How to Pay Abroad Without Fees: 5 Charges, 3 You Can Refuse

Five charges, and the three you can refuse

Two of the five come from your own bank and are settled before you leave home, by the card you carry. The other three are offered to you at the moment you pay or take out cash, and you can say no to each of them there and then.

• Your bank's fee on payments in another currency: a percentage of every payment, set by your card
• Your bank's fee on cash abroad, which some cards charge even when paying by card is free
• The card machine's offer to charge you in your own currency: refuse it
• The same offer on a cash machine's screen: refuse it there too
• The cash machine's own fee, set by the bank that owns it: use a machine that doesn't charge one

Your bank's fee: what it is called and what it costs

The fee goes by different names. UK banks call it a non-sterling transaction fee, US banks a foreign or international transaction fee, and Emirates NBD's schedule of charges lists it as an international transaction fee. Whatever the name, it is a percentage added to card payments, cash withdrawals and refunds in a currency other than your account's.

It can apply at home too. Barclaycard says its fee can apply when you shop online with a retailer outside the UK, and HSBC says the same of websites based abroad, so a hotel booked direct on a foreign site can carry the fee before you even travel.

What the banks' own pages said in October 2026: Barclays charges 2.99% on its debit card and on most Barclaycard credit cards. HSBC UK charges 2.75% on its debit cards, its Global Money card aside, and 2.99% on credit cards. NatWest charges 2.75% on debit cards. Bank of America adds 3% to withdrawals abroad with its debit card, even at its partner banks' cash machines.

Others charge nothing of their own. Monzo, Starling and Chase UK each say on their own pages that they add no fee to card payments abroad, and Wise converts at the mid-market rate with a conversion fee it lists on its pricing page. In the US, Capital One charges no foreign transaction fee on any of its US credit cards. Some premium accounts at the big banks drop the fee as well, NatWest's Reward accounts among them, for card payments though not for cash.

• UK: look for the non-sterling transaction fee in your account's tariff or card terms
• US: look for a foreign or international transaction fee
• UAE: look for the international transaction fee in your bank's schedule of charges, the name Emirates NBD uses
• Check the line for cash separately: some cards that are free for payments still charge for withdrawals
• Paying in euros from a euro account in another euro country leaves nothing to convert, and EU rules price it like a payment at home

Pay in your own currency? Always say no

Abroad, a card machine or a cash machine will often offer to charge you in your home currency instead of the local one. It feels safer, because you see a number you recognise. It is called dynamic currency conversion, and the exchange rate comes from the shop's or the machine's provider, not from your bank.

The banks are blunt about it. HSBC says the merchant then sets the rate, that the fees can often be high, and that paying in the local currency is cheaper in most cases. Barclays, which waives its own 2.99% when you pay in pounds, warns that the conversion often includes a markup that can be significantly higher than its standard exchange rate.

How much higher has been measured. In tests that BEUC, the European consumer organisation, gathered in 2017, investigators from Germany's Stiftung Warentest paid 2.6% to 12% more when a cash machine converted for them, in 13 countries outside the euro, and 2% to 5% more in shops. A Norwegian bank's study of 1,500 withdrawals found the converted option cost more in all but 4 of them.

Since April 2020, EU rules make the offer show its price. Before you pay, the terminal or cash machine has to show the markup as a percentage over the European Central Bank's exchange rate, show the amount in both currencies, and tell you that you can pay in the local currency instead. Since April 2021, your own bank also has to send you a message with its markup after you pay or take out cash in another EU currency.

• At the till, pick the local currency: euros in Spain, baht in Thailand, dirhams in Dubai
• At a cash machine, choose the option without conversion, or the local currency
• If a terminal is handed to you already set to your currency, ask for the payment to be run again in the local one
• In Europe, read the percentage on the screen: it is the price of saying yes

Cash machines: three charges on one withdrawal

A single withdrawal abroad can carry three charges at once: the machine owner's fee, the conversion the machine offers, and your own bank's fee for cash. The conversion you can refuse, the owner's fee you can usually walk away from, and your bank's fee depends on your card.

