Survey Finds Wide Variance in International Credit Card Transaction Fees
Survey Finds Wide Variance in International Credit Card Transaction Fees
With business travel having become increasingly global in nature, and with the summer travel season approaching, IndexCreditCards.com researched the major U.S. credit card issuers to discover the extra fees cardholders can expect when using their cards overseas.
Almost every credit card charges some sort of international transaction fee on purchases overseas. Visa and MasterCard charge a 1% processing fee on international transactions, and most card-issuing banks add their own fees on top of that. These fees, known as international transaction fees or foreign transaction fees, are generally a percentage of your overall purchase price (in U.S. dollars after the foreign currency exchange; for example, if a purchase costing 100 Euro in France converts to $135 in U.S. currency, the international transaction fee is a percentage of the $135).
How do the major credit card issuers stack up? Below are the international transaction fees from each issuer (for banks that issue Visa or MasterCard branded cards, these numbers include the Visa or MasterCard fees):
- Capital One: 0% transaction fee. (Capital One not only doesn’t impose its own fee, but it also eats the 1% fee that Visa or MasterCard impose.)
- Discover: 2% transaction fee
- Pulaski Bank: 2%
- Barclays/Juniper Bank: 2%-3%, depending on card
- American Express: 2.7%
- Chase: 3%
- Citibank: 3%
- GE Money 3%
- HSBC: 3%
- U.S. Bancorp (U.S. Bank): 3%
- Wells Fargo: 3%
While some smaller card issuers may offer more favorable foreign transaction fees, this survey attempts to track the credit cards most commonly used by U.S. consumers.
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