Most countries have a cap at 10,000 USD (or foreign currency equivalent) for undeclared amounts of cash or other monetary assets, as amounts larger than that have to be declared upon travel. Crypto (like BTC or Monero) isn’t counted since it’s not considered as “valid currency” by the world bank.
The limit not only applies to cash since they count any assets worth of value (gold, checks, bonds, jewelery, artworks, luxury goods, high end electronics, etc). since those have been used and exploited for laundering money, I guess. So, even if he has 500 Rolexes fitted into suitcases worth over $100,000 will that still be taken?
It’s like if some one has 800 Chanel Handbags & 200 Hermès watches and mens footwear combined totalling to $50,000 in value stuffed onto mutiple huge suitcases and attempts to travel with that since huge stacks of cash will be flagged, so accessories are used to bring in money.
This is to combat money laundering and tax fraud. I’ll give three examples.
I saw an episode of Border Security Australia where a woman has previously claimed a VAT refund on a pair of earrings worth tens of thousands of dollars. As you may know, many countries allow you to claim a refund of VAT on products intended for export, as VAT is intended to be a tax on consumption. But customs agents caught her wearing the earrings, meaning she had not actually exported them and essentially cheated the tax authority out of thousands of dollars in VAT.
Last year, during a trip to Hong Kong, my mother withdrew 20,000 USD in cash from her American bank and took it with her in person, and then deposited it in her Hong Kong bank account. It was just easier to do it this way since an international wire transfer would have been expensive and slow. She declared it to both US customs and Hong Kong customs, and in both cases they just checked her passport, noted down the transaction, and let her through with minimal questions. It’s intended to be an anti-money-laundering check. If that money has been obtained through crimes, most criminals would not willingly disclose that to customs, and it’s such a large amount of cash that anyone doing so must be trying to move money internationally and not just pay for a holiday. There is literally no penalty or tax and minimal hassle to declare it, so pretty much whoever is trying to sneak large amounts of cash or gold or whatever through customs is either (1) very ignorant or (2) up to no good. Further questioning usually allows customs agents to separate the first category from the second.
On the topic of China, there are strict capital controls in place to prevent wealthier Mainland Chinese individuals from moving all their money abroad. This policy is to encourage domestic spending and investment and it also has the effect of drastically lowering borrowing costs for the Chinese government. Moving large amounts of cash or gold in person is the most obvious way to evade these limits so Chinese customs has to take a strict stance against such behaviour in order to prevent China’s airports from becoming a massive hole in their capital controls. Being caught with undeclared cash provides an easy excuse for customs to confiscate the money in question, where the passenger can’t really argue over their guilt, since, again, anyone carrying such a large amount of cash pretty much has to know what they’re doing.
In Europe it was mostly done because rich people would transfer huge sums of cash to tax havens (Luxemburg and Switzerland due banking secrecy back than) so they could hide their wealth from the tax offices. So they limited the maximum amount you could travel across borders with.
This doesn’t apply to airports. It is at the customs when you leave/enter another country.
When entering or exiting the USA, the rule is that cash or financial instruments need to be declared above $10,000, but you can bring as much as you want. So bringing a literal suit case of Swiss francs worth $5 million USD is perfectly fine, provided you tell the customs agent.
While I can’t really advise going to the USA right now, it’s not like they will confiscate cash above $10,000. The particular phrase used in most places is “freedom of capital”, meaning that money can flow into or out of the country without significant impediment. The entire USA financial sector relies upon freedom of capital, whether that’s electronically or – if need be – with bundles of cash.
Declaring cash helps prevent money laundering, since people intending to secretly move money would not want to declare to customs. The threshold is intentionally set so that normal people going on holiday with cash or travelers checks (yes, I’m aware it’s 2026) won’t be burdened by the rule.
While I can’t really advise going to the USA right now, it’s not like they will confiscate cash above $10,000.
https://travelhost.com/airlines/class-action-lawsuit-to-stop-tsa-and-dea-from-seizing-cash
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United_States
In the US, you should never have more cash on your person than you can afford to lose.
