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Card currency conversion: local currency or DCC?

Compare the total cost of paying in local currency with a merchant or ATM conversion quote, including your card issuer’s fees.

Manual comparison. Enter your own quotes and check your card terms. No live card network or bank rate is supplied.

Use decimals such as 1.10. Fees start at zero: replace them with the charges in your card terms.

Pay in local currency

Enter USD per 1 EUR. Example: 1.10 USD per 1 EUR. Use the issuer/network rate applicable to your card, not a central bank reference.

Accept currency conversion (DCC)

Enter the TOTAL quote in your billing currency, including the merchant’s conversion markup. Do not add that markup again. Add only separate issuer charges below.

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Compare what will reach your card bill

A terminal can show a familiar currency while offering a different conversion cost. This calculator puts both options in your card’s billing currency. It does not fetch a current card rate or predict the rate on the posting date.

Visa’s DCC guide explains that a merchant or ATM may offer conversion into the cardholder’s currency. Check the displayed amounts, exchange rate and fees before deciding.

Gather the two quotes

For local payment, enter the original price and the issuer or network rate in billing currency per one local currency unit. Ask your issuer which rate and foreign-transaction charges apply. For DCC, copy the total shown by the merchant or ATM; its conversion markup belongs inside that total. Separately enter any issuer percentage or fixed charge for accepting DCC. Zero is a starting value, not a statement about your bank’s pricing.

Use one consistent transaction amount. An ATM withdrawal may have cash-advance interest, taxes or other charges that this simple percentage-plus-fixed model does not represent. Include applicable modeled fees and check remaining costs separately.

Worked example: a 100 EUR purchase billed in USD

These are illustrative quotes, not current rates. At 1.10 USD per EUR, the converted base is 110 USD. With a 3% issuer fee and no fixed charge, paying locally totals 113.30 USD. If the DCC total is 118 USD with no additional issuer charges, local payment costs 4.70 USD less.

If instead the DCC quote is 110 USD and its separate issuer charges are 2% plus 1 USD, its total is 113.20 USD. DCC then costs 0.10 USD less than 113.30 USD. The result follows the entered costs, not a preset recommendation.

Cost formulas

Local total = local price × billing-per-local rate × (1 + local fee / 100) + local fixed fee. DCC total = total DCC quote × (1 + additional DCC fee / 100) + additional DCC fixed fee.

Frequently asked questions

Dynamic currency conversion is a merchant or ATM offer to convert a transaction into your card’s billing currency.
No. Compare both totals with the rates and separate issuer charges that apply to your card.
No. The DCC total quote already includes its conversion. Only add separate issuer charges in the DCC fee fields.

For a general reference conversion, use the currency converter. A reference rate is not a card settlement quote. For sending money instead of making a card purchase, use the remittance comparison.