"Which wallet is cheapest?" sounds like a simple question until you actually try to answer it. Nepal's digital wallets and bank apps do not charge a flat percentage on every transaction the way some people assume. Instead, fees depend heavily on what you are doing — paying a shop, sending money to a friend, or moving funds to a bank account — and how many times you have already done that same thing today. Get the category wrong, and you could end up paying a fee on a transfer that would have been completely free through a different route.
This guide breaks down exactly how eSewa, Khalti by IME, connectIPS, and bank-linked mobile banking actually charge for transfers in 2026, so you can see precisely where each app is free, where a small charge kicks in, and which option genuinely costs the least depending on how much money you are sending and how often you send it.
1. Why Wallet Fees in Nepal Are Not a Single Number
A regulatory change tied to Nepal's government revenue rules reshaped how peer-to-peer wallet transfers are charged. Under the Standard Tariff and Charges framework that both eSewa and Khalti adopted, sending money between two personal wallet accounts is not charged as a percentage of the amount. Instead, it works on a free-allowance-then-flat-fee model: a limited number of free transfers per day and per month, with a small flat charge once you exceed that allowance.
Separately, paying a merchant by scanning a QR code is treated completely differently from sending money to a friend, and Nepal Rastra Bank rules specifically bar merchants from passing any transaction surcharge on to the customer. This means the fee question really has two separate answers depending on whether you are paying a shop or sending money person-to-person, and any honest comparison needs to treat those as two different categories rather than one blended number.
2. eSewa: Free Allowance, Then a Flat Rs 10
On eSewa, sending money to another eSewa user for less than Rs 100 is free with no limit on how many times you do it. Once you send an amount over Rs 100, the first three such transfers each day are free, and you get up to thirty free transfers of this kind per month. Once you exceed either of those free allowances, each additional transfer costs a flat Rs 10, regardless of whether you are sending Rs 200 or Rs 20,000.
That flat-fee structure matters more than it might first appear: because the charge is a fixed Rs 10 rather than a percentage, it becomes proportionally cheaper the larger your transfer is. Sending Rs 500 for a flat Rs 10 fee works out to a 2% cost, while sending Rs 10,000 for that same flat Rs 10 fee is effectively a 0.1% cost. Frequent small senders feel this fee much more than occasional large senders do.
3. Khalti by IME: The Same Fee Model, Post-Merger
Khalti, now operating as Khalti by IME following its merger with IME Pay, applies essentially the same Standard Tariff and Charges structure as eSewa for wallet-to-wallet transfers: free for amounts under Rs 100, three free transfers a day and thirty a month for amounts over Rs 100, and a flat Rs 10 charge beyond that allowance. On pure P2P transfer fees, there is effectively no meaningful difference between eSewa and Khalti by IME, since both wallets are operating under the same government-driven tariff framework rather than competing on this specific fee.
Where Khalti by IME can pull ahead is indirectly, through its Daami Points rewards system. Since transfers and payments through the app continue to accumulate Daami Points that can often be converted directly into wallet balance, a portion of any fee you do pay can effectively be offset over time by points earned on other transactions, something eSewa's Fonepoints system does not do in quite the same direct way. It is worth noting that eSewa and Khalti by IME wallets are not yet directly interoperable with each other — sending money from an eSewa wallet straight into a Khalti wallet, or the reverse, is not currently a live feature, though both companies have said the technical groundwork through the Fonepay switch is largely in place.
4. connectIPS: The Cheapest Option for Larger Transfers
connectIPS, the bank-neutral hub run by Nepal Clearing House Limited, uses a genuinely different and more granular fee structure. Since April 2025, account-to-account transfers up to Rs 500 have been free, matching the wallets' free tier for small amounts. Above that threshold, connectIPS uses a tiered "2-4-8" fee model: a small charge in the mid-range band between roughly Rs 500 and Rs 5,000, and a flat Rs 8 for any transfer above Rs 5,000.
This is where connectIPS becomes genuinely the cheapest option for anyone regularly moving mid-to-large sums of money. A transfer of Rs 50,000 through connectIPS still costs a flat Rs 8, compared to eSewa or Khalti's flat Rs 10 charge once you are past your free allowance for the day or month. The gap is small in absolute rupees, but for landlords, freelancers, or small business owners settling multiple transactions a week, choosing connectIPS over a wallet consistently saves a little on every transfer above the free threshold.
5. Bank Mobile Apps: Fonepay Interbank Transfers
Your bank's own mobile banking app, when sending money to an account at a different bank through the Fonepay-powered interbank rail, generally mirrors the same free-under-Rs-500 pattern, with a fee of roughly Rs 10 per transaction above that threshold, similar in scale to eSewa and Khalti's flat charge. The exact fee can vary slightly by bank, since individual banks are allowed to set their own charges within NRB guidelines, so it is worth checking your specific bank's fee schedule inside the app before assuming it matches this baseline exactly.
One consistent rule across every option covered here: paying a merchant for goods or services by scanning a QR code costs the customer nothing, on any of these platforms. Nepal Rastra Bank explicitly prohibits merchants from adding a surcharge to pass transaction costs on to shoppers, so the fee conversation only becomes relevant once you are sending money to another person or transferring between accounts rather than paying for a purchase.
6. So, Which One Actually Has the Lowest Fees?
The honest answer depends entirely on your transaction pattern, not a single universal winner. For occasional small transfers under Rs 100, or infrequent transfers over Rs 100 within your daily and monthly free allowance, eSewa, Khalti by IME, and connectIPS are all equally free, and the choice comes down to which app your recipient already uses. For merchant payments of any size, every platform covered here is free to the customer by regulation, so fee comparison is irrelevant in that category.
Once you regularly exceed the free tier, connectIPS edges out both major wallets on cost for anything from roughly Rs 500 up to about Rs 5,000, thanks to its lower mid-tier charge, and it remains marginally cheaper than the wallets' flat Rs 10 fee even on larger amounts, at a flat Rs 8. For frequent high-volume senders — landlords collecting rent from multiple tenants, small business owners paying suppliers, or anyone settling several transactions above the free threshold every week — routing transfers through connectIPS instead of a wallet's Send Money feature adds up to real savings over a year, even though the per-transaction difference looks small on paper.
7. Practical Tips to Minimize Transfer Fees
Where possible, batch smaller transfers to stay within eSewa and Khalti's free daily and monthly allowances rather than making many separate small transactions that each individually cross the Rs 100 threshold. If you regularly send money to the same person, agree in advance who initiates the transfer, since only the sender's free allowance is consumed, not the receiver's.
For anything above roughly Rs 500 that is not a merchant payment, default to connectIPS if you have it set up, since its tiered structure beats the wallets' flat Rs 10 fee at every amount above the free threshold. Finally, remember that fee structures in Nepal's digital payment space have changed before and will likely change again as Nepal Rastra Bank and NCHL periodically revise limits and charges — it is always worth a quick check inside the app before a large or time-sensitive transfer, rather than relying on a number you read once.
Final Thoughts
There is no single wallet that wins every fee category in Nepal, because eSewa and Khalti by IME apply near-identical P2P fee structures under the same government-mandated tariff, and both are beaten on larger transfers by connectIPS's more granular tiered pricing. The smartest approach is not picking one app as your permanent answer to "lowest fees," but understanding which category your transfer falls into — merchant payment, small P2P transfer, or larger bank-to-bank movement — and routing each one through whichever platform is actually free or cheapest for that specific situation.
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