The first thing worth knowing before creating an order: Wise is not a bank. The company writes this right in the user agreement — a Wise account is not a bank account, and the money on it is not covered by the deposit insurance scheme but protected by being held separately.
What it is by licence
In the United Kingdom Wise is an electronic money institution, in the European Union a payment institution registered in Belgium and extended across the whole EEA. These are two different types of licence, and neither of them is a banking one. The application for a national trust bank licence in the United States was rejected by the regulator on 24 July 2026; in the United Kingdom the company is only weighing whether to file one.
The type of licence also determines the deadline for instant euro transfers: euro-area banks must send them from 9 October 2025, while electronic money institutions and payment institutions only from 9 April 2027.
Ukraine: sending only
Wise's availability page for Ukraine lists exactly one option — sending money abroad. Ukraine appears neither in the list of countries where money may be held in a Wise account, nor in the list of countries where a card is issued. You cannot receive a transfer into a Wise account while living in Ukraine, and it is better to run into this before the order rather than after.
Sending to Ukraine is possible, but with caveats: Wise does not take the hryvnia as the source currency, and the recipient can only be a Ukrainian bank IBAN, not a card. The limit depends on the recipient's bank: up to 399,999 hryvnias to an account at PrivatBank and up to 29,999 hryvnias to accounts at other banks. Some territories are closed entirely.
The money has to come in your own name
A Wise account can be topped up only from an account or a card made out to the account holder: the ban is direct and written into the agreement. If a payment has come from a third party, the transfer is put on hold: the customer cancels it themselves, and the money then goes back to the sender. There are two exceptions — a joint account on which you are named, and the account of a company you represent, and that only for a business account.
With the account details issued to you the rule is different: money from third parties may arrive on them, but the list of permitted purposes is closed — your own salary, payouts from platforms, money from family and friends, payment from clients to a business account. The details themselves are not a bank account but a way of crediting money to a Wise account.
Crypto and the source of funds check
Sending money to a crypto platform or a crypto wallet from a Wise account is not allowed at all, and neither is receiving payment from a private person for sold cryptocurrency. Money from a crypto service can be received on two conditions: it holds a licence in the United Kingdom or an EU country, and the payment fits Wise's risk appetite. About EEA countries outside the EU the rule says nothing.
Wise names outright certain platforms from which it does not accept payments, and that list changes. No result can be promised here: the decision remains with Wise, not with the sender.
Documents on the origin of the money are asked for after the transfer has been paid for, not before — there is nowhere to send them in advance. The transfer hangs meanwhile and resumes by itself once the documents are accepted. How long the check takes Wise does not publish: the current “one-two days” are not to be found on its own pages.