Some of you who remember me from several years ago when I posted more often may remember that I am a lawyer. I know that trying to break up cash amounts to evade reporting it is a crime and nothing that I am going to consider messing with. Furthermore, I don't think carrying a large amount of cash is wise.

Unfortunately, most of my deceased wive's relatives are not that sophisticated and I will have to do most of the heavy lifting on my end. I will give the relatives my bank's Swift number and my son's account no. and ask them to present those numbers to the bank ahead of time. If we can wire it fine, if not hopefully we can take a check made out to my son.

I do know a former tutor of my daughter who used to work in banking and I will check with her and find out what she thinks.

So it's OK to commit a crime because you won't get caught?

I still fail to understand how giving his son 9k is a crime.

That having been said, I do think the wire transfer approach makes more sense. However, some banks are clueless about this stuff, so it's important to run it by them before trying. The check approach, by contrast, seems likely to fail.

I believe OP makes this very clear about this:

Yes, he is clear, but if his bank can't swing the international wire transfer (bear in mind that Wuhan is not Shanghai), hand carry might be the path of least resistance.

I once wired money from a bank in Nanning (smaller market than Wuhan, but also 2nd tier) to the US, and it took an entire month (and many phone calls) to process.

Yes hand carry the whole $18k is the path of least resistance, just declare it. Trying to game the system by splitting it between the father and son rather than declare it is illegal.

There is another option that may be easier. Have the relatives simply set up a regular Chinese bank account with a Union Pay ATM/debit card and put a daily withdrawal limit of $500-1000 equivalent. Give son the card. There are plenty of ATM's in most USA cities (as well as merchants) that accept Union Pay cards. Then he can just draw down the Chinese account from inside the USA and not worry about carrying wads of cash across borders. The interbank transaction will do the currency exchange, and son ends up with USD. The total of ATM fees in the USA for the drawdowns wouldn't likely be much different than paying the outgoing + incoming wire fees. And no need to do official documents or reports in the USA.

Pretty much every Chinese tourist visiting the USA accesses cash this way.

Jiejies approach is a good idea, but I want add that finding a fee free atm in the US is useful if you pull out cash 18 times. Most credit unions have them.

If the original cash was in CNY yes this would be sensible. However, the OP did not state clearly what currency the cash is in but the wording seems to suggest USD.

I also wasn't clear on what currency the cash is in, but I don't see where it matters. If it's in USD in some sort of format similar to a US-style Certificate of Deposit, it's not a big deal for Chinese to cash it and convert it to RMB then open a regular account with that. The other aspect I'm not clear on, is whose name is on the "Bill of Exchange." I had assumed it was one of the Chinese relatives.

Since the OP wants USD, if it's already in USD, pulling out the cash would be my favored approach (assuming the bank is flummoxed by the wire thing). While flying with 18k in cash might make some people nervous, many people travel with much larger amounts every day.

I talked to both my bank (Fifth Third) and our Chinese relatives and was told that the Wuhan Bank should be able to wire the money to Fifth Third. Will give Wuhan family account number (try to split it up between email and Wechat for security reasons) and suggest they run it by Wuhan bank before we go to China. Will post later when I find out any additional news.

For those asking about the currency, I believe it is in US dollars. 10 years ago I suggested that they convert the money to yuan, expecting it to appreciate, but it wasn't done.

OP, I am sure you have done this...but among all these machinations discussed, make sure your son has an account at the target bank (US).

He just turned 18 and we opened several accounts for him last week.

I'm rather confused here - my girlfriend's family keeps complaining that they have to physically fly to China to move money to Canada (they are Canadian citizens but still have money in Chinese bank accounts) and are thus restricted by the physical limit of how much they can bring in. In this thread everyone keeps saying that wire transfer wouldn't be an issue at all. Am I missing something obvious? And even if wire-transfer isn't possible, why couldn't they simply declare at the border?