Top travel cards compared

About Top travel cards compared

A travel card is judged here on three fronts: what the account costs to run, what it costs to spend abroad, and how the money is held. The list covers 439 brands drawn from our data, where travel is a listed feature, and every card here is a debit card rather than a prepaid or virtual-only product. The main trade-off is between currency reach and cost. A card with a single currency and no free ATM withdrawals is simple to run, but a trip across several markets turns every purchase into a conversion charge. Cards that hold several currencies at a lower foreign exchange fee cost more to set up, or carry a fee of their own, and ask you to move money before you travel rather than after. Fees matter most here. The monthly fee in this ranking is €0 at the midpoint, the typical foreign exchange fee is 0%, and free ATM withdrawals sit at €0. On cost alone the spread is narrow, so what separates the cards is how many currencies they hold, whether they offer a virtual card, and how reachable support is when a payment fails abroad.

How we picked

Each card is scored on three things, and the weights are fixed. Trust carries the most at 40%, covering the licence, protection and support behind the brand. Cost follows at 35%, built from the monthly fee, the foreign exchange fee and the free ATM allowance. Offer sits at 25%, which rewards the practical extras that make a card work abroad, such as multi-currency accounts, virtual cards, crypto and cashback. The starting point is the wider set of 670 brands in our data, of which 439 carry travel as a feature. Account details come from provider pricing pages, travel pages, support pages and card listings. Licence and entity information comes from the EBA register and ESMA's crypto asset service provider list. Network, feature, audience and support data is taken from those same provider pages. Partner cards are listed first, and the rest follow in score order, so the position of a card carries no judgement beyond its place in that sequence. Every figure in this ranking is a ref that resolves to the exact value we hold, which keeps fees and allowances consistent across cards quoted in different currencies.

Our top picks

1. 5. bunq

   bunq is in this ranking for the same reasons as bunq Spain above: several currencies, a virtual card, and a monthly fee of €0. Converting between its 8 currencies costs 0.5% to 3%, and the account is aimed at students rather than at frequent business travel. The Mastercard network is accepted widely, and support runs on email and chat. The next card, Virgin Atlantic Reward Credit Card, shifts the focus from currencies to rewards on everyday spend.

   • Monthly fee: €0
   • Currency conversion fee: 0.5% to 3%
   • Card type: Debit

   Pros

   • Monthly fee of €0 and annual fee of €0, with Wise at £0 charging the same on the monthly side.
   • A Mastercard card, on the network behind 38.5% of the cards compared here.
   • Multi-currency, crypto, a virtual card and travel features on the plan, with multi-currency listed on 34.9% of cards here.
   • Help through email and chat, so support sits inside the app and your inbox.

   Cons

   • Support runs on email and chat only, with no phone line for urgent card problems.
   • The upper end of the conversion fee, 0.5% to 3%, is well above the conversion median of 1% on heavy foreign spending.
   • Wise also charges £0, so bunq has to win on features rather than on price.
   • Because the free plan card is a debit card, spending draws on the balance in the account and stops when the balance does.

2. 6. bunq Spain

   bunq Spain is in this ranking for holding several currencies without a foreign exchange fee, and it adds a virtual card to go with them. The monthly fee is €0, but converting between its 8 currencies can cost 0.5% to 3%, and the account is pitched at students. Support runs on email and chat only, so there is no phone line for a payment that fails abroad. bunq, next in the ranking, has the same setup and the same limits.

   • Annual fee: €0
   • Currency conversion fee: 0.5% to 3%
   • Card kind: Credit

   Pros

   • The free plan carries a monthly fee of €0 and an annual fee of €0, so holding the account costs nothing.
   • You can hold 8 currencies in one account, and the free plan lists multi-currency, crypto, virtual card and travel features, multi currency, crypto and virtual card.
   • The card runs on Mastercard, mastercard, and is a debit card, debit, so spending comes from the balance you hold.
   • De Nederlandsche Bank is the named regulator for bunq B.V., the legal entity behind the account.

   Cons

   • Conversion is the one charge to plan for: fees run 0.5% to 3% for bunq Spain, and the site median is 1%.
   • Support runs on email and chat, email and chat, with no phone channel listed.

3. 10. Bitpanda

   Bitpanda earns its place in this ranking on cost, with a foreign exchange fee of 0% and a monthly fee of €0, plus cashback of 1% on a Visa network. The catch is that the card is custodial, so the balance sits with the provider rather than in an account you hold directly, and crypto features come with it. Compared with Wise above, Bitpanda converts cheaper but gives up the wider currency list and the free ATM allowance.

   • Monthly fee: €0
   • Currency conversion fee: 0%
   • Card type: Debit

   Pros

   • Cashback of 1% on crypto spending, on an account that also holds several currencies.
   • Registered as a crypto asset service provider in Austria (MiCA CASP 5493007WZ7IFULIL8G21), Germany (MiCA CASP 9845005X9B7N610K0093) and Malta (MiCA CASP 984500DEID7B03J77118).
   • A visa network card plus a virtual card covers in person spending and online subscriptions.
   • Crypto, multi-currency, travel and virtual card all sit with one provider, so there is no other app to manage.

   Cons

   • Custody is custodial, so the platform holds the crypto and the keys, and readers who want to hold assets directly cannot.
   • Cashback of 1% applies to crypto spending, so purchases elsewhere on the card do not earn that rate.
   • The card type is debit and the card kind is recorded as credit, so the money spent comes out of the balance held with the platform and that balance has to be funded first.
   • Wise lists a £0 monthly fee for a multi-currency account, so a reader who simply wants a spending card pays the same and skips the crypto balance.

What to look for

Foreign exchange fee

The typical foreign exchange fee in travel cards is 0%, running from 0% to 7%. A card at the low end turns a foreign purchase into a small cost rather than a visible slice of the spend.

Monthly fee on the account you open

The midpoint monthly fee in this ranking is €0, with a spread from €0 to €148.23. Confirm which plan the fee applies to, since a free account can sit alongside a paid tier.

Free ATM allowance

Free withdrawals sit at €0 in this ranking, with a range of €0 to €1,743.27. Airport and station machines are where that allowance gets spent fastest.

How many currencies you can hold

The larger the currency count, the fewer conversions a multi-market trip needs. Cards built for travel and 41.2% are the ones that let you hold local balances instead of converting at the till.

Support you can reach from abroad

Phone support is offered by 71.1% of travel cards and a help centre by 72.5%. A blocked payment in another currency is the moment this channel matters most.

Card type and virtual cards

Debit cards make up 70.3% of this ranking, and 33.9% offer a virtual card. Physical cards for tap and withdrawal, virtual cards for online bookings, is the practical split.

Frequently asked questions

Top travel cards compared by country

• Australia
• Brazil
• Canada
• China
• France
• Germany
• India
• Ireland
• Italy
• Japan
• Netherlands
• Singapore
• South Africa
• United Kingdom
• United States

The data behind this ranking

All data and the CSV