The New Wise Debit Card is a Dud
In the flood of e-mails I get every day that are pitching a product or service, this one stood out because it was something I’d been waiting for. Finally, for the first time since 2023, customers in the USA could get a Wise debit card.
I was excited because while Wise.com (formerly Transferwise) customers in Europe or Asia could get a card to take money out of an ATM, users in the United States were locked out of doing so. While our counterparts around the world were accessing their multi-currency accounts from stores and ATMs, we could only get to the money in our Wise accounts by transferring to another bank account first and paying a fee on that movement. There was no direct way to remove our own funds.
The further I looked into the terms and conditions for this card though, the more disappointed I became. I like the company and I have referred people to their service many times. But I was debating whether to even get this Wise debit card as a back-up for emergencies—that’s how bad it is.
Here’s how this card is going to cost you a small fortune to get to your own money. Add up the fees and you’ll probably pay more than using your standard bank ATM card abroad, even if it charges you every time.
A High 2% Fee on Almost Every Transaction
You probably have to pay to even receive this card, which I’ll get to in a moment, but then this Wise debit card will be the one that pickpockets you again and again after you get it. Here’s a simplified overview from their own website:
The Wise Multi-Currency Card takes the worry out of using ATMs abroad. You pay only a super-low fee on withdrawals after the first $100.
Who ever takes less than $100 out of an ATM?! I think the only time I’ve done that in the last 20 years was when I was using a machine in Argentina that limited customers to $80 at a time. Otherwise, anyone who is savvy takes out enough cash to last quite a while or they take out the maximum available.
So the only time you’ll get the “free” withdrawal is if you use the card at a supermarket, pharmacy, or coffee shop for a small order. But why pull this one out at all if you have a regular bank debit card with no foreign transaction fees and no limits?
And if you’re paying the points and miles game, wouldn’t you just use a credit card that earns something instead and pay it off? Or use a debit card that gives you cash back? This would be the least useful card in your wallet.
Then I looked at the fine print and my jaw dropped. What they call a “super-low fee” is actually 2% on every transaction. In other words, for every $100 you take out of your own account, you are handing $2 of that back to Wise.com as a transaction fee. On a typical $500 withdrawal, you’ll pay a $10 fee to them on top of whatever the local bank is charging.
That would make this Wise card the most expensive one in my stack of cards to use except for (sometimes) Paypal’s. My Fidelity one charges $0 and reimburses local charges. My Novo.com business account one charges $0 and refunds local charges up to $7 per month. (My preferred Mexican ATM charges $1.50, so I seldom exceed that.)
My wife’s Capital One 360 card charges $0 on their end so she only pays the local bank fee. My regular Regions bank card charges a $5 flat fee—half what Wise does on a $500 transaction—plus local charges.
So even if I received this Wise ATM card, it would be #4 on my back-up list, or #5 after I’m stateside again and can order a Schwab debit card with no fees. That means a really bad run of misfortune would have to hit me before it ever even comes out of my home safe or a spot I’ve hidden it while traveling “just in case.”
Pay Another Fee on Top of the Fee
But wait, it gets worse! It turns out you’ll be on the hook for even more fees if you make more than two ATM withdrawals in one month. You’ll be penalized for the volume with a $1.50 fee on top of the 2% fee they’re already charging, any currency conversion fee they’re charging, and the local bank charges. Here’s the chart from their website:
So they give you this oh-so-helpful advice: “Taking money out for holiday? It’s cheaper to make one big withdrawal than multiple smaller ones. This will save you from paying the fixed 1.5 USD fee each time.” Gee thanks.
Wise May Charge You $$ Just to Mail It
Have you ever paid a bank just to get one of their debit cards? Probably not, but with Wise you’re in the hole before the card even arrives. It may be free if you meet some secret criteria, but the website says it’s $9 to obtain the card if you have a personal account and the e-mail quoted me $5 to send it for a business account.
For some reason though, when I went to order it the price had changed to “Free.” I’m not sure if that’s because I’m such an active customer or they got a lot of negative feedback and dropped the charge. We’ll see.
There is one way around the physical debit card shipping fee regardless. If you just add the card to your phone wallet with Google or Apple, then you don’t have to pay to receive it. Again though, with all the fees they charge you to get to your money, it should be the last choice in your virtual wallet as well unless there’s an emergency and you really need to get to those funds.
The Full Terms and Conditions are Hidden
I’m only reporting what was in the e-mail and text they sent me plus what’s on their public-facing website. I couldn’t dig into the full terms and conditions because the link to them from the ordering page goes to a non-existent page on their site. I got a 404 error code.
As best I can tell, further gotchas include a charge to send you a new card if yours gets stolen and an undisclosed currency conversion fee depending on the currency. There are probably more nasty surprises but if you want to see them, you’ll either need to wait for the Wise engineers to sort out their web navigation problems or you’ll have to get out some reading glasses to go over the fine print in the docs accompanying your physical Wise debit card.
In the end, I went ahead and ordered this in case the free shipping price that popped up is another website mistake. I don’t want to miss my chance to lower my financial risk. I have read online that it can take two or three weeks to arrive, so I needed to plan ahead for when I’ll be at my USA address.
