Cross-Border Fees: Card and Currency Costs Explained

What makes a transaction cross-border

A transaction is treated as cross-border when the country where the card was issued differs from the country where the merchant's account is located. It does not matter where the customer is standing. A Canadian visitor paying in a Florida shop, a US customer buying online from a Toronto store, and a US business charging a client's Canadian corporate card are all cross-border. Currency is a separate question. A transaction can be cross-border without any currency conversion, for example a Canadian-issued card charged in US dollars by a US merchant, where the card issuer handles the conversion for the cardholder. It can also involve conversion by the merchant's side, when a business prices or settles in a currency other than the one it was charged in. Processors often price these two situations separately, which is why one sale can attract an international card fee, a currency conversion fee, both, or neither.

The fee types, and who pays each

Several different parties can add a cost to a cross-border sale. Some of these charges land on the merchant, some land on the cardholder, and some are built into the exchange rate rather than shown as a fee. The table below separates them so you can match each one to the document where it appears.

Network cross-border assessments

Visa and Mastercard both charge acquirers extra assessments on transactions where the issuer and the merchant are in different countries. Visa calls its version the International Service Assessment, and Mastercard uses the name Cross-Border Assessment. The rates differ by network, by region, and by whether the transaction settles in the merchant's currency or a different one, and the networks change them periodically. These rates are not published in a single public consumer-facing schedule that we could verify, so we do not quote a number here. On interchange-plus pricing, the assessment should appear as its own line or be itemised in the card brand fee section of your statement. On flat-rate or tiered pricing, it is usually absorbed into a single rate or pushed into a higher non-qualified tier, which makes it difficult to see. Interchange itself can also be higher for foreign cards, because international interchange tables are separate from domestic ones.

Currency conversion fees

Currency conversion happens whenever money has to move from one currency to another between the customer's charge and your bank deposit. If a US merchant prices in US dollars and deposits in US dollars, the merchant usually does no conversion at all, even when the card is Canadian; the Canadian issuer converts for its cardholder. If a Canadian business charges in US dollars but settles to a Canadian dollar bank account, or presents prices in a currency different from its payout currency, the processor converts and may charge a percentage for doing so. Some providers show this as a separate fee; others build it into the exchange rate they apply. Both approaches cost money, and a rate markup is harder to spot than a line item. Compare the rate you received against a mid-market reference for the same date to see how much margin is included.

Issuer foreign transaction fees

A foreign transaction fee is charged by the cardholder's own bank, not by the merchant or the processor. It appears on the cardholder's card statement, and the merchant never sees it or receives any part of it. Many travel and premium cards waive it. This matters for merchants because customers sometimes blame the business for a charge that came from their bank. If a customer asks why they were charged extra, the honest answer is that the foreign transaction fee, if any, was set by their card issuer and they should check their cardholder agreement. A merchant should not describe this as a fee the business collects.

Published surcharges from major providers

The table below shows only what each provider lists on its own public pricing page, as viewed on 2026-09-14. These are surcharges added on top of the provider's standard card rate. Prices change and can differ by country, plan, and negotiated contract, so check the live page and your own agreement before relying on them. Where a provider does not publish a figure, the cell says so.

How processors pass these costs through or mark them up

On interchange-plus pricing, network assessments and interchange are meant to be passed through at cost, with the processor's markup shown separately. Even then, some processors add their own international or cross-border fee on top, often with a name similar to the network fee, so it helps to check whether a line is the network's assessment or the processor's surcharge. On flat-rate plans, providers either blend cross-border costs into the headline rate or add a fixed percentage surcharge like those in the table above. On tiered plans, foreign cards frequently fall into a mid-qualified or non-qualified tier. None of these structures is automatically wrong. The problem arises when a merchant cannot tell which party is charging what. Ask your processor in writing whether cross-border network fees are passed at cost, what surcharge the processor adds, and how currency conversion is priced.

Selling between the US and Canada

The US and Canada are separate card markets, so a card from one presented to a merchant in the other is a cross-border transaction for the networks. For a US merchant with Canadian customers, the most common situation is a US dollar charge on a Canadian card: the merchant may pay network cross-border assessments and any processor international card surcharge, while the Canadian cardholder's bank handles conversion and may charge its own foreign transaction fee. For a Canadian merchant with US customers, the same applies in reverse, with an added question of which currency to charge in. Charging in US dollars and settling to a Canadian dollar account may trigger a processor conversion fee; holding a US dollar settlement account can avoid that step if your provider supports it. Online sellers should also note that the card's issuing country, not the shipping address, is what usually decides whether a sale is cross-border for fee purposes.

Dynamic currency conversion and the network rules

Dynamic currency conversion, or DCC, lets a cardholder pay in their home currency at the point of sale instead of the merchant's local currency. The exchange rate and markup are set by the DCC provider, the cardholder pays that cost if they accept, and merchants are sometimes offered a share. Visa's public guidance states that merchants must give the cardholder a choice to accept or decline currency conversion, must not choose on the cardholder's behalf, and should not use language or procedures such as different font size or colour to influence the decision. Visa also says the screen and receipt must clearly show the amount in both the local and the cardholder's currency, both currency symbols, the exchange rate used, and any additional fees or markup. Visa notes that declining DCC does not affect the cardholder's ability to make the purchase. Mastercard publishes its own DCC compliance guide for acquirers and merchants; ask your acquirer for the current version before enabling DCC, because a non-compliant setup can lead to disputes and network penalties.

Multi-currency pricing

Multi-currency pricing is different from DCC. Instead of offering a conversion at the terminal, the merchant displays and charges prices in the customer's currency from the start, commonly on an online checkout. The customer sees a fixed price in their own currency, and the merchant or its provider handles conversion later, or not at all if the merchant holds a bank account in that currency. Because the price is set upfront rather than offered as an optional conversion at checkout, the DCC choice rules described above are generally not the relevant framework, but your provider's own terms and any currency conversion fee still apply. Multi-currency pricing can make cross-border checkout clearer for customers, at the cost of managing prices and exchange-rate exposure in more than one currency.

Ways to reduce cross-border costs legitimately

The first step is to measure. Pull a few months of statements or fee reports and find the share of volume on foreign-issued cards and the total cross-border and conversion fees charged. If the share is small, the cost may not justify any change. If it is significant, several legitimate options exist. Pricing on interchange-plus makes network assessments visible and removes blended markups. Holding settlement accounts in the currencies you charge in can avoid a conversion step, where your provider supports it. Charging in your home currency, rather than converting, keeps conversion with the card issuer. Businesses with substantial sales in another country sometimes set up a local legal entity and a local merchant account, known as local acquiring, so those sales are processed domestically; this involves tax, legal and banking obligations and is a decision for your accountant and lawyer, not only your processor. Misrepresenting where your business is located to obtain domestic processing breaks network rules and is not a legitimate option.

Finding these fees on your statement

Cross-border charges go by many names. On interchange-plus statements, look in the card brand or network fee section for lines such as Visa International Service Assessment, ISA, International Acquiring Fee, Mastercard Cross-Border Assessment, or cross-border fee, and in the interchange section for categories labelled international or foreign. Processor surcharges may appear as international card fee, foreign card fee, or international surcharge, and conversion may appear as currency conversion fee or be visible only as an exchange rate on a settlement report. On flat-rate or tiered statements you may find no separate line at all, in which case ask the provider for a transaction-level report that shows card issuing country. If you cannot identify which lines come from the networks and which come from the processor, ask for a written explanation of each.