Paying abroad: cards, currency and cash

If you pay in another currency

• If you pay in an EU currency other than the euro, your bank may charge a currency conversion fee, but you must be told how much before you accept the purchase. Your bank must also state it in the card’s terms and on its website or app.
• If a shop or hotel offers to charge you in your home currency, it must tell you how much extra it will cost compared with the European Central Bank rate. Paying in the local currency is often cheaper.

What you can’t be charged

• A surcharge for paying by debit or credit card, in a shop or online, at home or in another EU country. This doesn’t cover American Express, Diners Club or business cards: with those you can be charged, but no more than it costs them.
• More than advertised: you must know the total price, with taxes and charges, before you pay. An extra, such as insurance, only if you choose it: a pre-ticked box doesn’t count, and you can ask for a refund of anything paid that way.
• More because of your nationality or where you live: for a service provided on the trader’s premises, such as a hotel, you pay the same as a local.

Deposits and online payments

• A hotel or car rental company may block an amount on your card as a deposit, but it must tell you and you must authorise it, including the exact amount. When you pay the bill, the bank must release it immediately.
• To pay online for more than 30 euros you’ll be asked for two proofs that it’s you: something you have (your phone), something you know (a PIN or a password) or something you are (your fingerprint).

If you carry cash

• If you enter or leave the EU with 10,000 euros or more in cash, or the same in another currency, you must declare it to customs using the EU form. Traveller’s cheques and gold count too.
• If you don’t declare it, or declare it wrongly, you can be penalised. And customs can step in even if you carry less when there are signs the money is linked to a crime.
• For travelling with cash between EU countries there is no common rule: check beforehand with customs in the countries you leave, arrive in and pass through.

If you’re charged for something you didn’t do

• For a card payment or a debit from your account that you didn’t authorise, you can be made to pay 50 euros at most.
• If you didn’t know your card had been stolen or copied, or your account had been hacked, you pay nothing: the bank pays. The same if a bank employee was at fault.

If something goes wrong

1. Complain to your bank or card issuer, with the receipt: it must have a complaints procedure and reply to you in writing within 15 days, or 35 in exceptional cases.
2. If the problem is with a trader, complain to them first. An illegal surcharge can be claimed back too: in Your Europe’s example, the European Consumer Centre complained to an airline and it refunded the 10 euros.
3. If you need help: with the bank, the FIN-NET network; with a trader in another EU country, the European Consumer Centre in your own country, which helps you in your language.

Outside the EU there is no common rule: none of the official sources we have read limits what your bank charges you for paying or taking out cash there. Check your card’s terms before you travel.