Sending money to Guyana: what the payout counter must show, and what it need not

If you send money to Guyana for collection at a counter, what that counter must show your recipient depends on the currency they are paid in. Where they are paid in Guyana dollars, the agent must display the conversion rates it applied and its charges. Where they are paid in foreign currency, it must display only the charges. Both are duties under section 12 of the Money Transfer Agencies (Licensing) Act 2009, and the difference is easy to miss because the four subsections are rarely read together.

Key Takeaways

• Section 12(2) covers payout to a local recipient in Guyana dollars and requires both the implicit conversion rates applied and any applicable charges to be displayed.
• Section 12(5) covers payout to a local recipient in foreign currency and requires only the charges.
• Section 13 entitles any person sending or receiving money to a receipt, with a duplicate kept.
• Sections 4(3) and 8(6) require the licence and the agent's certificate to be displayed conspicuously.
• Section 19 puts licensed depository financial institutions outside the Act entirely.

The four limbs of section 12, and why the asymmetry matters

Section 12 of the Money Transfer Agencies (Licensing) Act 2009 deals with the right of a licensee and a money transfer agent to conduct money transfer, and four of its subsections impose display duties. Setting them out together is the whole point, because each one differs from its neighbour in exactly one variable.

Read down the last column and the pattern is plain. Where the transaction is denominated in Guyana dollars, the rates limb is present. Where it is in foreign currency, the rates limb is absent and only charges must be displayed.

There is a second difference in how the pairs are anchored, and it explains the first. The two Guyana dollar limbs are expressed as subject to regulations made under the Act. The two foreign currency limbs are expressed as subject to and in accordance with section 20 of the Bank of Guyana Act 1998.

Section 20(1) of that Act deems all monetary obligations or transactions in Guyana to be expressed, recorded and settled in Guyana dollars. That applies whether the obligation is imposed or authorised by a law or otherwise, unless another law provides for it or the parties agree. Its proviso then adds a condition. A party shall not agree to settle, or settle, in any currency other than Guyana dollars except with the permission of the Bank, after consultation with the Minister.

So a foreign currency payout in Guyana is the exception, not the default, and it sits inside a permission regime. That is why the two foreign currency limbs point at section 20, and it is also why those limbs still require the charges to be displayed in Guyana dollars even though the payment itself is not.

The payout currency decides which duty applies

Section 12 attaches a different disclosure to each payout currency, so which of its limbs applies turns on what your recipient is paid in.

Both limbs key on how the payment is effected rather than on how it was sent, so the duty is fixed by what the counter hands over.

Someone collecting in Guyana dollars can therefore expect both figures to be on the wall before they accept the money. Someone collecting in foreign currency can expect the charges, and the Act does not require the rates to be beside them. Neither duty depends on the recipient asking, and neither depends on the amount.

The statutory receipt, and the guideline's separate one

Section 13 is one sentence: a licensee and a money transfer agent shall give to any person sending or receiving money a receipt, and keep a duplicate of the receipt.

Three things follow from how it is drafted, and none of them is about what the transfer cost you to send.

1. It names sending or receiving, so the person collecting money in Guyana is within it in their own right rather than by extension from the sender's transaction.
2. It is unconditional, carrying no threshold and no requirement that anybody ask.
3. The duplicate obligation means the counter keeps its own copy, which is what makes the receipt useful later rather than only at the moment of collection.

There is a second receipt duty in Guyana, and the two are easy to run together. It sits in the Bank of Guyana's Supervision Guideline No. 13 on anti-money-laundering and countering the financing of terrorism. In the guideline's own vocabulary, a money services business must know the true identity of its customer. The trigger is a transaction whose total value equals or exceeds G$20,000, or the foreign currency equivalent, and the same sentence requires that a receipt be issued.

Two things separate that duty from section 13. It sits in a supervisory guideline, where section 13 is a statute. And it is triggered at G$20,000, where section 13 has no trigger at all. A person collecting a small sum is therefore inside section 13 and outside the guideline's receipt rule.

The same guideline is stricter than section 13 in a different direction. Customer identification information should be obtained prior to a transaction being carried out. If identification information is not obtained, the transaction should not proceed. That is a floor with no threshold under it.

Two documents that should be on the wall, and a date inside both

Section 4(3) requires a licensee, where a licence is granted, to display the licence at a conspicuous place at the licensed premises. Section 8(6) requires a registered person granted a certificate of registration to display that certificate at a conspicuous place at the premises from which the money transfer agent will operate.

Both carry an expiry that the Act fixes rather than the holder. Section 5(1) provides that a licence expires on the 31st day of December of the year in which it is granted, and section 9(1) provides the same for a certificate of registration. So the two documents on the wall are annual instruments, and the year printed on them is meaningful in a way that a permanent registration number would not be.

What the Act does not reach

Section 19 provides that the Act does not apply to a licensed depository financial institution under the Financial Institutions Act 1995. Banks are outside it, and a payment reaching one travels the route the AUD to GYD corridor page describes rather than the counter route set out here.

That matters for reading everything above correctly. The display duties, the receipt entitlement and the conspicuous licence are obligations of licensed money transfer agencies and their registered agents. Where money arrives into a bank account rather than across an agency counter, this Act is not the instrument that governs what the recipient is shown, and a different body of rules applies.

It is also why what a recipient is entitled to see depends on how the money is collected, and not on the amount or on the sender. The Act sets no ceiling on an inbound transfer anywhere in its text. The regulations made under it in 2009, 2014 and 2023 were not examined here, so that is a statement about the Act, and not about the regime as a whole.

Where to look next

How international transfers work sets out the sequence a payment moves through before any national rule reaches it. What a payment rail is made of covers the infrastructure behind a payout counter. Understanding transfer fees deals with the separate question of what a transfer costs. The live rate page for this corridor is AUD to GYD, and the AUD to GYD convert page shows the pair on its own.

Sources

• Money Transfer Agencies (Licensing) Act 2009, No. 20 of 2009, Bank of Guyana - Official Gazette, Legal Supplement A, 14 August 2009. Section 4(3) on displaying the licence, sections 5(1) and 9(1) on annual expiry, section 8(6) on the certificate of registration, section 12(2) to (5) on the four display duties, section 13 on receipts, and section 19 on non-application to licensed depository financial institutions.
• Supervision Guideline No. 13, Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism, Bank of Guyana - the identification floor that applies before any transaction is carried out, the G$20,000 threshold at which a money services business must know the true identity of its customer and a receipt must be issued, and the G$200,000 transfer above which a money transfer agency reports to the Financial Intelligence Unit.
• Bank of Guyana Act 1998, No. 19 of 1998, Bank of Guyana - section 20(1) and its proviso, deeming monetary obligations in Guyana to be expressed, recorded and settled in Guyana dollars and requiring the Bank's permission, after consultation with the Minister, to settle in any other currency. Sections 12(4) and 12(5) of the 2009 Act are expressed as subject to and in accordance with it, which is why the foreign currency display limbs are anchored differently from the Guyana dollar ones.

General information about sending money to Guyana and about the statutory duties of licensed money transfer agencies there. Not financial advice, and not a recommendation of any product or institution. Reviewed by the Tradergy editorial team, September 2026.