also called FTF · FX fee · international transaction fee · non-domestic purchase fee · overseas transaction fee
A charge your card or bank adds when you spend or withdraw in another currency.
A fee your card or bank adds whenever you spend or withdraw in a currency that is not your home one. It is easy to miss, because it can bite even when the exchange rate itself looks fair. It is a separate trap from dynamic currency conversion, where a machine offers to bill you in your home currency at a bad rate; the fee is charged by your own bank, the conversion trick by the merchant.
Someone travels for a month tapping their usual home card everywhere, then gets the statement and sees a small percentage added to every single purchase. The rate looked fine each time, but the quiet fee on top turned a hundred little payments into a real sum.
Using the wrong everyday card abroad can silently tax every payment even if the FX rate looks fine.
The difference is the whole point, so here is each one in a line.
Foreign exchange is converting one currency to another, and the mid-market rate is the true midpoint before anyone adds a markup.
A foreign transaction fee is a charge your card or bank adds for spending in another currency, and dynamic currency conversion is the trap where a foreign shop or ATM offers to bill you in your home currency at a deliberately poor rate, which you should decline.
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