Bank of America tells its customers that foreign cash machine operators may offer to convert at a higher fee, and that they can refuse. Chase UK warns that local banks may charge their own fees at their machines, and Monzo recommends using a free machine whenever you can. Bank of America also has partner banks abroad, Barclays, BNP Paribas and Deutsche Bank among them, whose machines skip its out-of-network fee and the operator's charge, though its 3% still applies.

Cash often follows different rules from payments on the same card. NatWest's Reward accounts, free for card payments abroad, still charge 2.75% on cash. Monzo's free cash allowance outside the EEA, the EU plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway, renews every 30 days, with 3% above it. HSBC charges a 2% cash fee on most of its debit cards and 2.99% on credit cards, where interest also applies as it does at home.

• Refuse the machine's conversion, every time
• Prefer machines that charge no fee of their own, and cancel if the screen shows one
• If your bank charges per withdrawal, take out larger amounts less often
• Check your card's cash allowance before the trip, not at the machine
• Think twice before taking cash on a credit card: at HSBC, a cash fee and interest both apply

Paying with your phone abroad

Apple Pay and Google Pay pay with the card you added, so you pay that card's fees: a card that is free abroad stays free in your phone, and one that charges 2.99% still does.

At the till, a phone can pay without a connection, up to a point. Bank of Ireland's help page says Google Pay works in store without mobile data or Wi-Fi, for a limited number of payments. The same page lists what does need a connection: adding a card, updating security settings, paying again after the phone restarts, and getting payment notifications.

So add every card to your phone at home, on Wi-Fi, and keep data on during the trip. By Bank of Ireland's list, a phone switched off for the flight may need a connection before Google Pay works again.

Bank codes and app checks: why your phone needs a line and data

Card payments increasingly ask you to prove it's you. Under the EU's rules on strong customer authentication, a bank may skip the check only on small contactless payments, and only for a run of them: once five have been made in a row, or their total since the last check passes a limit, the next one needs the check, usually your PIN.

Banks also check unusual payments by text or through their app. Barclays says it might decline a payment and send you a text to check it's you. Capital One tells travellers to look for a fraud alert notification or a text, and Chase UK asks you to make sure payments abroad are switched on in its app.

Those texts go to your home number, and the app needs data. So the setup that keeps payments working abroad is the same one that avoids roaming bills: keep your home line switched on for texts with its data roaming off, and let a travel eSIM carry the data your banking app needs. A Lumbus eSIM is data only, so your bank keeps texting the number it already has. Our guide to bank codes on a travel eSIM goes through that setup line by line, and the settings that stop roaming charges have a guide of their own.

• Keep your home SIM switched on, so bank texts reach you
• Switch the home line's data roaming off: a text arrives without it
• Let the travel eSIM carry the data, so your banking app can approve payments
• Check the phone number your bank has for you before you go
• Switch on payments abroad in your banking app, if it has that setting

Where cash still matters

Cards carry most trips, but not every payment. In the euro area, cash was still used for 52% of payments at the point of sale in 2024, by the European Central Bank's count, though cards carried more of the money spent: 45% of the value, against 39% for cash.

In Japan, the trade ministry counted 58% of consumer spending as cashless in 2025 and has set 65% as its goal for 2030, so a large share is still paid other ways. A small amount of local currency, taken from a cash machine with the conversion refused, covers the gaps.

Settle it at home: cards, phone, eSIM

Most of this is settled at home, on Wi-Fi, in a few minutes, before anything costs you money.

• Find your card's fee for payments and for cash in your bank's tariff
• Carry two cards, on different networks if you can, in case one is refused
• Add your cards to Apple Pay or Google Pay
• Install your travel eSIM: its days start when it first connects abroad, not when you install it
• Decide now: local currency, every time