The one advantage of Wise over regular banks is that you can store money in multiple currencies in your account, so in theory you could take out euros in Europe with this or yen in Japan if you had that in your wallet. It’s a little hazy whether that actually saves you any money when you take it out though in that currency because otherwise they’ll ding you again on the conversion.
I doubt I’ll ever use this Wise ATM card after it arrives and it’ll just be a banking back-up insurance policy. It’s too expensive to actually put it into play compared to every other card for every other financial institution. If you’re trying to avoid travel fees and use your hard-earned money for more fun expenditures than travel fees from banks, there are much better options out there.
My regular bank card charges $6 (so I seldom use it) no matter how much I take out and my Capital One card charges $0. Who is this for I wonder?
Using Wise is actually a bargain when currency conversion is done before traveling as their exchange rates are considerably better than banks/wire houses.
But currency conversion is an automatic function of every ATM withdrawal abroad and you usually get the official bank rate no matter whose card you use. So why pay all these extra fees to Wise that you don’t pay with other cards? It’s just throwing your own money away.
Okay… so you’re saying if I get a no foreign transaction fee with no ATM withdrawl fee credit or debit card, I can get the latest exchange rate at the foreign ATM at the time of withdrawl with no cost? I think this whole subject needs greater exploration and explanation. There are great numbers of us who aren’t super-savvy and could use the help figuring out what to do.
Yes, if you pull Mexican pesos or Hungarian forint out of a local ATM in Mexico or Hungary, it will convert the dollars or euros sitting in your bank account into the local currency at close to the bank rate you find on XE.com or other apps. Not exactly because there’s always a tiny bit shaved off to cover the bank’s exchange expenses, but it’s usually better than you’ll find at an exchange booth on the street. Private services like Euronet will take a bigger cut on the exchange rate, so will Paypal if you use their debit card. Most other financial institutions are not so predatory though and you can trust them.
You will pay a fee to to local bank you pulled money from unless you have a card that reimburses local fees too, like Fidelity, Schwab, Novo, and some credit unions. More here: https://www.cheapestdestinationsblog.com/2025/05/14/avoid-travel-fees-money/
All of the below are wrong. When your bank or wire house converts currency for you they take a spread, sometimes as much as 3%. They don’t tell you about it but you can calculate it yourself by comparing your bank/wire house net after conversion against what it would be if you got the spot rate.
Nobody in their right mind should ever use a bank card that takes 3% of anything Waldo! There’s a buy/sell spread on every transaction, which is why I said you won’t get exactly the bank rate listed online, but it’s going to be close. This week I took Mexican pesos out of my Novo US account that’s in dollars. The official rate on XE.com was 19.36 to the dollar. The amount I got from Novo was 19.31. That difference equates to less than the change that falls out of my pocket into a couch cushion each month.
Calm down pal. I was talking about banks and wire houses where most people hold accounts.
So am I. The spread is close to meaningless with those.
I live in the US and have had the Wise card for many years now. Not sure why you think it was unavailable to us before?
IIRC the card was attractive some years ago but I hardly use it now since, I too, find their charges too high.
They stopped offering it to U.S. clients in 2023 and I think if yours had expired in the past two years they wouldn’t have replaced it. They were not issuing new cards during that time. Now they are again but for anyone paying attention to the onerous terms it will probably be a last resort in an emergency.
Hey Waldo/Walso–you need to find a better bank. I have Capital one and Wells Fargo and get close to the official rate anywhere in the world at ATMs.
Do you really withdraw more than that any more though? Given nearly the entire world has contactless transactions now, I dont think I’ve withdrawn more than $50 for emergency taxis and street food in any country I’ve visited for years.
The website is slightly hard to decipher, but im 99% sure this card doesnt charge TX fees if you are holding the local currency, and only FX fees if you dont.
Paul – All transactions with the Wise card will levy a 2% fee from everything I’ve read (after $100) and yes, as I said in the article, I always take out hundreds of dollars, not that small amount. As for being able to use your debit card or phone, you must spend a lot of time in rich countries because most developing ones are still heavily reliant on cash transactions. If you try to get by with plastic only where I live in Mexico, you won’t be eating out much unless you’re going to live on the junk food they sell at OXXO or you’re only going to the most expensive restaurants in town. Almost no street cart vendors, market stall vendors, or small restaurant owners are taking anything besides cash. Neither are the repair guys, the tailors, the housekeepers, the taxi drivers, the grocery baggers, the bus drivers, the michelada sellers, the tortilla shops, the butcher shops, and on and on. (Plus bellhops and tour guides will not be happy if you ask, “Do you take Venmo?”)
This was incredibly informative—thank you for breaking it down so clearly.
Our most simple strategy is this:
1. Open a Capital One 360 Performance Savings Account @ 3.60% interest paid on funds,
2. Then Open a Capital One 360 Checking Account and obtain a Debit Card (interest is 0.10%, hence the ‘parking’ money into the Savings account for the interest bump)–
Then transfer money between the two accounts as needed. We’ve done this for years- and saved a bundle. The transfer between the two accounts is instant, and can be done on laptop or tablet/phone via their app.