A charge instruction is the part of an international payment order that tells the banks who bears their fees, and it is expressed through the OUR, SHA and BEN charge codes. The sender chooses one of the three options when ordering a wire transfer, and the choice travels with the payment through every bank in the chain.
Under the OUR fee option the sender pays all charges, so the recipient should receive the full amount. Under the SHA fee option the charges are shared: the sender pays its own bank, and the recipient bears the fees of the other banks. Under the BEN fee option the recipient pays everything, with charges deducted from the amount in transit. In a SWIFT MT103 message the instruction sits in the field for details of charges, and ISO 20022 messages carry the same information in a charge bearer element.
The instruction matters because an intermediary bank fee taken along the route can leave the recipient short of the invoiced amount. Within the European Economic Area, payment services law requires shared charges for most payments, so the choice arises mainly on transfers to or from other regions. The main entry explains each code and when to use it.