’t a quote, and your account may have different pricing:

Add Stripe’s 0.4% Invoicing fee (8 USD here) if you send the invoice through Stripe Invoicing instead of a plain payment link. A realistic rule is to offer the bank transfer by default and keep a card link for clients who ask for one. Some freelancers build the card fee into their prices or pass it to the client as a surcharge. Surcharge rules differ by country and card network, so check yours before you do that. To run your own numbers, including conversion back to your home currency, see our transfer fee calculator: Wise, Revolut, bank wire, USDC side by side.

What must be on an invoice for EU clients?

The European Commission’s VAT invoicing page lists what a full VAT invoice must contain under the EU invoicing rules:

• the date of issue
• a unique sequential number
• the supplier’s and the customer’s names and addresses
• the customer’s VAT identification number, where it’s required
• a description and quantity of the goods or services
• the unit price excluding tax
• the date of the supply, if it’s different from the invoice date
• the VAT rate and the VAT amount, with a breakdown by rate

Your Europe adds that your own VAT number must appear on every invoice you issue if you’re VAT-registered, and that invoices can be on paper or electronic.

The Commission also sets out special mentions. When the customer is liable for the VAT, which is common when you sell services to a VAT-registered business in another EU country, the invoice must carry the words “reverse charge.” The same page says electronic invoices are equivalent to paper invoices and can be used when the recipient accepts them. It also says businesses are generally free to store invoices where and how they like, including in a different member state. That point matters if you expect to move.

As an example of how one country applies this, the Flexhire Finland guide says Finnish freelancers often invoice EU business clients without Finnish VAT, using reverse-charge wording. It also lists extra fields it recommends on each invoice: Business ID, service period, currency, VAT treatment, payment terms and payment details. Registration thresholds and exact wording vary by country, and the EU page links to the invoicing rules of each member state. How an invoice in a foreign currency such as USD must show the VAT amount in local currency is not covered here. Ask your accountant or national tax authority before you send a VAT-bearing invoice in a non-local currency.

A practical template covers all of the above plus a few fields that help with getting paid: the invoice currency stated next to every total, the payment due date, both sets of bank details (local and Swift), and a line for the client’s purchase-order number if they use one. US clients don’t expect VAT fields. Leave them out for US invoices, but keep the same numbering sequence across all clients.

How do you keep records portable across countries?

Tax authorities differ on what they want, how long they want it kept and in what format. What they all expect is that you can reconstruct each transaction. The Flexhire guide’s list for Finland is a good general checklist of what makes up a full audit trail: the contract or statement of work, the invoice, evidence of delivery, the platform or payment-provider statement, the bank receipt, the exchange rate used, the provider fee and the tax filings.

To keep that trail portable:

1. Store originals outside your bookkeeping app. Keep a plain folder per year, per client, with PDFs of invoices and monthly statements exported from Wise, Revolut, Stripe or PayPal. If you switch software or country, the folder moves with you.
2. Record three amounts per payment: the invoiced amount in the invoice currency, what actually arrived after fees, and the amount in your reporting currency with the rate and its source. Each authority may want a different rate convention. Keeping the raw numbers lets an accountant recompute them.
3. Use one invoice number sequence for your business, not per country or per client, and never reuse a number. The EU list above requires a unique sequential number.
4. Export statements monthly. Provider dashboards change and accounts get closed. A CSV and a PDF you downloaded at the time are more reliable than what you can get back later.
5. Note your residence dates. When you move, the date you became resident somewhere often decides which country taxes which invoice. A dated note in the same folder saves arguments later.

How long you must keep records depends on the country, so we don’t give a number here. Your accountant in each country of residence can tell you. If you want software to do the sorting, see AI bookkeeping for a one-person business.

Can AI tools draft and chase invoices?

Partly. For chasing, you don’t need AI at all. Stripe’s documentation on customer emails describes automatic reminders for unpaid recurring invoices, sent before, on or after the due date. You can also send one-off reminders from the Dashboard or the API. Emailed invoices include a PDF copy, and Stripe notes that it’s up to you to make sure the invoice contains all the information your customers need. That last point applies to anything that drafts invoices for you, AI or not. The tool fills in fields, but the VAT wording is still your responsibility.

General-purpose AI assistants are useful for drafting the polite second and third reminder, turning a project log into invoice line items, or checking a template against the EU field list above. We don’t name a specific AI invoice-drafting or chasing product here. Before you connect an AI tool to your bank or invoicing account, read what it can see and how to revoke access. Our privacy walkthrough covers that in What your AI assistant sees when you share bank data.

What to watch out for

• Local details that aren’t local to you. Revolut’s list of local details depends on the entity you’re registered with. Check the details screen before you print them on invoices.
• Swift fees on “free” accounts. Local receiving can be free while an incoming wire is not. On Wise’s US pricing, a USD Swift wire costs 6.11 USD. Tell US clients to use ACH.
• Conversion stacking. A card payment can carry an international surcharge and a conversion fee on the same payment (Stripe lists 1.5% and 1%). PayPal’s standard conversion spread is 4.00%. Invoice in the currency you want to receive, and hold it until you need to convert.
• Missing “reverse charge” wording on invoices to VAT-registered EU business clients, where it applies. Your client’s accounts team may reject the invoice.
• Records trapped in one app or one country’s format. Export monthly and keep originals.
• Tax residence changes mid-year. This is the point where a professional is worth paying. Don’t guess.

Go deeper

• Money tools for expats and freelancers (2026): accounts, cards, invoicing, AI bookkeeping
• AI bookkeeping for a one-person business
• Transfer fee calculator: Wise, Revolut, bank wire, USDC side by side
• Wise vs Revolut for living in two countries
• All guides in Money without borders