Credit card foreign transaction fees
You'd pay a 3% foreign transaction fee on all purchases with this Chase Visa card (and many others)
What are foreign transaction fees and how can I avoid them?
While paying with credit cards does get you a better exchange rate than with cash, know that Visa itself imposes a 1% "commission" for foreign purchases/cash advances.
Many Visa-issuing banks—recognizing yet another good way to fleece its own customers—tack on additional 1%, 2%, or even 3% "commissions" of their own.
They will tell you this is a banking fee for performing the currency exchange.
They are lying.
This is because:
- The Visa corp has already performed the currency exchange before the transaction ever gets to your issuing bank (which receives the transaction in dollars), and
- It's all electronic, so there's really nothing to "exchange" in the first place.
These extra few percentage points your bank is charging is 100% profit for them, pure and simple, and they are stealing it from you.
Luckily, there is a way around this: a low-fee credit card.
Credit cards (no foreign fees) links
- Findabetterbank.com - Site to find credit unions and other local banks. These often have low or no foreign transaction fees on their credit cards and ATM fee–refund policies.
- Capitalone.com - Offers cards with no foreign transaction fee, and chip-and-signature enabled (making it easier to use in Europe).
- Bankofamerica.com - Offers cards with no foreign transaction fee, and chip-and-signature enabled (making it easier to use in Europe).
- Madfientist.cardratings.com - Good simple search engine to find travel-worthy cards, from no foreign fees to the ones with the best points.
Banks with low fees links
- Ally.com - Online-only bank (and the one I use), with ATM feee refunds and no foreign transaction fees. Sadly, no credit cards (yet)—though you can use your MasterCard-branded bank card as a debit card.
- Usaa.com - Online-only bank open to current and former U.S. military personnel and their families; ATM fee refunds, and credit cards with only 1% foreign transaction fees.
- Schwab.com - This famous brokerage firm also offers online-only checking and savings accounts with ATM fee refunds.
- Asmarterchoice.org - Credit union–finding site. Credit unions often have low or no foreign trasnaction fees on their credit cards, ATM fee–refund policies, very few fees, and interest-bearing checking accounts. In other words: What a bank should be.
- Findabetterbank.com - Site to find credit unions and other local banks. These often have low or no foreign transaction fees on their credit cards and ATM fee–refund policies.
- Ncua.gov - All about credit unions.
- Credituniondb.com - Bare-bones credit union-finding database.