Tbf you’re more likely to get robbed by random people in broad daylight than encountering a cop that will civil asset forfeiture you, so its just bad idea to have lots of cash regardless of country.
You are much less likely to to be robbed by some random crook than you are a police officer. By almost a factor of 10.
There were 1300 cases of armed robbery in the US in 2024.
CAF resulted in 2.5 billion in assets seized in 2010, 11000 cases of seizure were for non criminal offenses.
There were 1300 cases of armed robbery in the US in 2024.
That number seemed way off to me. Not sure where you got it. Perhaps in some kind of analysis of a sample/subset of cases?
Robberies all involve violence or a threat of violence, so calling out armed robbery specifically seems too narrow. Someone says they have a weapon and robs you, that’s reported as a robbery. If the police catch them and they are unarmed, that’s still just robbery, not armed robbery. But it seems relevant to the point in this discussion.
Anyway, New York City alone had almost that many robberies in the month of December 2024, and had 16000 robberies for the year in 2024. Source
The number I see for the country in 2024 is ~625000 robbery cases from FBI data. Just looking at armed robbery is more like 100k cases (200k if you include strong arm). Source
My mom got robbed in broad daylight and they took nearly $1000 from her… (okay idk why the fuck she was carrying so much cash, but that’s whole another story)
She was literally on the way to the bank…
Then again, we are Asian American and non-Asians in America loves to target us… and obviously cops don’t give a fuck.
We need to bring back the rooftop Koreans to patrol the streets, police is useless
Yeah sure, tell the government you have a large sum of money, I’m sure they’ll just leave you alone.
I’ve heard cases regarding civil asset forfeiture with citizens traveling domestically having large amounts still got it confiscated by DEA agents due to suspicion of criminal activity. So in knowing that, will they still seize non-USD currency: 30,000,000 Rials (~$78,125,000) in cash even though it’s being withdrawn from an Omani bank and it’s the individual’s own money just carried out in multiple stacks.
Civil forfeiture and DEA is a separate problem unto itself, and you’ve always hit on the key points: DEA operates within the country, whereas customs is at port of entries. DEA’s corruption and geographic reach mean they have caused far more problems than any customs agent, in pursuit of a 1990s zeal that “drugs are bad” and expanding that into a parallel law enforcement system, despite already having a federal law enforcement department: the FBI. Civil forfeiture should be abolished as unconstitutional, violating due process, equal protection, and property law.
So yes, once you’re in the country, there is a risk to carry around large sums of cash. But that’s hardly connected to the customs declaration requirement, and certainly cannot be connected to the declaration requirement on the way out.
It’s like if some one has 800 Chanel Handbags & 200 Hermès watches and mens footwear combined totalling to $50,000 in value stuffed onto mutiple huge suitcases and attempts to travel with that since huge stacks of cash will be flagged, so accessories are used to bring in money.
Depending on the countries, you might end up paying import taxes on that.
Exhibit A: https://time.com/6563886/arnold-schwarzenegger-watch-tax-customs-detention-climate-auction/
In certain scenarios I wouldn’t even be able to take my other phone or a tablet with me, because a lot of airports/customs consider only 1 phone as “essential” and not subject to any regulations.
Schwarzenegger reportedly told customs officials that he was planning to auction the watch for a good cause
That’s the key here. He was importing it. When you’re bringing multiple phones and laptops, you’re bringing them back with you, that’s a whole different story.
Depends on where you are from and where you are going. I’m struggling to find the page now, but Istanbul international airport only allows carrying 1 phone tax-free, for example.
Maybe they want vacationers to leave their work phones at home lol
I carry 2 phones, 2 laptops, a couple external hdds, etc. I’ve been asked about it by chinese customs once, but otherwise, a dozen crossings, almost half into China and nobody’s cared.
I hear Mexico is bad about this tho.
Money laundering reasons.
